Whether your ride to work this morning was a smooth one could depend on which state you call home. A new analysis from MoneyGeek found about 10% of the country’s roads are in poor condition, and some states are far worse off than others.
MoneyGeek’s analysis looked at urban and suburban highways (not small, local city streets) for its analysis. They used Federal Highway Administration data on road “roughness” to compare conditions across states.
New Hampshire drivers have it best, the analysis found. The state spends relatively little on road work per miles traveled but still manages to have most of its roads in good condition. Only 7% were in poor condition.
Three Gulf Coast states come next on the list. Only 5% of roads are in poor condition in Alabama, Georgia and Florida, MoneyGeek found.
Despite its harsh winter weather, Minnesota rounds out the top five, where an impressively low 4% of roads analyzed were in poor condition.
As for the states that performed poorly, those both big and small, urban and rural, east and west can be found on the list of the worst 20.
The 20 states with the worst roads are found below:
| Rank | State | “Road roughness” score | % roads in poor condition | % roads in good condition |
| 1 | California | 160.3 | 44% | 22% |
| 2 | Rhode Island | 149.0 | 41% | 27% |
| 3 | Nebraska | 140.6 | 33% | 33% |
| 4 | Wisconsin | 139.4 | 28% | 25% |
| 5 | New York | 136.6 | 30% | 34% |
| 6 | Hawaii | 134.1 | 25% | 28% |
| 7 | Massachusetts | 131.0 | 31% | 37% |
| 8 | Louisiana | 128.3 | 26% | 36% |
| 9 | Michigan | 127.6 | 24% | 38% |
| 10 | New Jersey | 123.4 | 26% | 44% |
| 11 | Washington | 121.8 | 22% | 41% |
| 12 | New Mexico | 120.3 | 23% | 42% |
| 13 | Pennsylvania | 119.9 | 20% | 41% |
| 14 | Iowa | 119.1 | 19% | 39% |
| 15 | Texas | 118.3 | 20% | 43% |
| 16 | Colorado | 118.2 | 18% | 41% |
| 17 | Illinois | 116.9 | 19% | 43% |
| 18 | Montana | 112.0 | 20% | 50% |
| 19 | Ohio | 111.3 | 19% | 49% |
| 20 | South Dakota | 108.7 | 14% | 48% |
The analysis found there wasn’t a clear connection between how much a state spends on its roads and how smooth they are. Typically, the more miles of road a state has, the more they spend. There were some exceptions, MoneyGeek found: New York and Pennsylvania spent disproportionately more than states of similar size. Both are among the top 20 for roughest roads, so it appears there’s still more work to be done.
This article originally appeared in WOOD TV. For more, click here.