Capacity and Comparison

Laying the Foundations for Measuring the Effectiveness of State Departments of Transportation

MIT Mobility Initiative Research Briefing

Stephanie Pollack

MIT Mobility Initiative Senior Fellow 2025

Introduction

State transportation departments play a critical role as owners, builders. operators and managers of some of the most highly used and economically important transportation infrastructure in the United States. All of them work hard to deliver on both the projects and policy that they are responsible for implementing, but concern is growing that at least some are not performing as effectively as necessary given their critical responsibilities. This concern is driven in no small part by the soaring costs and lengthy timelines for delivering transit, highway, bridge and other surface transportation projects in the United States, especially when compared to other countries. While much has been written about the struggles of transit agencies to deliver projects at acceptable costs,[1] construction cost inflation is also affecting highway and bridge projects. One well-known researcher, Zachary Liscow, has concluded that “US highways built since 2010 are far more expensive than highway projects elsewhere in the world at any time.”[2]

This context makes it more important than ever to understand the extent to which state transportation departments have the capacity they need to meet public expectations and deliver for the transportation system, economy and communities. The longstanding public administration literature on “state capacity” can help inform this investigation.

State capacity is simply “the ability of government officials to translate policy goals into action and produce good outcomes.”[3] While much of the focus of state capacity research was initially on the capacity of countries (the federal government in the US, for example) to deliver for residents and taxpayers, more recently that focus has broadened to include state and local governments. As Schleicher and Bagley note, “state and local governments provide almost all government services that people depend on—schools, police, fire protection, and more—either independently or in partnership with the federal government. They build and operate almost all public infrastructure. And they employ many times more people than the federal government does, by any measure. So if we have a crisis of state capacity, its roots are in state and local governments.” (emphasis added)[4]

Even with growing concern that state and local governments lack the capacity to deliver effectively – including on public infrastructure – there is far less consensus or even literature on how to understand and measure state capacity at a sub-national level and fairly compare US states to one another in terms of their capacity to get the job done.

The hypothesis behind this research paper is that a useful unit of analysis for understanding, measuring and comparing state capacity is not states but state agencies. In particular, such an analysis could focus on agencies that are similar across 50 states (or 51 if Washington DC is counted as a state).

State departments of transportation or DOTs are a particularly promising place to undertake such a state capacity analysis, not only because of the author's familiarity with them[5] but because federal law requires every state to establish such an agency (originally a highway department but all have transitioned to transportation agencies), as well as to enter into a written “stewardship and oversight” agreement that addresses how the federal-aid highway program will be administered in the state.[6] While state transportation departments differ in important ways, the federal legislative framework and the fact that many such agencies have been operating for many decades creates enough similarities across those agencies to make this exercise manageable.

A comprehensive methodology for defining, measuring and comparing state capacity and effectiveness across state transportation departments (and, arguably, of any other set of state agencies) would require three steps:

Define the key functions that are essential to the ability of state transportation departments to do their jobs as defined by federal and state law;
Group states and their transportation departments into cohorts that are similar enough to allow for a fair comparison across states; and
Use data to assess how well each state transportation department is doing at carrying out their key functions and compare states (within the cohorts) to assess which states are more or less effective.

This paper does not complete all of this three-step process but is instead designed to lay the foundations for such a comprehensive analysis by proposing a methodology for the first two steps, focusing on capacity and comparison. Both pieces have been discussed with a number of current and former state transportation officials and researchers but more remains to be done before “locking” both the list of key agency functions and the comparison cohorts proposed in this paper. Once that work is verified, future work can focus on the third and most complicated step, identifying what data is available to measure state capacity within each of the identified key functions and thus provide a data set that allows for robust comparison of state capacity across state transportation departments.

Defining Capacity: What are the Key Functions of State Transportation Departments?

The first step in this process is defining a manageable number of the “key functions” of state transportation departments, functions that are critical to a given state DOT’s “state capacity” and ability to deliver. This step is complicated by the reality that these agencies perform many different functions and that some vary significantly by state (for example, some state transportation departments encompass the state’s transit agency, while others do not). That said, as noted above, state transportation departments are similar enough so that key functions common to all 50 (or 51, counting Washington DC)[7] of them can be defined.

The process of identifying and defining these key functions was informed by

The general literature on state capacity;
The limited but growing literature specific to state capacity and effectiveness of state transportation departments;
A review of state transportation department websites[8] to understand how these agencies define and organize their key functions; and
Conversations with current and former senior officials at state transportation departments.

Table 1 summarizes twelve key functions identified through this process, followed by a carefully-worded “goal statement” for each of those functions. Each of the key functions and associated goal statements is designed to be general enough to apply across all state transportation departments, yet specific enough to allow the transportation department’s capacity to be assessed quantitatively and compared to other state DOTs.

The first four functions (highlighted in gray in Table 1) arguably apply to most or even all state agencies, not just transportation departments. While functions like human resources, information technology and procurement are often thought of as “back office” functions, they are increasingly being recognized as core functions that increase state capacity and enable effective execution of all of an agency’s more specific responsibilities. The remaining eight functions in the table are specific to state transportation departments and are listed in rough order of importance beginning with safety, which every transportation agency correctly considers to be its most important job.

