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I'll back up both "coastalmaniac" and "brendanswm" about the roads in northern New England and the Boston Metro area drivers. Frost heave season is in full bloom here in southern NH and so are the accompanying pot holes. I have seen and avoided driving over places where the distance from the top of the heave to the bottom of the hole was over a foot. That will knock the front wheels off a pickup truck let alone my Subie.
I must give credit to the NH DOT for having excellent replacement sections of some of the nastier back roads. It must be those darn progressives actually spending money on needed repairs for a change. This winter has been a throwback to a couple of decades ago.Tthe damage to the roads has been terrific. Many towns have overspent their plowing and salting budgets by a huge amount. I guess that difference will come out of the repair budget. I would tolerate an increase in gas taxes if I was certain the money would be spent on the roads and not the schools. That is being selfish as I do not have kids but I do have cars.
Worst- Illinois and Wisconsin have horrible roads but winter plays a major role in that too. Minnesota can have horrible parts depending on where you are.
Worst- Illinois and Wisconsin have horrible roads but winter plays a major role in that too. Minnesota can have horrible parts depending on where you are.
When was the last time you visited those states. Not in recent few years for sure. Illinois has really improved surface on long stretches of interstate highways but mostly recently. Chicago has still lot of potholes on many streets but outside the city, most suburbs have nice roads.
Wisconsin from Illinois to Milwaukee has some of the best quality of freeways in the country I have ever seen.
Alaska had terrible roads, as they never quite grasped that you need to use crushed gravel and not pit run for the road bed. After a couple freeze thaw cycles and the gentle massage of large trucks, the roads start to sag into ruts. It gets bad enough to where you can take your hand off the wheel on a four lane highway and the ruts will guide your tires. The official explanation is that tire studs cause this damage but it's not that the roads are worn down, they are squished down. So after it gets really bad, they grind the road surface flat and throw down another layer of pavement, which comes up in chunks as soon as the snowplows come by.
So I move to Michigan. Brilliant move there, but even as bad as they can be here, you don't see the failed roadbeds and when they do repair them, the repairs don't leave open potholes the size of a dinner table in the middle of the highway.
One local town had a road done so bad that the asphalt began oozing. It was like it never hardened fully and began squishing up from tires and pouring off the road as it softened from the heat. I'll try to find local news story photos.
The smoothest freeways, streets and roads has to be in Las Vegas. They literally have one of the best quality highways in the nation. Not only are there almost zero pot holes in Vegas, but the asphalt quality is top notch, it's also really quiet when driving on. The freeways and streets are evenly smooth and not lumpy or choppy like many of the freeways in CA are ( that's coming up later).
I go to Vegas once or twice a year to visit family, and it's always a shock to me on the drastic differences in asphalt quality they have over there in Nevada vs here in California.
All the big cities in CA ( Los Angeles, San Diego, Bay Area cities) all have horrible roads! If anyone happens to travel to downtown San Diego, you'll see what I am talking about.
Our tax dollars hardly go towards road repair it seems like. SD has a $900 Million dollar back log in street repairs! They will never have enough money to fix our roads, they need to take bonds out just to afford it. Downtown SD is such a tiny fraction on how bad the situation is, the rest of the city's urban core, and it's suburbs are just as bad.
The pot holes are crater like, the streets are so badly uneven and look like they're about crumble to pieces. Even when city crews pave over a rough patch or pot hole, the surface is still very uneven, and within a few months or less, the pot holes opens up again, and the rough patch in the streets soon return. I can't understand how cities can allow such terrible road conditions to last for so long. I mean they're are pot holes and certain streets in Downtown that have not been addressed in over 10 years! They still looked trashed and that are so messed up, I wouldn't be surprised if drivers have broken suspension components from just driving over them.
Even when these rough roads are being repaved, it's like the repair doesn't last long at all, and they continue to fall apart before your eyes. I truly believe it's the crappy asphalt that this state uses. it's cheap and doesn't last long.
Our freeways aren't any better. Certain stretches of the 8 and 5 freeways down here are pretty bad. The road noise is just awful on the older sections as well. Even when our freeways have been repaved, they still don't resemble the high quality highways like the ones in Nevada, Arizona, Texas and even New Mexico!
For being the most populated, and most car centric state in the country, you'd think we would have the best quality highway system, roads and streets in the nation. This can't be further from the truth.
We pay so damn much to live here, and this is what we get?
I have to agree that Las Vegas roads are awesome. I think it has to do with the lack of rain and the quality of the work done. I also do not see a lot of tractor trailer traffic compared to other cities, so this probably has a big impact on the roads.
Wow, everyone thinking their own state has the worst roads. And complaining about a few bumps! Let me show you some REAL bad roads:
Some strange, 3rd world country? Try "Vermont". And these are all residential streets!
As far as interstates / freeways, my vote goes to Louisiana. Bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump...
Now for the best, in the US, I'm going to have yo be biased and say Arizona. Even up north where there's snow and weather, road works projects are quick and the quality is excellent. The freeways around Phoenix are paved using rubberized asphalt, so they're smooth and quiet. Even out in rural parts of the desert, the roads don't have potholes, huge cracks, etc.
To give an idea of road works in AZ, drive 89T from Flagstaff to Paige. The road used to skirt the mountains (89 / 89A) until a landslide destroyed a large stretch of road. In about 2 months, they worked with the Indian Reservation to take a formerly dirt farm road and completely renovate it. 89T is now more direct than the old road, shaving nearly 30 mins from the drive. It's smooth, fast, and goes through pretty desert scenery.
I don't think any other state could pull off a solution to a landslide as quickly, or as well.
Honestly.. I've been on worse roads, but the ones that are bad are REALLY bad. Hwy 418 between I-385 and Pelzer is a mess, and before they finally fixed it, Fairforest Way, which actually had the UPS distribution center on it was just awful.
Wow, everyone thinking their own state has the worst roads. And complaining about a few bumps! Let me show you some REAL bad roads:
Geez, even Poland notorious for bad roads in 90's, at least had asphalt everywhere on little residential streets in every rural town.
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. Downtown SD is such a tiny fraction on how bad the situation is, the rest of the city's urban core, and it's suburbs are just as bad.
And complaining about a few bumps! Let me show you some REAL bad roads:
