For every tax dollar it spent, Kentucky got more results from its highway improvements than Ohio and Indiana did in 1997. Kentucky had the sixth most cost-effective highway performance in the nation that year, according to a study at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Results of the study are to be released today. The study looked at administrative, maintenance, and road and bridge capital costs, pavement conditions, fatal accident rates and several other fiscal and performance numbers reported to Washington. The study doesn't mean one state is managing its highway system worse than another, Mr. Hartgen said.
Road conditions are tougher in some states than others.
For example, Ohio has more road congestion and bigger cities than Kentucky does. But the study also took into consideration that Ohio spent more than twice the money Kentucky spent on road and bridge improvements in 1997. That was the sixth-smallest amount of any state. None of Kentucky or Ohio's rural interstates was in poor condition in 1997. That's an improvement for Kentucky, where just a few years earlier 7.6 percent of rural interstates were in poor condition.