Funding crunch looms as the cost of fixing America's roads rises

KOCO By John Cardinale and Kelley Kosuda Jun 11, 2025

JACKSON, Miss. — America's roads are a vital part of the nation's infrastructure, connecting city to city and state to state.

Many roads across the U.S. have remained in poor condition for years, leaving drivers frustrated and state and local governments scrambling for funding.

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The Hearst Television National Investigative Unit took a closer look at the state of roads, what is being done to fix them and where the system is falling short.

America's roads by the numbers

In order to analyze the conditions of America’s roads, the Hearst Television Data Team looked at the Highway Performance Monitoring System data for 2023 and the 2022 road condition data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Roads are scored using the International Roughness Index, which grades how much road mileage is rough or smooth with a mathematical model. The dataset then adds up the number of miles and groups them by their roughness scores.

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