The Reason Foundation said Tuesday that Missouri's doing a good job of maintaining its highway system.
"Missouri's state highway system is ranked 8th in the nation in overall highway performance and efficiency ... unchanged from the previous Annual Highway Report," the foundation said of data from 2009 - the most recent information available for making the best overall comparisons.
The foundation also noted Missouri's 33,638 miles of roads and bridges "is the 7th largest state-administered system."
MoDOT's new chief engineer, Ed Hassinger, said the report has good news and bad news for Missouri.
"We're delighted to be ranked 8th in overall performance and efficiency, and third in lowest administrative costs per mile," he said in a email.
"Because the data in this report is from 2009, it's not surprising we would rank high in road condition - at that time we were making significant investments to improve the condition of our system."
But, he added, the money used to make those improvements no longer is available in the amounts Missouri had in recent years.
That includes the $639 million in federal stimulus funds which became available beginning in 2009 and, in Mid-Missouri, paid for the new Missouri 17 bridge over the Osage River and the redesigned Missouri Boulevard/Missouri 179/U.S. 50 interchange in Jefferson City.
"Now our construction budget has fallen to less than $700 million per year. That's barely enough to take care of our (existing) system," Hassinger noted.
The Reason Foundation's report also reminded its readers that Missouri ranked 23rd two years ago, based on 2007 data, before climbing to 8th last year and this.
The report is based on comparing states in 11 different categories.
Chris Mitchell, the foundation's communications director, said 2009 is "the most recent year with nearly complete data available across the categories. If we mixed the available data - say 2012 traffic fatalities with 2010 rural lanes data and 2009 spending figures - it would be impossible to make year-to-year measurements on the progress being made by each state's road system."
The categories, with Missouri's national ranking listed in the report, are:
• Capital-Bridge disbursements per mile - 12.
• Maintenance disbursements per mile - 16.
• Administrative disbursements per mile - 3.
• Total disbursements per mile - 11.
• Rural interstate, percent in poor condition - 1.
• Rural, other principal arterial roads, percent in poor condition - 14.
• Urban interstate, percent in poor condition - 18.
• Urban interstate, percent congested - 16.
• Rural arterial roads, percent with narrow lanes - 36.
• Percent of deficient bridges - 37.
• Fatality rate - 28.
• Overall performance - 8.
"We are committed to taking the very best care of our system that we can, for as long as we can, with the resources we have," Hassinger said.
"But because we are dependent on fuel taxes that has become a diminishing revenue stream as cars get more fuel efficient and people drive less as a result of high gas prices, we face real challenges going forward."
Lawmakers this year failed to pass a proposal to raise sales taxes by a penny for 10 years, to provide more funding for some transportation projects.