New FHWA Report Reveals States with the Busiest Highways

[Brandon]

New FHWA Report Reveals States with the Busiest Highways

The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) today released a new report on the nation's busiest interstates that shows people drove more than 84.7 billion miles on California highways in 2011 - more than 900 times the distance from Earth to the Sun - making the Golden State's highways the nation's busiest. Overall, vehicles traveled 2.95 trillion miles on U.S. roads in 2011 - the eighth-highest level ever recorded, and nearly double the amount traveled in 1980.

The top ten states were, in order: California, Texas, Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Georgia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Michigan.  The full list, broken down by interstate is below.

Summary of the extent, usage, and condition of the U.S. Interstate System:
By State and Interstate Route Number

[NE2]

Kind of useless without normalizing by something (population? total VMT in the state?).

[briantroutman]

Along those lines–just comparing this list to the list of top ten most populous states–they match up almost exactly and in order with a few exceptions.

• New York is the third most populous state but does not show up on this list at all.
• Ohio is smaller than Illinois or Pennsylvania but beats them both for miles travelled.
• Georgia and Virginia are also both less populous then Pennsylvania but both have more vehicular traffic. Virginia also surpasses the more populous New Jersey in miles traveled.
• North Carolina edges out Michigan which (at least as of the July 2012 estimate) has slightly more people.

[jeffandnicole]

Many of NJ's highest traveled roadways (GS Parkway, NJ 42, 1&9, etc) are not interstates, and thus were left out of the list.  Many of our state routes aren't limited access, but have higher traffic volumes than many states' interstate highways. 

I would question the title as well.  I would say I-95 in Delaware & Maryland are extremely busy highways for much of their entire length.  But since neither state has a 300 mile interstate highway route, they are left off the list.

[cpzilliacus]

Many of NJ's highest traveled roadways (GS Parkway, NJ 42, 1&9, etc) are not interstates, and thus were left out of the list.  Many of our state routes aren't limited access, but have higher traffic volumes than many states' interstate highways. 

I would question the title as well.  I would say I-95 in Delaware & Maryland are extremely busy highways for much of their entire length.  But since neither state has a 300 mile interstate highway route, they are left off the list.

Correct.  This document should include all highways with a functional classification of freeway (I believe that all of the GSP is classed as a freeway, with  the possible exception of the  section south of Atlantic City, where the at-grade intersections are located).

In Southern California, there are quite a few state highways (and one U.S. highway) which are functional classification freeway (I am thinking of Ca. 57, Ca. 60, Ca. 73, Ca. 91, Ca. 241 (and a few more) and U.S. 101).

Maryland has Md. 10, Md. 32, Md. 100, Md. 200 and Md. 295.

Virginia has Va. 76, Va. 195, Va. 267 and Va. 895 (I realize that 895 is not an especially busy road).