Pennsylvania’s reputation as a state with bad roadways has been the subject of dark humor for years.
Now a new study quantifies just how bad our roadways are.
Lending Tree QuoteWizard’s latest report ranks the Keystone State’s road infrastructure as the fifth worst in the nation, behind only Rhode Island, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Mississippi.
The study, based on Federal Highway Administration data from 2017, ranks the states by their rating in poor condition of roads, annual cost per motorist due to roads in need of repair, and the percentage of structurally deficient bridges in each state.
The results of the study show:
- 30 percent of Pennsylvania roads are in poor condition,
- This comes at a cost of $610 per motorist,
- 18 percent of the state’s bridges are structurally deficient,
- And 22 percent of the state’s allocated highway budget is spent on repairs.
The QuoteWizard report says maintaining quality roads is a matter of priority and delegation of funds, and the FHA data shows there is a correlation between states that use funds to maintain roads and states that rank well overall for road infrastructure.
But many states are spending the majority of their highway dollars on expansions rather than the maintenance of roads, making it a never-ending game of catch up, the report states.
States with poor road infrastructure had higher costs per driver and typically poor road conditions across the board, according to the report.
