While Texas lawmakers work on ways to set aside more money for transportation projects, the state has been moving up in the ranks of an annual report on highway conditions.
The report from the Reason Foundation rates Texas 11th in the nation over 11 indicators, including soundness of bridges, urban and rural pavement conditions, and total spending per mile of state roads.
“It's a very large system, over 80,000 miles, and they have a very large budget,” UNC Charlotte professor David Hartgen, the report’s lead author, told KUHF radio. “But actually, when you look at how much they're responsible for, their budget is a little less than what the average state has. And you then look at the conditions, they're actually doing quite well."
The report’s ranking uses numbers from 2009, the most recent year with complete spending reports from all 50 states. Texas was in 17th place in 2007.