Because the ultimate goal of this exercise is the ability to measure and compare the capacity and performance of all state transportation agencies, care was taken to include only functions relevant to all 51 state transportation departments. There is, for example, there is no function about “electrifying the state transportation system” or “reducing greenhouse gas emissions” even though those are policy mandates required of some state transportation agencies. Instead, the “performance and accountability” category includes the agency’s capacity to perform in alignment with all relevant state policies – a function that applies to all state transportation departments even as the relevant policies vary from state to state.

The remainder of this section includes a brief rationale both for why a given function was selected as one of the twelve “key functions” and for the development of the goal statement for each of those functions as presented in Table 1 previously.

1. Workforce and Talent

The work that state transportation departments do depends on having a workforce that can perform all of the agency’s functions, making workforce and talent issues a key part of state capacity. Many state DOT leaders identify workforce challenges as their most pressing issue.[9] In a survey done by Liscow, Nober and Slattery, 89% of state DOT officials and 59% of construction contractors who work with state DOTs reported that state DOTs were understaffed. The survey results are not surprising given that, for example, employment in state DOT highway divisions shrunk by 20% between 1997 and 2020, even while total state public sector employment grew.[10] Workforce challenges involve not just hiring but also training, retention and the ability to compensate state DOT employees at competitive levels. Liscow, for example, finds that “public-sector wages have not kept up with private-sector wages” in infrastructure agencies and notes that when “pay is higher in the private sector than in the public sector, it tends to draw away talent from the public sector and weaken state capacity.”[11] For these reasons, this paper identifies Workforce and Talent as the top key function in defining state DOT capacity and proposes to define an effective state transportation as one that “recruits, trains and retains a talented, adequately sized and appropriately compensated workforce.”

2. Performance and Accountability

Beginning with the 2012 Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (known as MAP-21), federal law has required state transportation departments to establish and report on performance toward meeting statutorily-established goals including safety, infrastructure condition, environmental sustainability and reducing project delivery delays.[12] Many state transportation departments go beyond these federal requirements and establish additional performance goals, often included in their federally-mandated Long Range Transportation Plans (LRTPs). The Brookings Institution has created an inventory of state DOT practices with respect to goal-setting and accountability and found that of the 41 states that set performance measures in their LRTPs, only 15 set targets for achieving all of the established performance measures.[13] While performance objectives frequently address the performance of the transportation system itself, state DOTs must also have the capacity to ensure that the work that they do aligns with the policies of their state with respect to relevant issues such as economic development, environmental sustainability, vehicle electrification and housing production. Performance objectives should also include measures that can be used to measure progress toward meeting the objectives. Finally, both the objectives and the progress data should be publicly available. For these reasons, this paper identifies Performance and Accountability as a key function in defining state DOT capacity and proposes to define an effective state transportation department as one that “establishes performance objectives aligned with all relevant state policies and measures and publicly shares progress toward meeting those objectives.”

3. Data and Technology

The literature on state capacity increasingly identifies the importance of “digital capacity” because “almost all implementation in government relies on, is enabled by, and feeds into digital and data infrastructure.”[14] A state’s ability to collect, analyze and protect data and to get technology “right” underlies its capacity to accomplish many other key functions. In his work on state capacity for building infrastructure, Liscow cites lack of adequate tools, including data systems, as one of the three key challenges of state capacity “that underlie the high costs and slow times the US faces” in building transportation infrastructure (the other two are personnel and procedure).[15] He notes that one of the reasons that data-systems performance matters is that a state infrastructure agency “will best be able to understand how to build effectively if it has a good grasp of its own projects.” State transportation departments themselves are increasingly acknowledging the centrality of data and technology to their work, creating data shops and chief data and/or technology officers. Even while still working to improve their basic capacity to procure and use digital infrastructure, many state DOTs are turning to artificial intelligence to deliver functions from improving safety to managing congestion to streamlining procurement documents. For these reasons, this paper identifies Data and Technology as a key function in defining state DOT capacity and proposes to define an effective state transportation department as one that “relies on data to inform decisionmaking and uses technology to improve both internal operations and transportation system performance.”

4. Procurement and Contract Oversight

Procurement is often viewed as a bureaucratic, back-office process that simply enables government agencies to purchase goods and services. But for state transportation departments, procurement is the process by which they hire project teams who are increasingly responsible for planning, permitting and building (and in some cases operating and maintaining) transportation projects. In a 2022 survey, all state DOTs reported using engineering consultants to assist on highway and bridge construction projects and half reported that they spent at least 60% of their engineering and design-related expenditures on consultants.[16] One primary goal of the highly regulated procurement process is to ensure that state transportation departments attract competition and thereby reduce the cost and increase the quality of the goods and services that they procure. But a growing body of research associates increases in costs for delivering transportation capital projects with lack of capacity to manage procurement, attract competitive bids and oversee subsequent contracts.[17] For these reasons, this paper identifies Procurement and Contract Oversight as a key function in defining state DOT capacity and proposes to define an effective state transportation department as one that “uses procurement strategically to select consultants, vendors and project teams that innovate and add value while staying within budget and delivery schedules.”

