29th Annual Highway Report: Rural Interstate Pavement Condition

Reason foundation Baruch Feigenbaum, Senior Managing Director

Truong Bui. Director of Data Strategy and Analytics

Jay Derr, Transportation Policy Analyst

Thuy Nguyen, Data Scientist

March 19, 2026

Rural Interstates are typically four- to six- lane highways connecting urban areas. One measurement of roadway condition is pavement condition. In most states, road pavement condition is measured using special machines that determine the roughness of road surfaces. A few states continue to use visual ratings, which are then converted to roughness. In 2023, about 2.19% of U.S. rural Interstates—638 miles out of 29,117—was reported to be in poor condition. (Table 11, Percent Rural Interstate Mileage in Poor Condition, 2023, Figure 6). This is similar to 2022, the last time this assessment was completed, when 594 miles out of 29,311 (2.03%) miles of rural Interstate pavement were rated poor.

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