A new report showed the Texas’ highway system has dropped two spots since 2025 and now ranks at No. 27 in the country for its costeffectiveness and overall conditions.
The Reason Foundation’s 2026 Highway Report assesses pavement conditions, fatalities, deficient bridges, infrastructure costs and congestion levels across the United States.
Texas earned the following rankings: -33rd in urban interstate pavement conditions -21st in rural interstate pavement conditions -39th in urban arterial pavement conditions -12th in rural arterial pavement conditions -3rd in structurally deficient bridges -26th in urban fatality rate -42nd in rural fatality rate -41st in traffic congestion.
“More than 42,000 of the nation’s 618,923 highway bridges, nearly 7%, are still structurally deficient. Arizona, Nevada, and Texas reported the lowest percentages of deficient bridges,” the report said.
By category and compared to other states, Texas ranked 34th in capital and bridge disbursement; 22nd in maintenance disbursement; 37th in administrative disbursement; and 34th in other disbursement.
Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Ohio were shown to have the best-performing, most costeffective roads and bridges, with Alaska, California, Washington, New York, and Louisiana have the worstperforming and least costeffective highway systems, the study finds. A laska ranked last overall for the second consecutive report, posting the worst rural fatality rate in the nation. California ranked 49th, with the worst urban arterial pavement conditions. Washington finished 48th overall while ranking as the highest-spending state in multiple categories.
More than 42,000 of the nation’s 618,923 highway bridges, nearly 7%, are still structurally deficient. Arizona, Nevada, and Texas reported the lowest percentages of deficient bridges.
Reason Foundation’s 29th Annual Highway Report has evaluated the state highway systems on cost versus quality using a method developed in the early 1990s.
Since states have different budgets, system sizes, and traffic and geographic circumstances, their comparative performance depends on both system performance and the resources available. To determine relative performance across the country, state highway system budgets (per mile of responsibility) are compared with system performance, state by state.
States with high rankings typically have betterthan- average system conditions (good for road users) along with relatively low per-mile expenditures (good for taxpayers).