5. Safety

One of the most important functions of state transportation departments, if not the most important, is ensuring safety for all users of the state’s transportation system and for the workers who operate, maintain and build that system. AASHTO, the association of state transportation departments, describes the desired goal as “a transportation system free of fatalities and serious injuries.” Despite recent efforts to strengthen state DOT safety efforts, just under 40,000 people were killed on US roads in 2024.[18] Federal law requires state DOTs to publish and update safety plans, set performance targets for fatalities and serious injuries and report annually on progress toward meeting those targets. Yet for the most recent five year period ending in 2023, 34 states did not meet or make significant progress toward meeting the safety performance targets that they themselves set.[19] For these reasons, this paper identifies Safety as a key function in defining state DOT capacity and proposes to define an effective state transportation department as one that “prioritizes safety for all users of, and workers on, the transportation system across all agency functions.”

6. Collaborative Planning

Federal law requires that state transportation departments create a nested set of planning documents, from 20-year Long Range Transportation Plans (LRTPs) to financially-constrained, shorter-term statewide Transportation Investment Programs (TIPs). Both plans and TIPs must consider all modes of transportation and address a series of specified planning factors that include consistency between transportation investments and “State and local planned growth, housing and economic development patterns.”[20] While planning responsibilities are shared with regional Metropolitan Planning Organizations or MPOs, state DOTs are ultimately responsible for LRTPs and the statewide TIP (STIP), have a voting seat on the majority of MPOs nationwide[21] and often provide staffing and other resources to MPOs. Effective state DOT planning requires strong collaboration with many partners: local governments, other state agencies, MPOs, businesses and business organizations and the public. Unfortunately, such collaboration does not always occur. The previously-cited research by The Brookings Institution concluded that state DOTs “rarely plan or invest in ways that meet the needs of regional and municipal partners” and that “most state DOTs have erected planning and investment barriers between them and their regional and municipal partners.”[22] For these reasons, this paper identifies Collaborative Planning as a key function in defining state DOT capacity and proposes to define an effective state transportation department as one that “collaborates with local, regional and state agencies and businesses, communities and the public to plan for the future of the state’s transportation system.”

7. Infrastructure/Asset Management

While few state DOTs own the majority of the transportation system within their state, they own substantial amounts of infrastructure and increasingly use transportation asset management or TAM to inventory, track, repair and manage those assets. AASHTO, the association of state transportation departments, defines transportation asset management as a “strategic and systematic process of operating, maintaining, upgrading and expanding physical assets effectively throughout their life cycle.”[23] Beginning with MAP-21 in 2012, federal law required state transportation departments (and later transit agencies) to undertake asset management. The Federal Highway Administration reports that state transportation departments own approximately 1.9 million lane-miles of highway[24] and 290,000 bridges, over half of which are in poor or fair condition.[25] Roads and bridges represent only a fraction of state DOT-owned road assets, which generally include traffic lights, crosswalks and sidewalk curb ramps, culverts, guardrails and street lighting. While not required by federal law, state DOTs can expand their transportation asset management plans to address local roads, which constitute the majority of public roads in all but a handful of states.[26] Yet the Brookings Institution found that no state DOTs “publish local road conditions in their Transportation Asset Management Plans – even though they’re typically in greater need of maintenance — making it easier to prioritize construction on state roads.”[27] State transportation departments should focus on the condition of all of the state’s transportation infrastructure, not just the roads and bridges that the state owns. For these reasons, this paper identifies Infrastructure/Asset Management as a key function in defining state DOT capacity and proposes to define an effective state transportation department as one that “uses asset management and maintenance systems to modernize all of the state’s transportation infrastructure and maintain it in a state of good repair.”

8. Project Selection/Capital Budgeting

Most states and their operating agencies have two budgets: an operating budget and a capital budget that pays for longer-term capital construction projects including transportation projects. For most state agencies and spending categories, the larger and more important of the two is the operating budget, which constitutes 90% or more of most state and local spending, according to an Urban Institute analysis of data from the US Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. But this typical operational-capital divide is starkly different for transportation departments, the Urban Institute Found, and since 1977 “capital spending has consistently been between 50 and 60 percent of state and local highway and road spending.”[28] Constructing capital budgets, which generally consist of lengthy lists of specific projects, is therefore a key function for state transportation departments. And selection of the projects included in those capital budgets is – unlike many of the other functions discussed in this paper – essentially unregulated by federal law, under which state transportation departments have “sovereign rights . . . to determine which projects shall be federally financed.”[29] The project selection and capital budgeting processes are particularly important exercises in prioritization, as even the combination of federal and state funding does not come close to meeting both the maintenance and modernization needs identified in Transportation Asset Management Plans and many states’ desire for new capital projects across all transportation modes. Yet the majority of state DOTs fail to conduct data-driven, publicly transparent project selection processes that help stakeholders and taxpayers understand why the state DOT chose to include certain projects in the capital budget and to omit others. The Brookings Institution research cited previously found that only 18 state DOTs even had a public project selection and prioritization process.[30] For these reasons, this paper identifies Project Selection/Capital Budgeting as a key function in defining state DOT capacity and proposes to define an effective state transportation department as one that “creates and implements capital budgets consistent with performance and policy objectives, selecting specific projects transparently and with purpose.”

