Arkansas #5 - Worst Roads in America

[cmatthews40510]

Report/Article: http://finance.yahoo.com/insurance/article/112549/worst-roads-america-mainstreet

5. Arkansas

Poor-condition mileage rank: 10 out of 50

Deficient bridges rank: 32 out of 50

Fatalities rank: 5 out of 50

Congestion rank: 22 out of 50

At No. 5 is Arkansas, whose 10th-highest percentage of roads in poor condition probably has something to do with it's fifth-highest level of road fatalities in 2009. Thankfully the state is able to throw some money at the problem, as its funds allocated per capita ranked 11th in the nation in 2009.

[ryanaw]

I'm not surprised by the results at all. We have some of the worst roads because of a lot of the 18-Wheeler traffic. Also lack of funds in the past. Hopefully the new regulations and laws will help our roads improve.

[Mith242]

I'm not surprised by the results at all. We have some of the worst roads because of a lot of the 18-Wheeler traffic. Also lack of funds in the past. Hopefully the new regulations and laws will help our roads improve.

It's not just that. Look at the total amount of roads and you'll also see Arkansas despite not being one of the larger states has a rather large amount of roads to maintain as well. I can't recall the exact ranking but seems like we're somewhere between 10th and 15th in the nation with the amount of roads. Ridiculous considering the size of the population and the physical size of the state as well. Instead of our state focusing most of the road development in central Arkansas and NWA, where all the population is. Our state continues to throw money into road projects all over the place. Especially into places like east and southeast Arkansas where there are significant population decline. We have too big of a rural road network. Wasn't someone recently suggesting we connect every town of 5,000 to 10,000 population with a four lane highway in the state? Once again a waste of money. Those funds need to be put into central Arkansas and NWA. Not only the two biggest population bases in the state. But also the two areas that also generate a huge chunk of revenue for the state as well.

[thewizard16]

I'm always a little miffed by rankings like these because until Little Rock, most places I'd been or lived in Arkansas had great highways. Mountain Home's state roads were excellent overall. NWA's were too crowded in places, but they kept working on 412 to make it nicer and the pavement quality/etc. was pretty good all around. Little Rock's is less uniform- some are good and others are in obvious need of attention, but it's still far from the worst places I've been for roads. Most of where I've driving in south, east, and northern Arkansas have pretty good roads all around. Not Autobahn grade, but smooth enough with minimal patching, etc. I've been on some bad roads too, but it just never seems like the average road is bad compared to other states I travel through (with the possible exception of Texas- aside from interstate construction in the cities, most of their roads always seem nice, but the terrain lends itself better to that too I suppose). I think that the road fatalities push our ranking up more than anything, but I don't really see the "10th" rank for poor condition mileage unless it stems from what Mith said, with Arkansas having a lot more mileage of highway per capita than most states and it just averages out worse because of that. Of course, I agreed with Oklahoma's ranking based off travel in it, so who knows.

[cmatthews40510]

The high fatality rates on our highways may be why AHTD is putting a lot of money into the cable median barriers across the state.... I saw them putting up the construction zone signs on 67/167 north of Jacksonville last week - looks like they're getting ready to do that from LRAFB to the Cabot 89 exit.

They recently finished the long stretch of I-55 from I-40/I-55 to the Future I-555/US-63 Jonesboro exit. They've got another construction zone on I-55 at Blytheville .. not sure about that one put could possibly be another cable barrier due to the narrow median.