CLARKSBURG, W.Va. – According to a recent analysis by QuoteWizard, West Virginia ranks as the third state with the worst road infrastructure. The study comes shortly after the passage of President Joe Biden’s trillion dollar Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in Congress. The bill is the largest federal investment in infrastructure in more than a decade.
“People drive across a bad road, and they obviously know that it’s a bad road,” said Nick VinZant, Senior Research Analyst at QuoteWizard, “But I think what people miss is how much this actually costs them every single year.”
The analysis finds that West Virginia roads cost motorists an average of $723/year. That’s significantly more than the national average of $556/year. This number comes from how much drivers in each state are paying for road repairs. However, the report states that people often have to pay for repairs on their car on top of these costs, to the tune of a national average of $533/year extra per driver.
VinZant explained that the report found a correlation between the amount that a state invests into roads and the quality of the roads. West Virginia spends 19% of the funds earmarked for transportation on road repair, which is significantly more than the top two states with the worst infrastructure, but they rank ninth in the country for road repair spending, making it one of the lowest rates in the country.
“We found states that have a low rate of investing their funds in repairs have a higher cost to motorists,” VinZant stated, “So, it really does add up at the end of the day.”
The bill earmarked about six billion dollars in federal funding for West Virginia, which the state is responsible for divvying up, so VinZant said it can be hard to tell how exactly the bill will affect West Virginia, but one of the ways could be in job creation.
Worst Road Infrastructure
| Rank | State | % non-acceptable roads | % poor bridge deck (sq. miles area) | Cost per motorist |
| 1 | Rhode Island | 50% | 23% | $823 |
| 2 | Mississippi | 27% | 4% | $820 |
| 3 | West Virginia | 31% | 16% | $723 |
| 4 | Connecticut | 34% | 10% | $676 |
| 5 | Maryland | 27% | 3% | $356 |
| 6 | Hawaii | 43% | 2% | $764 |
| 7 | California | 35% | 7% | $862 |
| 8 | Washington | 27% | 6% | $643 |
| 9 | Pennsylvania | 27% | 8% | $610 |
| 10 | Missouri | 25% | 9% | $699 |
“We found that for every one billion dollars invested into infrastructure, about 13,000 jobs are created,” VinZant continued, “So in West Virginia, you could be looking at as many as 78,000 jobs created from this infrastructure bill.”
According to the QuoteWizard report, President Biden says his plan will create 1.5 million jobs per year for the next 10 years. The $1 trillion dollar plan is split into six main areas:
- $550 billion in new funding for transportation and utilities
- $110 billion in roads, bridges and major projects
- $66 billion toward passenger and freight rail
- $65 billion to expand broadband access
- $55 billion to improve water utilities and replace lead pipes
- $39 billion for public transit