9. Project Delivery

State transportation departments are the overseers for delivering all of the projects included in their capital budgets, often across multiple modes and whether the projects are funded with federal or state or private funds or a combination. State DOTs (with ample assistance from consultants) plan and design projects, hold public meetings, conduct environmental reviews, secure needed permits, procure teams to get the projects built and provide financial and construction oversight until projects are delivered and in use. While there is surprisingly little data on the extent to which state DOT projects are ultimately delivered on schedule and on budget, there is ample anecdotal evidence – in the form of media reports, case studies and legislative and other oversight – that many state transportation departments struggle to deliver projects on time and on budget. There is also a growing body of evidence that ineffective project delivery increases project costs. Much has been written about the soaring costs and lengthy timelines for delivering urban transit megaprojects in the US compared to those in other countries.[31] Less well known is how much cost growth is affecting highway projects, with the real costs of interstate highway construction more than tripling between the 1960s and 1980s and continuing to rise since then; changes in construction wages and material prices do not entirely explain these high and growing costs. Liscow concludes that “US highways built since 2010 are far more expensive than highway projects elsewhere in the world at any time.”[32] For these reasons, this paper identifies Project Delivery as a key function in defining state DOT capacity and proposes to define an effective state transportation department as one that “ensures that projects are delivered on time and budget, accomplish intended objectives and minimize construction impacts on travel and communities.”

10. Operations

State transportation departments have many operating responsibilities, although the scope of operations varies depending on which modes (highway, transit, rail, ports and/or airports) are overseen by a given state DOT. For roads and bridges, for example, state DOT operational responsibilities may include safety, traffic design and operations, accident clearance, non-capital repairs and maintenance, snow and ice removal and bridge inspections. Nearly half of state and local highway and road spending as reported in the Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances goes toward operating costs (with just over half going toward capital investments).[33] For these reasons, this paper identifies Operations as a key function in defining state DOT capacity and proposes to define an effective state transportation department as one that “carries out daily and seasonal operations for all elements of the state-owned transportation system.”

11. Permitting

State transportation departments are part of the permitting machinery that shapes how projects get built (or delayed or cancelled), in two ways. First, many state transportation departments issue permits, such as “curb cut” or other permits for access to state-owned or controlled public roads. State transportation departments also approve or disapprove of the shared use of highway rights of way for other uses (such as electric transmission lines or telecommunications equipment). When state transportation departments delay or deny permits, state DOTs contribute to the broader problem of permitting that slows down and increases the cost of housing and economic development projects. Second, state transportation departments lead or coordinate the effort to secure all local, state and federal permits needed to get their own projects built. This responsibility includes playing a critical role in implementation of the federal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) as well as similar state-level environmental review regimes. The complicated permitting regime in the United States is increasingly cited as “a likely cause of some of the country’s challenges with building infrastructure.”[34] The permitting process for transportation and other infrastructure processes “is slow and has gotten slower over time” and is often slowed down even further if litigation ensues.[35] Permitting reform is central to the agenda for reducing the costs and expediting the times for delivering transportation projects and state transportation departments are critical players in implementing needed reforms. For these reasons, this paper identifies Permitting as a key function in defining state DOT capacity and proposes to define an effective state transportation department as one that “expeditiously Issues all permits within its jurisdiction and obtains permits needed for its projects in a timely manner while meeting regulatory requirements.”

12. Real Estate Management

State transportation departments frequently own substantial amounts of real estate, sometimes for purely historical reasons and sometimes because the land was acquired to use as right-of-way for transportation infrastructure or for staging construction projects. Optimally, state DOT real estate departments need to work closely with their asset management, project delivery and finance colleagues to make strategic decisions about whether to use or hold real estate for transportation purposes, lease real estate assets for revenue or sell assets that are no longer needed for transportation purposes. Both the Federal Highway Administration[36] and Federal Transit Administration have complicated but clear rules for how state transportation departments and transit agencies can dispose of excess property acquired at least in part with federal funds. The FTA rules, for example, have been changed in recent years to allow unneeded transit assets to be transferred at no cost to local governments or nonprofits if the property will be used for transit-oriented housing development.[37] A growing number of state transportation departments are participating in all-of-government efforts in their states to address housing affordability needs by making excess property and even underutilized property (such as parking lots) available for housing developers. For these reasons, this paper identifies Real Estate Management as a key function in defining state DOT capacity and proposes to define an effective state transportation department as one that “maximizes the use of all agency-owned real estate, either using property to advance transportation system objectives or making it available for other uses.”

Comparing States: How Can State DOTs Be Grouped Into Cohorts for Fair Comparison?

The second step in the previously-discussed three-part process of defining, measuring and comparing state capacity and effectiveness across state transportation departments requires grouping states and their transportation departments into cohorts that are similar enough to allow for fair comparison. A literature scan uncovered relatively few efforts to develop such cohorts (although some states have developed comparison cohorts to evaluate themselves against peers), so this effort was conducted primarily through a combination of (1) reviewing data available for all 51 state transportation departments and (2) conversations with current and former senior officials at state transportation departments about relevant comparison factors.

