New Study: Oahu Freeways Deliver The Roughest Rides In The Country
But the state’s DOT deputy director says the new report from a D.C.-based research group doesn’t tell the whole story.
Hawaii, a state that to maintain its crumbling roads, currently has the roughest and bumpiest share of interstate highways in the country, according to a new report released by the Washington, D.C.-based group .
The national research nonprofit found that along Hawaii’s interstates is in poor shape, beating out all other states by far. The runner-up, Delaware, had just 9% of its interstate highways in poor condition, per the TRIP report.
The local interstates are all on Oahu — they鈥檙e the H-1, H-2, H-3 and Moanalua freeways.
for Hawaii to rank at or of national reports that examine which states have the poorest road conditions.
However, this latest analysis from TRIP on interstate highways comes as the Biden administration tries to with lawmakers on a massive new $2 trillion infrastructure package, complete with some .
Hawaii鈥檚 transportation leaders say they鈥檙e watching developments in Washington, D.C., closely to see what comes of that effort — and how it might benefit the country鈥檚 lone island state.
鈥淚 will say, I don鈥檛 like to be at the top of the nation for pavement in poor condition on the ride-ability side,鈥 said Ed Sniffen, deputy director for highways at the Hawaii Department of Transportation.
However, Sniffen added that the TRIP report doesn鈥檛 provide the full picture on Hawaii鈥檚 roads because it doesn鈥檛 take into account all the factors typically used to grade pavement condition.
The TRIP report, officials there confirmed, used just one criteria on pavement condition for its state rankings: the International Roughness Index, or IRI. That measures how bumpy a road is, and how it affects a ride鈥檚 speed, safety and comfort.
The Federal Highway Administration, meanwhile, looks at more than just a road鈥檚 IRI grade. It also requires that states report data on across the roads they oversee.
Unlike IRI, those three factors can reveal how much 鈥渟tructural deterioration鈥 exists in a road, according to the FHWA.
Sniffen said the division he leads could choose to do more shallow resurfacing across Hawaii鈥檚 highways — the simple 鈥渕ill-and-fill鈥 jobs that make the rides across them smoother. Instead, HDOT chooses to spend its road-repair dollars on more expensive jobs to fix the road down to its base, he said.
Those deeper repairs are more effective but they cover fewer miles of road, Sniffen said.
He added that Hawaii’s interstates actually get a far more favorable grade based on what the state reports to the feds, which require more criteria.
Under the federal standard poor ride-ability alone is not enough to label the pavement condition as poor. At least one other criteria — either the cracking, rutting or faulting — has to be in poor shape, too.
Under that friendlier formula, the state reported just 4.9% of its interstate roads to be in poor condition in 2020 versus the 23% that TRIP found.
TRIP used IRI alone because that was the only way it could compare and rank all 50 states, said Carolyn Kelly, the nonprofit group鈥檚 spokeswoman.
How rough a road is also affects costs to drivers — and have shown that in Hawaii drivers shell out hundreds of dollars in added car maintenance and repairs each year on average due to poor road conditions.
Road Repairs Still Coming Up To Speed
It鈥檚 unclear how much federal funding Hawaii鈥檚 interstate roads would get under the Biden administration鈥檚 $2 trillion infrastructure package, should that effort succeed.
Michael Inacay, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, who chairs the , said Tuesday it’s too early to say what the deal might eventually mean for the state’s beleaguered roads.
Nonetheless, Hawaii鈥檚 top rank in the TRIP report shows the state still has a long way to go to improve its highway repairs — even though Gov. David Ige’s administration made road upkeep a top priority in its transportation policy years ago.
Sniffen said that his division is still catching up on repairs to a road network of more than 2,150 miles of individual lanes whose proper maintenance was ignored for decades.
鈥淭here鈥檚 still a lot of portions of our roads that are in disrepair,鈥 he said Friday. 鈥淲hen roads were built, they were built with the funding that came in鈥 without considering the need for additional funding for repairs.
Lately, HDOT has been focusing more on maintaining the roads it has rather than on building new ones.
Until 2016, HDOT used an Excel spreadsheet to manage the state鈥檚 road repairs instead of more advanced software. Furthermore, its Highways Division was not using any crack or slurry seal treatments to lengthen the life of the roads it manages on Oahu.
Similarly, the city departments on Oahu responsible for keeping streets in good condition neither treated the roads to extend their lives nor used updated pavement management software until recently.
