With gas prices rising, Californians are being reminded of the billions of dollars a year they pay in fuel taxes and vehicle fees to maintain the state’s roads and highways. Yet, despite those high fuel taxes, California’s drivers continue to face some of the worst road conditions in the country.
California’s highway system now ranks 49th out of 50 states in overall condition and cost-effectiveness, Reason Foundation’s 29th Annual Highway Report finds. Only Alaska, which faces harsh winters and many geographic challenges that drive up costs, ranks worse overall.
The Annual Highway Report is based on data that states report to the federal government and examines traffic fatalities, pavement condition on urban and rural roads, structurally deficient bridges, traffic congestion, annual highway spending, and several other categories.
Given the money California generates from drivers, it should have a better road and highway system. The Legislative Analyst’s Office found that state sources of transportation funding, primarily fuel taxes and vehicle fees, brought in over $14 billion in 2023-24. Yet, California’s urban arterial road pavement condition is 50th, the worst in the nation.Not much better, the state’s urban Interstate pavement condition ranks 48th out of 50 states. California also ranks 47th in rural Interstate pavement condition and 39th in rural arterial road condition.
With the high gas tax and vehicle fee rates, drivers should expect the roads they drive on to be well-maintained and pothole-free, but the state is failing on that front.
Taxpayers should also expect the state to do a better job of maintaining its bridges. California now ranks 25th in the percentage of structurally deficient bridges.
Smoother pavement conditions and modernizing bridges should be immediate goals for the state. In the long term, it also needs to address the ongoing traffic congestion that costs everyone time and money.
California ranks 46th out of 50 states in urban traffic congestion. Statewide, the average California driver wastes 49 hours a year, more than a work week, sitting in traffic jams. Traffic in Los Angeles, Orange County and the Inland Empire is even worse.
In addition to the time and productivity we all lose to traffic, freight and delivery trucks moving goods from the state’s ports are also stuck in it. Shipments take longer to reach warehouses, stores, and customers. Businesses spend more on fuel and pass their share of increased transportation and shipping costs on to consumers.
More troubling than those economic costs are the human costs of the state’s transportation system problems. The state ranks 36th in rural traffic fatality rate and 27th in urban traffic fatality rate. Other high-spending states, including New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, have lower urban traffic fatality rates per 100 million miles traveled than California. Basically, there are no categories where California’s road network ranks highly.
The system’s poor condition and results might make some sense if the state didn’t have so much funding to address its challenges. But California is among the 10 largest spending states in capital and bridge disbursements, which measure spending on new roads and expanding existing ones, and in maintenance spending, which includes costs for repaving highways and patching potholes.
California’s 49th-place overall ranking stands out even more when compared with other large states. Florida’s roads rank 14th overall, and Texas’ roads rank 27th, showing better cost-effectiveness despite their own large populations and highway systems. Neighboring states also perform better than California: Nevada ranks 25th overall, Oregon is 33rd, and Arizona ranks 41st.
California’s transportation system operates under real pressures. It is the most populous state, has the nation’s busiest road network, and faces higher construction costs than most states. But those realities make it even more important to use transportation funding efficiently. Repairing potholes, resurfacing rough pavement and bringing bridges up to modern standards would deliver significant improvements for drivers and the economy, improving safety and the state’s overall ranking in the Annual Highway Report.
Given the high gas taxes and vehicle fees they pay, Californians deserve higher-quality roads and bridges than they are getting.
Baruch Feigenbaum is senior managing director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation and lead author of Reason’s 29th Annual Highway Report.