Based on the authors experience working with many state transportation departments while at a state DOT and the Federal Highway Administration, and on conversations with former and current state transportation leaders, six factors or characteristics were identified that seem to be most relevant to the work of state transportation departments.

Specifically, six key factors that can potentially help group states for purposes of comparison are:

Physical size of the state and its public road network
Extent to which the state’s population is or is not growing
The state’s urban/rural split
Relative importance of driving and transit use/non-driving modes in the state
Population density of the state
Size of the state’s transportation capital program

Next, various reliable data sets were evaluated for potential use, including those maintained by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Transit Administration and the US Census Bureau. Table 2 identifies the types of data that was collected and evaluated, whether or not it was ultimately used for the creation of the proposed cohorts.

The final step in the process of creating cohorts involved experimenting with different combinations of factors to divide the 51 states into a manageable number of cohorts of states that are sufficiently similar to allow for fair comparison. After trying out several different combinations of factors, a methodology was developed for dividing the states into cohorts using varying combinations of five of the six key comparability factors. (While the size of the state’s transportation capital programs is captured in the cohort data below, in the end that factor tracked well with the division of states into cohorts based on size (large vs. small/medium) and other factors and so was not used as an independent factor in establishing cohorts). This methodology divides the 51 states into five cohorts, two of which include twelve states and three of which include nine states.

Table 3 below contains information on which metrics were ultimately used to assess the homogeneity of at least one of the five cohorts and summarizes the source for that data. Two key sources of data are from the US Department of Transportation: the Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ State Transportation Statistics[38] and the Federal Highway Administration’s Highway Statistics 2023, particularly Table PS-1 titled “Selected Measures for Identifying Peer States.”[39] Which data comes from these two sources or from other sources is indicated in Table 3 below.

Using this data, the methodology that was ultimately used to create the five proposed cohorts was as follows (with the sections that follow providing additional detail on both the methodology and the specific cohorts):

Because growth – and population growth in particular – is a significant driver of a state transportation department’s concerns and investments, states were first divided into (those growing at roughly twice the national average from 2009-2024) and other states; ultimately twelve states were identified as growing states.
Because the extent to which state travel patterns do or do not include meaningful transit use is a significant driver of a state transportation department’s concerns and investments and the extent to which a state DOT may have a more multimodal focus, the remaining 39 states were then divided into (those with statewide public transportation commute shares at or above the national average); ultimately nine states were identified as high transit using states.
Because the proportion of a state’s population and public road network that is urban or rural is a significant driver of a state transportation department’s concerns and investments, the remaining 30 states were divided into 21 rural states and nine urbanized states.Given the number and diversity of the rural states, those were further subdivided by size to create a cohort of which are among the largest states in the US by land area and are also characterized by low population densities and higher amounts of driving per capita leading to those state transportation departments operating larger highway systems; ultimately nine states were identified as large rural states.
The remaining rural states share the high proportion of rural roads and population, low population densities and higher amounts of driving per capita as the large rural states, but are smaller in size and operate smaller highway networks than the large rural states and so are grouped into a cohort of ; ultimately twelve states were identified as small-medium rural states.
The remaining states share a relatively higher proportions of urban (vs. rural) population and public roads and so can be considered urbanized and also share medium population densities, such that their state transportation departments are likely more focused on urban roads and issues than rural states and so are grouped into a cohort of ; ultimately nine states were identified as medium density urbanized states.

The map below in Fig.1 illustrates the division of the 50 states and Washington DC into these five recommended cohorts for comparing state transportation departments.

The brief sections that follow provide additional detail on each of the recommended cohort groupings, including a discussion of the classification of a handful of states that could have been assigned to more than one cohort and how the decision was made as to which cohort in which to include them. Each section includes a table with relevant data on the states in that cohort, demonstrating their relative heterogeneity and therefore why the cohorts are sufficiently similar to allow for fair comparison among the state transportation departments within each cohort.

1. Growing States

This cohort of twelve states was selected primarily because of their relatively rapid population growth in recent years, with such growth shaping the state transportation department’s operating challenges and capital budget. Designation as a growing state was based on US Census data on state population growth between 2009 and 2024, as analyzed by The Pew Charitable Trusts for its Fiscal 50 data visualization project.[42] Over the 15 years from 2009 to 2024, the analysis found that the median population growth rate across the 50 states was 0.51% per year (Pew did not look at Washington, DC, so its growth rate was calculated using data from the US Census Bureau). The states in this cohort, however, grew at 1% or more annually, more than twice the national average. That data and other data used to assess this cohort are presented in Table 4 below.

As this data indicates, while these states were initially placed in a cohort based on growth rate, they frequently share other characteristics. They are generally medium-to-large in land area (not among the ten smallest states by land area or public road mileage) and have a mixture of urban and rural populations and road networks. Eight of these twelve states have low population density (under 150 people per square mile) and the remaining four have a medium population density (150-500 people per square mile). Eight of these twelve states also have higher vehicle miles travelled (VMT) per capita than the national median of 10,516 miles, sharing the challenges of both more driving and larger (and sometimes growing) public road networks. All of these shared characteristics reinforce these twelve states’ status as a cohort of states that can fairly be compared.

