New Survey Shows That California Cities Have the Worst-Maintained Roadways, While Florida Cities Have the Best-Maintained Roads
A recent survey that found San Francisco has some of America's worst-maintained roads, while Floridian cities like Orlando and Jacksonville kept their roads well-maintained
The West Coast is not the Best Coast when it comes to roadway conditions
Photo:Kevin Christopher Burke
Especially now that winter weather has officially arrived to most areas of the country, you’ll probably begin to notice more cracks and potholes on the road during your daily commute. While it might be tempting to claim that your city has the worst roadways in the country, this statement can only be true for one metropolitan area.
According to a new study conducted by software company Teletrac Navman, the American metro area with the worst roads is San Francisco.
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For the study, Teletrac Navman segmented roadway conditions into four categories: good, fair, mediocre, and poor. Poor roadways contained a significant number of cracks, potholes, and other signs of distress.
In order to help categorize roadways across the country, Teletrac utilized two major pre-existing systems. The International Roughness Index (IRI) is calculated by the Federal Highway Administration, which measures pavement smoothness on an annual basis. Meanwhile, the Present Serviceability Rating (PSR) is another Federal Highway Administration rating system for roads.
California Has the Worst Roads
As more people move to San Francisco, they are likely to encounter poor road conditions
Following extensive calculations, Teletrac Navman determined that the San Francisco-Oakland metropolitan area had the highest number of poor-condition roads. In fact, 71 percent of roads in San Francisco were classified as poor.
Teletrac Navman also determined that poor road conditions would cost San Francisco residents a total of $978 in additional vehicle repair and maintenance. Fortunately, California recently passed the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017, which will hopefully reduce the wear and tear of the city’s roads.
Meanwhile, the small city with the most poor-rated roads is also in California. 75 percent of roads in the California city of Concord are considered poor by these metrics.
Florida Has the Best Roads
The road to Disney World is evidently rather smooth
The two major metro areas with the most good-condition roads are Nashville, Tennessee, and Orlando, Florida. 65 percent or roads in both cities are classified as “good.”
Still, the metro city with the least poor-rated roads is Jacksonville, Florida. A mere 4 percent of Jacksonville’s roads are rated as poor, while the study found that 61 percent of its roads are in good condition.
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As far as smaller cities go, Tallahassee, Florida, has the highest percentage of good roads. 79 percent of Tallahassee roads are in good condition.
Florida is home to many cities whose roads are in great condition. An extremely warm winter helps the Sunshine State avoid many of the hazards that cause wear and tear for roadways.
Nationwide, a total of 32 percent of American urban roadways are in unacceptable condition, due in part to increased traffic and poor pavement materials. Hopefully, proposed infrastructure projects will help that percentage of poor roadways go down during the next few years.
You can examine the entire study for yourself here.
Teletrac Navman’s accompanying infographic
Source: Teletrac Navman
Zachary Berry currently resides in the Dayton, Ohio area. However, he enjoys traveling from place to place, as he was born in Oklahoma City and has also lived in Albuquerque and Orlando (such is the life of a military brat). Zachary graduated from Ohio University with a major in Strategic Communication, which is fancy talk for advertising and public relations. Beginning his career at The News Wheel as a lowly intern, he was able to climb his way to the top, eventually claiming his place within the last cubicle on the left. Other jobs that Zachary has held include driving around a safari truck at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. When he’s not putting his nose to the grindstone, Zachary enjoys watching and critiquing movies and television. See more articles by Zachary.