Mass. highway systems near the bottom
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New electronic tolling gantries have been constructed along the Massachusetts Turnpike and other locations to try to combat the congestion that pushed the state down in the ranking associated with the report.
Massachusetts ranks near the bottom of states in overall highway performance and cost-effectiveness, but has the lowest rate of fatal crashes in the country, a report from the Reason Foundation found.
Released Thursday by the Los Angles-based libertarian think tank, the Reason Foundation Annual Highway Report concluded that Massachusetts ranks 46th in overall performance, ranking higher than only Alaska, New Jersey, Hawaii and Rhode Island.
The report ranks each state highway system in categories like pavement condition, traffic congestion, deficient bridges, traffic fatality rates, and spending per-mile. The information is compiled from data the state highway agencies report to the federal government. The report released Thursday is based on data from 2013, the last year with complete data, Reason Foundation said.
The Bay State trailed only New York in its rate of improvement to deficient bridges, decreasing the percentage of deficient bridges in the system by 2.5 percentage points. But despite that progress, the report's authors found more than a third of state bridges remained "deficient or functionally obsolete."
Massachusetts earned low marks for traffic congestion, being one of just eight states where commuters lose more than 50 hours per year sitting in traffic, Reason reported. The other with that distinction are California, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Virginia and Washington.
The state's highway fatality rate -- 0.58 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles -- is the lowest in the nation and well below the national rate of 1.10, the Reason report found.
The Massachusetts highway system is the 46th largest in the country, based on the number of miles under state control, Reason said.
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