Examine: Texas spends lots on freeway repairs, however has among the worst roads within the nation

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• Pexels / Aleksandar Pasaric

Texas may be proud of its miles of highways, but it didn’t do a good job of maintaining them, according to a new study.

An analysis of the condition of the freeway and state infrastructure spending by finance site MoneyGeek found that the Lone Star State had the 13th worst roads among the US states. About one in five Texas roads (21%) is in poor condition, while only 42% are in good condition, according to the report.

State and local governments spend more than $ 186 billion annually on road maintenance. The MoneyGeek study suggests that the level of funding may be enough to maintain highway infrastructure while it may not be enough to improve road conditions.

In fact, the research found no correlation between spending per vehicle mile – which indicates how much usage roads receive – and the general road roughness of the states. This was certainly the case in Texas, which, despite its poor road quality, ranked 16th in infrastructure spending. The state invested around $ 15.3 billion in road works last year.

“Texas has a lot of roads so you have to spend a lot of money to maintain them,” said Doug Milnes, director of data analysis at MoneyGeek. “In addition, more kilometers are driven on these roads than in many other states.”

Milnes added that Texas’s vigorous population growth may have put the state in a position where it is building infrastructure to keep up with expansion in the suburbs while struggling to maintain existing roads as they deteriorate .

According to the study, Oklahoma has the best road condition in the United States. Only 8% of its asphalt surface is poorly repaired. The District of Columbia ranked last with 83% of its streets.

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