Hang On, State’s Roads a Rough Ride

Robert Haage of Montclair has driven throughout the U.S. and believes the absolute worst stretch of roadway is here in Southern California.

It’s got to be the San Bernardino Freeway from East Los Angeles to the Inland Empire, Haage said, adding this analysis: “Roughly poured, cracked from overuse, poorly maintained and inadequately marked.”

“Interstate 10 always makes us glad to be home, where we can finally exit its abuses,” said Haage, a retired high school teacher.

Sure, California has some pretty bad roads. Some stretches are so rough, they make the sturdiest cars rattle like a tambourine. Others have potholes so big they could support their own ecosystems.

Now a recent analysis of federal roadway data, if accurate, would affirm the feeling in the seat of our collective pants: California roads are the worst in the nation. Even Arkansas looks down its nose at us when it comes to road quality, according to this study.

But before we consider changing our state motto from “Eureka” to “Whoa, pothole,” state officials and other transportation experts say we should consider the source of the analysis.

The study was sponsored by Transportation California, a coalition of road builders, labor unions, and asphalt and gravel suppliers. The group released the study as part of a campaign to support a March 5 ballot measure that would dedicate all sales taxes on gasoline to highway and transit projects, an estimated $1.4 billion a year by 2008.

That money now goes to the state’s general fund, where it is used for a variety of programs.

Dedicating the money to transportation would clearly produce hefty road-repair contracts for the construction industry. In fact, supporters of the ballot measure, Proposition 42, have already begun to air radio ads that cite California’s last-place ranking when it comes to road repairs.

Ah, the politics of potholes.

Dennis Trujillo, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, doesn’t buy the industry group’s harsh critique of California. “We have a highway system that is second to none,” he said.

But Transportation California stands by its analysis.

“We didn’t make up the data,” said Larry Fisher, who heads the group.

So, who can we believe? It would be nice if the federal government compiled an annual standardized ranking to see how California’s roads stack up against other states. It could be similar to the annual rankings compiled for student test scores and crime rates.

But federal officials refuse to compile any road quality comparison that might embarrass local transportation agencies.

“We absolutely never have and never will rank states,” said Jim Pinkelman, a spokesman for the Federal Highway Administration.

That leaves it up to special-interest groups and academics to perform the task using various methods.

The analysis sponsored by Transportation California said that 37% of California’s main arterial roads were in “poor” condition, the highest percentage of any state.

The data for the study came from the Federal Highway Administration, which collects such information from every state annually. The states assess the condition of primary roads, usually using lasers or ultrasound machines strapped beneath roving vans.

In a further study of regions within California, the analysis determined that the metropolitan region of Los Angeles and Orange counties had the highest percentage of truly bad roads.

The analysis found that 56% of the region’s principal arterial roads are in poor condition, meaning the pavement is badly cracked, broken and “provides unacceptable ride quality.” Only 3% of the roads were rated good, with 5% rated fair and 36% deemed mediocre.

In short, California is the worst and Los Angeles and Orange counties are the worst of the worst.

There is a direct correlation between how rotten the roads are and how much we spend on fixing mangled tires and misaligned wheels, the study found.

According to the analysis, the rutted roads in Los Angeles and Orange counties cost motorists an additional $641 annually in auto-repair costs, above the normal wear and tear.

Other independent studies that have ranked states based on road quality placed California a bit higher on the list. But not by much.

The Golden State ranked 21st out of 32 urbanized states, according to a 1998 road quality study by the Surface Transportation Policy Project, a nationwide group that promotes safe and clean transportation.

In that study, Southern California fell somewhere in the middle in the roadway ranking of large metropolitan regions--better than Chicago and Denver but far behind Boston and New York.

For 11 years, David Hartgen, a transportation studies professor at the University of North Carolina, has compiled an annual ranking of the states’ roads. But he also ranks the states on how much they spend on maintenance and administrative costs, among other factors.

By all of Hartgen’s standards, California ranked 45th out of 50 states. “California has a lot of money, but they still have some of the worst roads,” he said.

Only New Jersey, Massachusetts, Hawaii, New York and Arkansas rank lower, in Hartgen’s estimation. (At least one researcher rated us ahead of Arkansas.)

Whatever California’s ranking, motorists such as Delores Long of Van Nuys want to know that someone is doing something to make their drives smoother.

She complained that Burbank Boulevard in North Hollywood is a “stripper street.”

There are so many potholes and craters that motorists are left “bumping and grinding” down the road, she said.

Philip Van Camp of Murrieta believes the absolute worst road around is the Riverside Freeway in Corona.

“The paving has numerous gaps and spalls, where it seems Caltrans has applied patches that have subsequently flaked off,” he said.

Van Camp compares driving the freeway with trying to run through an obstacle course.

“It is very challenging because you try to avoid the irregularities you can see, you feel blows to the tires and all the time you are trying to watch other traffic, all of which it seems is trying to change lanes at the same time,” he said.

There is one benefit, Van Camp said: “I doubt anyone falls asleep there.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Conditions on State’s Main Roads

Vehicle operating

Miles of % of total costs caused by

Region poor roads road miles poor roads*

Bakersfield 16 8% $329

Fresno 24 14% $369

L.A./Orange 1,754 56% $641

Oxnard-Ventura 61 30% $556

Sacramento 188 41% $550

S. Bern./Riv. 83 26% $439

San Diego 159 32% $492

S.F./Oakland 455 50% $597

San Jose 228 51% $609

Stockton 34 31% $518

* 2000 figures

Note: main roads include freeways, highways and major four-lane roads.

Source: Road Information Program anaylsis of Federal Highway Administration Data