Community Corner

Does Maryland Have Some of the Worst Roads in the Country?

The State Highway Administration says "no," and challenges the Reason Foundation's evaluation of Maryland roads.

By Kirsten Petersen

A national think tank recently ranked Maryland the 10th-worst state for well-conditioned and cost-effective state-owned roadways, but the Maryland State Highway Administration wants to set the record straight.

The Reason Foundation’s annual highway report is based on data from 2009, the most recent year with full spending statistics available.

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In the report, Maryland was ranked 40th among all states in overall highway performance and efficiency, which is an improvement from 43rd in 2008.

The state ranked poorly in some categories while it excelled in others. Maryland ranked 32nd in urban interstate pavement condition and 48th in congestion.

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However, the state also ranked first in rural interstate pavement condition and 17th in fatality rates.

Building and maintaining Maryland roads is costly—according to the report, the state spends approximately three times more on roads per mile than the national average, ranking 44th in disbursements and 44th in maintenance spending per mile.

Charlie Gischlar, a spokesman for the Maryland State Highway Administration, emphasized that the data from the Reason Foundation does not take into account all the factors that affect how much money is spent on state roadways.

“The recently released report from the Reason Foundation ranking states’ spending on roads does not take into consideration vehicle and truck traffic volumes, lane miles and even climate,” Gischlar said in an email.

With more than 58 billion miles traveled annually on Maryland roads, maintenance and repair costs will undoubtedly be high, Gischlar said.

“Does it cost more to maintain roads in Maryland with highways serving our nation’s capital than in North Dakota? Absolutely,” Gischlar wrote.

The state must strike a balance between completing repairs safely and minimizing traffic congestion, Gischlar wrote.

“With some segments of the Capital Beltway carrying more than 230,000 vehicles a day, repair work must be done at night for the safety of drivers and workers, not to mention to prevent miles and miles of traffic backups,” he said.

New legislation, such as the Transportation Infrastructure Investment Act, will support road maintenance with $4.4 billion in state funding and create more than 57,200 jobs, Gischlar wrote.

If the disbursements for roadways and bridges were calculated based on the number of miles vehicles traveled, Gischlar said, rather than the total number of roadway miles in the states, Maryland would improve by nearly 20 places in the Reason Foundation rankings.

Gischlar wrote that spending on roadways enhances safety and improves the commuting experience for Maryland drivers.

“Even with heavy traffic volumes, Maryland highways are some of the safest in the nation with a fatality rate well-below the national average,” Gischlar wrote. “Maryland drivers expect and deserve well-maintained roads and safe bridges to carry them to work, school and recreation.”

And speaking of safe bridges, Gischlar said that the report’s evaluation of bridges, which ranks Maryland 31st when it comes to deficiencies, isn’t quite accurate.

“The report compares apples and oranges—lumping small local bridges in with large interstate bridges,” Gischlar wrote, adding, “The report uses all bridges in the state, not just the 55 percent of SHA-owned bridges that undoubtedly carry the overwhelming majority of vehicles, especially truck traffic.”

Gischlar said only three percent of bridges maintained by the SHA are structurally deficient, compared to 21 percent in Pennsylvania, 14 percent in Washington DC, 13 percent in West Virginia and nine percent in Virginia.

The report also includes roads maintained by individual counties and the City of Baltimore, Gischlar added, not just the state-owned roadways.

“SHA only maintains about 30 percent of the roads in Maryland so it is difficult to use only SHA’s perspective when other jurisdictions own and maintain the remaining 70 percent,” Gischlar said.

To learn more about how the state is repairing and improving roadways, see this SHA report on mobility based on 2011 data.


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