Initially, all states with population growth of 1%/year or more during this time period were considered for inclusion in this cohort but two – Delaware and Washington DC – were better fits for other cohorts. Delaware, with a 1.1% population growth rate, also fit the criteria for the Medium Density Urbanized cohort and was ultimately placed in that cohort given the state’s small size (measured by both land area and miles of public road), lower Vehicles Mile Travelled per capita and higher population density. Washington DC, with a 1.0% population growth rate, a better fit the criteria for High Transit-Using States, with the second-highest transit commute share among all states and a dense, highly-urbanized population and low Vehicle Miles Travelled per capita similar to the other states in that cohort.

2. High Transit-Using States

This cohort of nine states was selected primarily because of their high statewide transit commute share, which serves as an indication that the state transportation department may have a more multimodal focus with both concerns and investments more focused on transit than other states. According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ State Transportation Statistics data set for 2023[43], for the US as a whole public transportation accounted for 3.5% of commuting trips. All of these states (except California at 3.1%) exceed this average transit commute mode share. That data and other data used to assess this cohort are presented in Table 5 below.

As this data indicates, while these states were initially placed in a cohort based on relatively high transit use, they frequently share other characteristics. All nine states have population densities at least twice the national average population density of 87 people per square mile and five of the nine states have population densities more than five times the national average. None of the states average more than 10,000 Vehicle Miles Travelled per capita, below the national average of 10,516. All (except Washington DC as previously noted) are slower growing states. All but Pennsylvania have a more urban population than the national average. All of these shared characteristics are consistent with higher transit use and reinforce these nine states’ status as a cohort of states that can fairly be compared.

Initially, all states with a public transportation commute mode share above the national average of 3.5% were considered for inclusion in this cohort. California was added to the cohort with its 3.1% share as that was close to the national average and 3% transit commute mode share worked well as a cut-point, with the next state after California being Virginia with a 2.5% transit commute mode share. Washington, with its 4.0% transit commute share, could have been put in this cohort but was a better fit with the Growing States with its 1.2% 2009-2024 annual growth rate and much lower population density than any other state in the high transit-using cohort. Hawaii, with its 4.1% transit commute share, could also have been put in this cohort but was a better fit with the Medium Density Urbanized states cohort given its lower proportion of population that is urban and lower population density than almost all of the other high transit-using states.

3. Large Rural States

The 30 states remaining after creating the Growing States and High Transit Using States cohorts were then divided by whether the state was primarily rural or urban, since the proportion of a state’s population and public road network that is urban or rural is a significant driver of a state transportation department’s concerns and investments. Based on both the proportion of public road miles classified as rural and the proportion of the population classified as urban, the remaining 30 states were divided into 21 rural states and nine urbanized states. Given the number and diversity of the rural states, those were further subdivided by size to create a cohort of nine Large Rural States. The data used to create and assess this cohort are presented in Table 6 below.

The nine states in this cohort share many characteristics. They are large: the cohort includes all of the 16 largest states in the US ranked by land area other than the ones already included in the Growing States (six states) and High Transit-Using States (California) cohorts. They are rural: all of the states have a lower proportion of their population classified as urban than the 80.7% US average and all have 80% or more of their public road miles classified as rural (while the national average is 68% rural). All nine states share low population densities, with all below the national average of 87 people per square mile (and all but Minnesota below half of that national average density). Other than Alaska (which has a small road network) and Oregon (which has the highest proportion of urban dwellers and a relatively high transit commute mode share of 2.5%), all of the states in the cohort average more Vehicle Miles Travelled per capita than the national average of 10,516. All of these shared characteristics reinforce these nine states’ status as a cohort of states that can fairly be compared.

4. Small-Medium Rural States

As explained previously, 21 rural states were identified and then divided by size as measured by land area, with nine states placed into the Large Rural States cohort. The remaining twelve rural states were placed into this cohort of Small-Medium Rural States. The data used to create and assess this cohort are presented in Table 7 below.

The twelve states in this cohort share many characteristics. They are small or medium-sized when measured by land area: Vermont and West Virginia are among the ten smallest states in the US and the other ten states are medium-sized, ranking between 18th and 39th when states are ranked by land area. They are rural: all of the states have 72% or less of their population classified as urban, well under the 80.7% US average. Other than Louisiana (with 64% of its roads categorized as rural), all have a higher proportion of their public road miles classified as rural than the national average of 68% rural. All twelve states share relatively low population densities, with eight below the national average of 87 people per square mile and only three where the population density is slightly higher than 100 people per square mile. Other than West Virginia (which reports 8,899 vehicle miles travelled per capita) and Iowa (at 10,423), all of the states in the cohort average more Vehicle Miles Travelled per capita than the national average of 10,516. In eight of the states in this cohort, VMT per capita exceeds 11,000, which is sharply higher than the High Transit-Using States cohort where the highest VMT per capita is less than 9,300. All of these shared characteristics reinforce these twelve states’ status as a cohort of states that can fairly be compared.

