What unmaintained roads cost the average driver in every state

In November 2021, President Joe Biden approved one of the largest federal infrastructure bills in history, spreading out $1.2 trillion across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is set to provide state governments with a much-needed boost in funding to be put toward updating roads, bridges, public transportation, and more. Among the other infrastructure priorities the bill will fund are the adoption of electric vehicles, widespread improvement to internet access, and enhancement for airports.One of the most important, and most difficult to sustain, aspects of state-level infrastructure is the maintenance of roads and bridges. Traffic, freight, weather events, and, in many cases, snow and ice prevention all collide to cause road degradation that, in turn, transfers certain costs onto drivers in the form of car repair and maintenance and lost time in transit. Since federal funds are being allocated to states, many state governments are prioritizing state roads over local roads, which tend to fall under the purview of respective counties and cities, though some states are allocating money toward such localities to aid their individual infrastructure strategies.RateGenius used data from state fact sheets released by the U.S. Department of Transportation to rank all states based on the cost of unmaintained roads to an average driver in each state. Bridge condition data was sourced from the Federal Highway Administration’s breakdown of the National Bridge Inventory as of September 2021, the most current data available.The infrastructure report card grades come from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and are calculated based on eight criteria, including capacity, condition, and public safety. Where this grade was not included in the fact sheets, the latest available grade was retrieved from the ASCE infrastructure report card website. The apportionment of expected funding for both highway programs and bridge replacement and repair projects reflects the total federal dollars to be received by each respective state through 2026.
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