Washington State’s roads, at least we’re better than New Jersey.

I like a good road trip. It can be especially fun if you're going somewhere, you've never been before, driving in spaces you've never seen before. One of my favorite Rd. trips, and I do this two or three times a year, is going up to Electric City for the Sun Banks Music Festival. There are lots of beautiful terrain to look at some very strange things from time to time like a tree with nothing but tennis shoes hanging from it, (That's pretty surreal.) 

So having driven around as much as I have. I find it difficult to believe that Washington State has bad roads, but that is apparently the opinion according to a recent study. In this study, Munley Law took information from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. To determine which states had the best road quality, smoothest drive, and of course somebody's got to be near the bottom of that list. 

On that list, Idaho came out on tops. (Yeah, that kind of surprised me too.) I have not done a lot of driving in Idaho, but when I have, I thought the roads were acceptable. 

I think the language in this study is interesting because they use the term “acceptable. Quality roads.” Everything is done in percentages. In the early 2000s, Washington state had a decent percentage varying from 80% to 90% acceptable quality roads depending on the year. In more recent years, Washington's acceptable percentage of acceptable quality roads has dropped to about 70%. 

Now let's look at the top 10. According to munley.com.

Idaho - 94.78%
Georgia - 94.5%
Tennessee - 94.17%
North Dakota - 93.96%
Nebraska - 92.47%
Wyoming - 91.51%
Kentucky - 91.24%
Alabama - 90.77%
Montana - 89.6%
Oregon - 89.44% 

I know you're dying to find out what is the lowest acceptable percentage of quality roads in the United States. Well. It comes from New Jersey. (There's a punch line to a joke in there somewhere.) 

Go on a road trip, enjoy the drive, and watch out for potholes.

Washington has some of the worst roads in America, according to a new nationwide analysis (yahoo.com) 

Road Condition | Bureau of Transportation Statistics (bts.gov)