5. Medium Density Urbanized States

The remaining nine states are neither Growing States nor High Transit-Using States nor rural states. While this final cohort is more heterogeneous in some ways than the first four cohorts, these states share critical characteristics with respect to size (small-to-medium) and urbanization but particularly with respect to population density, which is why this cohort is characterized as Medium Density Urbanized States. The data used to create and assess this cohort are presented in Table 8 below.

The nine states in this cohort share many characteristics. With respect to size, the cohorts are split between the 16 largest states ranked by land area (all of which, other than California, are in the Large Rural States and Growing States cohorts) and the remaining 35 small or medium states. With 14 of the small-to-medium states classified as High Transit-Using or Growing States, the 21 that remain have been sorted along rural/urban lines for reasons explained previously. Of those, twelve of those states are clearly rural and included in the Small-Medium Rural States cohort. That leaves nine small-to-medium, non-rural states.

The degree of urbanization varies among these nine states, measured by both the proportion of their population that is urban and the proportion of the road network that is urban. But it is fair to characterize them as “urbanized” if not “urban,” with all but New Hampshire and Tennessee having 70% or more of the population classified as urban and all having less than 70% of the public road network classified as rural. Importantly, given the relationship between population density and travel behavior, population density in this cohort is consistently higher than that in the two rural cohorts. All of the states in the Large Rural States cohort have a low population density of less than 100 people per square mile and all of those in the Small-Medium Rural States cohort have a low but slightly higher population density of less than 120. By contrast, all but one of the states in this cohort have a medium population density roughly between 150 and 500 people per square mile, which is twice to five times the national average of 87 people per square mile; the one exception is extremely dense Rhode Island with a density of just over 1,000 people per square mile. All of these shared characteristics reinforce these nine states’ status as a cohort of states that can fairly be compared.

Conclusions

Even with growing concern that state and local governments lack the capacity to deliver effectively – including on transportation infrastructure – there is not much consensus or even literature on how to define and measure state capacity at a sub-national level and fairly compare US states to one another with respect to their capacity to get the job done. This is true even for state transportation departments, despite concerns about rapidly increasing costs for delivering transportation projects and frustratingly long time-frames for successfully implementing critical policies (including those that address roadway safety). It is more important than ever to understand the extent to which state transportation departments have the capacity to meet public needs and expectations.

This paper presents the foundations for developing a complete methodology for defining, measuring and comparing state capacity and performance across state transportation departments. It presents the preliminary results for the first two steps – capacity and comparison – in what will eventually need to be a three-step process of:

Defining the key functions that are essential to the ability of state transportation departments to do their jobs as defined by federal and state law;
Grouping states and their transportation departments into cohorts that are similar enough to allow for a fair comparison across states; and
Using data to assess how well each state transportation department is doing at carrying out their key functions and compare states (within the cohorts) to assess which states are more or less effective.

The first step was to define a set of twelve “key functions” that state transportation departments must be able to carry out, including a succinct goal statement for each one. The first four functions are core functions that arguably apply generally to state agencies, not just transportation departments, and are essential in enabling effective execution of a state agency’s more issue-specific functions. The remaining eight functions are specific to state transportation departments and are presented in rough order of importance, beginning with safety. For each key function, the paper includes a brief rationale both for why a given function was selected as one of the twelve key functions and for the development of the goal statement associated with each of those functions.

The next step was to develop a methodology for allowing comparisons among states by grouping them into cohorts that are similar enough for valid comparison. Factors used to create the cohorts included a state’s land area (large vs. small-to-medium), its rural or urbanized nature based on both the state’s population and the urban/rural classification of its public road network, how fast the state’s population is growing, its population density and whether or not the state demonstrates relatively high transit usage measured statewide. (Two other factors, the overall size of the state’s transportation system and the size of the state’s transportation capital budget, are included in the cohort data presented in this paper but were ultimately not used to divide states into cohorts.) This methodology was used to create five cohorts of comparable states: Growing States, High Transit-Using States, Large Rural States, Small-Medium Rural States and Medium Density Urbanized States.

Once both the key functions and cohorts are further reviewed and validated, it will be possible to assess the state capacity and performance of state transportation departments by developing one or more metrics for each key function and then comparing states on those metrics within the five cohorts. State departments of transportation represent a particularly good opportunity for this type of granular work on state capacity because of their relative homogeneity, developed over a half-century of federal legislation and oversight and agency practice. But while the purpose of this paper was to look specifically at state departments of transportation, the framework used in this paper should equally be applicable to a broad range of stage agencies.

The work of states and their implementing agencies is more important than ever, at the same time as public skepticism about the ability of government to deliver is stronger than ever. More work like this is needed to define what stage agencies do, what they are working to accomplish for each of their key functions, what peer states are appropriate for comparison and ultimately how well state transportation agencies and other agencies are meeting their most critical, clearly defined functions. Without such a granular approach to defining and measuring state capacity, we lack the ability to address legitimate public skepticism and improve the capacity and performance of critically important state agencies including their transportation departments.

