Was there this long running rivalry (like an East Coast/West Coast thing) about whose traffic congestion is the worst between California and New York? The new study funded by the Reason Foundation out of Los Angeles gives the current nod to California as the state that waits the longest in traffic, but also points out some other interesting tid-bits about traffic and about how effectively states are using our highway tax dollars.

The top 3 states for traffic congestion turned out to be California, Minnesota and New Jersey in that order. While New Jersey also topped out as the least efficient state in regards to state spending on roads. New Jersey spent $2,370,630 on improvements to their 2,321 highway miles; which comes to about $1021/mile. South Carolina on the other hand has a dollar-to-mile ratio of $.89. Although traffic patterns and driving tendencies do not always correlate across the board it still leads to some serious doubts over the effectiveness of New Jersey’s spending.
In all the report provided by the Foundation of Reason had 15 categories for rankings; including Total Highway Miles, Lane Miles,  Disbursements, Road Conditions, Congestion, Fatalities, etc. Of those 15 Categories New Jersey ranked in the bottom 5 states in 9 of them. So as Californian’s are sitting in their cars staring at the bumper in front of them for hours at a time they now have 9 more categorical reasons to rejoice in the fact that they do not live in New Jersey.

Ranking State Road Systems by Overall Performance

To read the full report issued by the Reason Foundation just go to their website.