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Colorado gets dismal rankings in national highway analysis

Colorado gets dismal rankings in national highway analysis

Colorado’s roadways are up against a lot – sweltering summer heat, relentless traffic, flooding, temperature swings, etcetera. To anyone that’s spent time traveling around the state, it’s probably met with no shock that these roads are in comparatively worse condition than the roads in many other spots around the country. In fact, Colorado ranked 36th in the nation when it came to highway performance and cost-effectiveness, but the rankings don’t stop there.

The 24th annual highway report released by Reason Foundation looks at a number of factors when determining which states have the best and worst highways, including things like pavement condition, money spent on repairs, fatality rate, congestion, and more. Here’s a breakdown of how Colorado faired.

Colorado’s worst ranking was in “rural interstate pavement condition.” The Centennial State was ranked 47th among the states in this category. This low ranking was due to 6.48% of the rural interstate mileage in Colorado being deemed as in “poor condition.” This ranking of “47” is likely a bit lower than you’re probably thinking, with only Alaska (10.64%) having a true ranking beneath Colorado at 48th. Data was not available for Delaware or Hawaii in this category.

Colorado also got a low ranking of 37th in “urbanized area congestion.” This is because, on average, a commuter spends 27.34 “peak hours” in traffic congestion each year in Colorado. That compares to a national low in Wyoming of 7.25 hours and a high in New Jersey of a whooping 70.15 hours.

On the bright side of things, Colorado did rank fairly well in “structurally deficient bridges” at 13th, with only 5.6% of the bridges in Colorado being structurally deficient. That still might seem a bit high, but consider that it compares to Rhode Island where 23.26% of the bridges are structurally deficient.

See a full breakdown of Colorado’s rankings here.

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