Hawaii remains 47th worst in assessment of state highways

The worst urban interstate pavement conditions in the country and a low mark for spending per mile left Hawaii ranked 47th among states in a recent survey of highway performance.

The annual study came out just as the school year began and traffic became much worse.

Hawaii had the same low rank, 47th, that the state got last year, as well as in 2010 in the Reason Foundation’s highway report.

To improve in the rankings, Hawaii needs to upgrade its pavement condition and reduce its fatality rate, according to Baruch Feigenbaum, lead author of the report.

The state, which has the smallest state-owned road systems at 1,012 miles, has the worst urban interstate pavement condition in the country.

Overall, the report found all pavement rankings across the U.S. had worsened, along with fatality rankings.

The fatality rate — based on fatalities per 100 million vehicle-miles of travel — has increased over the last few years nationally. The report says there is no one cause, but distracted driving appears to the biggest contributor.

“States do not need to engage in a spending bonanza to improve their systems,” said the report. “But there is some evidence that a small increase in spending could yield a significantly better system.”

On spending, Hawaii ranked 41st in spending per mile and 42nd in capital and bridge costs per mile.

The state wasn’t low in every category. Hawaii ranked 15th in structurally deficient bridges and 19th in traffic congestion.

This year the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank with offices in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., ranked the states using 13 performance measures, including pavement condition, deficient bridges, traffic fatalities, administrative costs and spending per mile on state roads.

It added two new categories — the rural fatality and urban fatality rates — which examine the number of fatalities per 100 million vehicle-miles looking only at arterial roadways, which are thoroughfares with moderate to heavy volumes of traffic.

Urban areas include metropolises like Honolulu, while rural areas areas include less crowded areas on neighbor isles.

Hawaii has relatively few fatalities on its local roads, according to Feigenbaum, but a lot of fatalities on its arterials. Hawaii has an urban fatality rate of 1.32, above the national average of 0.77. Hawaii also had the highest rural fatality rate, at 6.99, far above the national average of 1.71.

When all roadways were factored in, Honolulu’s fatality rate was not as high, ranking 21st.

“Hawaii is having some real problems on major, busy roads but not smaller, local streets,” said Feigenbaum. “We don’t typically see much of a difference. That indicates the need for a little more enforcement, maybe design standards.”

Panos Prevedouros, professor of transportation engineering at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, said that in general our rankings make sense.

“Given our short distances and relatively slow speeds on highways, our fatality rate rank of 21st is above average (good) but it would be better with fewer DUIs and a motorcycle helmet law,” he wrote in an email. “As we know, pedestrian fatalities fluctuate a lot, but there has been a general increase for various reasons such as increased population age, increased tourism and traffic projects that provide a false sense of safety to vulnerable road users.”

There is some lag time on the report, given that the rankings are based on data submitted by states to the federal government for 2016, and urban congestion data from INRIX and bridge condition data from the Better Roads inventory for 2017.

Hawaii’s overall highway performance is worse than California’s (43), Washington’s (37) and Oregon’s (12). On the other hand, Hawaii did better than Rhode Island (48), Alaska (49) and New Jersey (50).

North Dakota got top ranking for overall performance and cost-effectiveness for the second year in a row. Virginia and Missouri, two of the 20 most populated states in the country, took the second and third spots, followed by Maine and Kentucky in fourth and fifth place.

Hawaii ranks 47th in the nation in highway performance and cost-effectiveness.

Overall rank: 47 (same as in 2018)

By category

>> Urban interstate pavement condition: 50

>> Rural arterial pavement condition: 48

>> Urbanized area congestion: 19

>> Structurally deficient bridges: 15

>> Overall fatality rate: 21

Source: Reason Foundation 24th Annual Highway Report

THE BEST AND WORST

TOP 5

1. North Dakota

2. Virginia

3. Missouri

4. Maine

5. Kentucky

BOTTOM 5

46. Massachusetts

47. Hawaii

48. Rhode Island

49. Alaska

50. New Jersey

Source: Reason Foundation 24th Annual Highway Report