Fixing the Foundation: Can Massachusetts’ Infrastructure Reach National Standards?
While Massachusetts may be known for having the worst drivers in the country, this judgment might unfairly punish drivers for a factor beyond their control—the quality of the roads and bridges they drive on. According to US DataLabs, Massachusetts has fallen behind the national average in both road and bridge quality over the past 15-25 years.
Massachusetts finished in the bottom 10 states in road quality more times than not from 2000 to 2020. Other than a short stretch between 2006 and 2009, it was below the national average every year, often by a significant margin. However, after the 2015 rating of 66.9 percent of roads in acceptable condition, the Commonwealth has slowly improved year over year, only seeing a decrease once in the next eight years.
From 2015 to 2020, Massachusetts saw an increase of 5.6 percentage points, bringing them up to 72.5 percent of roads in good condition. From 2020 to 2023, that improvement continued, but with a diminished rise of 1.8 percentage points to 74.3 percent. It remains to be seen whether road quality will continue to improve or whether the slower rate of improvement indicates a lesser focus on infrastructure.
Figure 1: Percentage of Roads in ‘Acceptable Condition’, Massachusetts, New England Average, and National Average 2000-2023
Regional and National Comparison
The most recent data, which shows that 74.3 percent of Massachusetts roads are in acceptable condition, puts Massachusetts slightly behind the New England average of 76.8 percent. This is in large part because Massachusetts remains far behind the Northern New England states of New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont, which have averages of 83, 83.4, and 94.9 percent, respectively. Massachusetts is also 6.6 percentage points below the national average of 80.9 percent of roads in acceptable condition—as seen in Figure 1.
Catching up to the national average as well as the top-performing states in the region would require continued improvements in road quality. Importantly, Massachusetts’ rise has mirrored the simultaneous spike in the New England average, which rose 7.3 percentage points from 2015 to 2020 and another 4.5 percentage points from 2020 to 2023. This regional improvement, alongside the Commonwealth’s slower rise, offers hope that both Massachusetts and New England will catch up with the rest of the nation regarding road quality.
Figure 2: Percentage of Roads in Acceptable Condition in New England States, 2023
Bridges
The Commonwealth’s bridge infrastructure fares even worse than roads, ranking 47th of all 50 states, with 10.7 percent of bridges in poor condition in 2023. This is both worse than the average share of bridges in poor condition for New England (9 percent), and significantly lower than the average for all 50 states (5.6 percent). As you can see in Figure 3 below, bridge quality in Massachusetts has improved slightly in recent years, gradually decreasing from its 2010 peak of 16 percent of bridges in poor condition.
Figure 3: Massachusetts Bridge Condition (Good, Fair, or Poor) by Square Meters from 2010-2023
The bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act appropriates $4.2 billion to the Federal-aid Highway Program as well as $1.1 billion to Massachusetts for bridge replacement and repairs over a five-year period. If that money continues to flow, it, along with other factors, would help the Commonwealth’s road and bridge standards continue to improve. However, it still remains to be seen whether Massachusetts’ road and bridge quality can catch up to the rest of the country.
Andrew Harding is a Roger Perry Government Transparency Intern with the Pioneer Institute. He is a rising senior at Connecticut College, with a double major in Government and Educational Studies. Feel free to contact via email, LinkedIn, or writing a letter to Pioneer’s office.