References

[1] See New York University Marron Institute of Urban Management Transit Costs Project https://transitcosts.com/

[2] Liscow, Zachary, 2024. “State Capacity for Building Infrastructure” In Strengthening America’s Economic Dynamism, edited by Melissa S. Kearney and Luke Pardue. Washington, DC: Aspen Institute. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14036826

[3] Schlieicher, David and Nicholas Bagley, 2025. “The State Capacity Crisis” Washington, DC: Niskanen Center. https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-state-capacity-crisis/

[4] Schlieicher and Bagley. 2005.

[5] I have both served as Secretary and CEO of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and as Deputy and Acting Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration within the United States Department of Transportation, a federal agency which works closely with all of the state transportation departments.

[6] See information on Stewardship and Oversight on the Federal Highway Administration website https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/federalaid/stewardship/

[7] This paper looks at 51 “states”, including Washington DC but excluding transportation departments in Puerto Rico and US territories.

[8] FHWA maintains a webpage with links to all of the state transportation department websites at https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/about/webstate.cfm

[9] “AASHTO Panel Talks State DOT Workforce Challenges” (Nov. 8. 2024) https://aashtojournal.transportation.org/aashto-panel-talks-state-dot-workforce-challenges/

[10] Liscow, Zachary, Will Nober, and Caitlin Slattery. 2023. “Procurement and Infrastructure Costs.” Working paper no. 31705. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w31705

[11] Liscow 2024.

[12] 23 U.S.C. § 150.

[13] Tomer, Adie and Ben Swedberg. 2024. “Connecting the DOTs: A Survey of State Transportation Planning, Investment and Accountability Practices.” Washington, DC: Brookings Metro. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/connecting-the-dots-a-survey-of-state-transportation-planning-investment-and-accountability-practices/

[14] Pahlka, Jennifer and Andrew Greenway. December 2024. “The How We Need Now: A Capacity Agenda for 2025 and Beyond” Washington, DC: Niskanen Center. https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-how-we-need-now-a-capacity-agenda-for-2025/

[15] Liscow 2024.

[16] General Accounting Office. April 2022. “Federal-Aid Highways: Information on State Use and Oversight of Engineering Consultants.” https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-104713

[17] Liscow, Nober and Slattery 2023.

[18] National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. September 2025. “Early Estimates of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities for the First Half (January-June) of 2025” chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813756

[19] Federal Highway Administration. October 2025. “State Safety Performance Targets.” https://highways.dot.gov/safety/hsip/spm/state-safety-performance-targets

[20] 23 U.S.C. § 134.

[21] Gian-Claudia Sciara. 2017. “Metropolitan Transportation Planning: Lessons From the Past, Institutions for the Future”, Journal of the American Planning Association, 83:3, 262-276. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2017.1322526

[22] Tomer and Swedberg 2024.

[23] AASHTO. “Transportation Asset Management Guide.” https://www.tamguide.com/

[24] Federal Highway Administration. 2022. “Highway Statistics Series” Table HM-81 State Highway Agency-Owned Public Roads – 2022. https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2022/hm81.cfm

[25] Federal Highway Administration. 2024. National Bridge Inventory: Bridge Condition by Owner 2024. https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/nbi/no10/owner24e.cfm#total

[26] FHWA. 2022. “Highway Statistics Series” Table HM-81 State Highway Agency-Owned Public Roads – 2022.

[27] Brookings news release November 19, 2024. “States are the hubs of American transportation governance, but lack accountability in how they plan and invest in transportation projects, new Brookings research shows.” https://www.brookings.edu/news/states-are-the-hubs-of-american-transportation-governance-but-lack-accountability-in-how-they-plan-and-invest-in-transportation-projects-new-brookings-research-shows/

[28] Urban Institute. 2024. “State and Local Backgrounders: Highway and Road Expenditures” https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/state-and-local-finance-initiative/state-and-local-backgrounders/highway-and-road-expenditures

[29] 23 USC . § 145(a).

[30] Tomer and Swedberg 2024.

[31] See New York University Marron Institute of Urban Management Transit Costs Project https://transitcosts.com/

[32] Liscow 2024.

[33] Urban Institute. April 2024.

[34] Liscow, Zachary. September 2025. “Reforming Permitting to Build Infrastructure.” Washington, DC: Hutchins Center on Fiscal & Monetary Policy at Brookings https://www.brookings.edu/articles/reforming-permitting-to-build-infrastructure/

[35] Liscow 2024.

[36] 23 CFR § 710.409.

[37] 49USC . § 5334(h)(1).

[38] US Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics. “State Transportation Statistics” https://www.bts.gov/product/state-transportation-statistics (see particularly States by the Numbers https://www.bts.gov/browse-statistical-products-and-data/state-transportation-statistics/state-transportation-numbers data for 2023).

[39] US Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration. January 2025. “Highway Statistics 2023” Table PS-1 Selected Measures for Identifying Peer States – 2023 https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2023/ps1.cfm

[40] The Pew Charitable Trusts. Updated March 2025. “Fiscal 50: Population Change (Data Visualization).” https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/data-visualizations/2014/fiscal-50/population-change?pop_hbar_sort=1

[41] Council of State Governments. 2023. “The Book of the States” Table 7.12 Transportation Expenditures – Capital Inclusive (In millions of dollars) https://bookofthestates.org/tables/2023-7-12/

[42] See endnote 39.

[43] See endnote 38.