Are Highways Crumbling? State and U.S. Highway Performance Trends, 1989-2008

This report attempts to ascertain bridge and road conditions in the United States. To accomplish this, it utilizes data from a variety of information systems, including: the Fatal Accident Reporting System, the Highway Performance Monitoring System, Texas Transportation Institute's urban congestion reports, and the National Bridge Inventory. The report also uses various performance measures that examine the condition of rural and urban interstate highways, highway fatality rates, expenditures for state run highways, primary rural roads, lane widths of rural primary roads, and traffic congestion of urban interstate highways. It finds that interstate highways, state numbered highways, and freeways have enormously and dramatically improved over the past twenty years, in measures of highway fatality rates, bridge condition, pavement condition in rural areas, and one measure of interstate urban highway congestion. However, there are still a number of issues and areas that need attention, as follows: 1. There is a large variation in performance measures between the states. 2. The performance improvement has slowed down in the past ten years. 3. The study examines highways and bridges that have been rated as poor. Percentage of infrastructure in good condition is used in other national studies that have been conducted. It would be useful to compare how the two measures relate, in terms of their findings.