The Kansas state highway system is ranked the nation?s second best in overall highway performance and efficiency in a report released last week by the Reason Foundation.
The Annual Highway Report measures the condition and cost-effectiveness of state-owned roads in 11 categories, including highway expenditures, interstate and primary road pavement condition, bridge condition, urban interstate congestion, fatality rates and narrow rural lanes.
?Kansas was able to achieve this performance while spending 24 percent less than the U.S. average in per-mile disbursements,? the report states.
The study is based on spending and performance data submitted by the state highway agencies to the federal government for 2009, the most recent year with full spending statistics available.
Kansas has consistently scored well in the Reason report, having been ranked No. 3 in the nation in both 2008 and 2007.
?Kansans make the connection between good roads and the safety and economic well-being of the state,? said Mike King, Kansas transportation secretary.
?They have long supported transportation improvements not only to highways, but to the entire transportation network that includes aviation, rail and transit.?
The current transportation program T-WORKS, passed in 2010, is the state?s third transportation program approved by the state?s legislators and governors since the late 1980s. In 2010, Kansas highways were ranked the nation?s best in a report published in Reader?s Digest magazine.
?The T-WORKS program will address 100 percent of the state highway preservation needs over a 10-year period so we will continue to have a world-class transportation system in Kansas,? King said.
Top 10
1. N. Dakota
2. Kansas
3. Wyoming
4. New Mexico
5. Montana
6. Nebraska
7. S. Carolina
8. Missouri
9. S. Dakota
10. Mississippi
Bottom 10
50. Alaska
49. Rhode Island
48. Hawaii
47. California
46. New Jersey
45. New York
44. Connecticut
43. Massachusetts
42. Colorado
41. Maryland
