Encountering road work is often considered inevitable for those traveling around the Garden State and a new analysis of the nation’s various infrastructure concludes that New Jersey’s road woes aren’t just a perception.
Zippia, a job searching website, has released a study detailing the U.S. states with the poorest infrastructure. The criteria analyzed in the undertaking included the number of roads considered in poor condition, structurally deficient bridges, state highway spending per driver, average travel time to and from work, and water quality.
The study found that 16.8% of New Jersey’s roads are in poor condition, while 8% of the state’s bridges are deemed structurally deficient. Local drivers also face some of the longest commutes in the nation, although the state’s yearly highway spending per driver of $516 is higher than the national average.
One of the Garden State’s best rankings in the survey came from water quality, which was ranked 16th best in the country. That puts New Jersey just behind New York at #12 but significantly ahead of Pennsylvania, which was found to have the 40th best water quality in America.
The Keystone State overall fared poorly in the study, as it was determined to have the worst overall infrastructure in the country. A whopping 17% of Pennsylvania’s bridges were deemed structurally deficient, putting them behind only Rhode Island (23%) and West Virginia (20%) in that category.
Louisiana was found to have the seventh-worst infrastructure in the country, but the remaining poor-ranking states all have cold winters. They include Maine at #3, Rhode Island at fourth, and Alaska rounding out the top five. New York, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts came in at sixth, eighth, and tenth, respectively.
The study’s roadway numbers were taken from the Federal Highway Administration’s report on Highway Statistics, while the total government spending on roads statistics were pulled from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2016 Annual Survey of State Government Finances. Water quality rankings were based on data from accredited water assessment bodies compiled by Clean Cool Water.
A few eye-popping conclusions within the study include a finding that 24.6%, or almost a quarter, of Rhode Island’s roadways are in poor condition. New Hampshire’s low ranking stemmed from a determination that about 20% of the state’s private wells are estimated to have worrisome amounts of arsenic in their water.
