Bay Area Roads Top List As Nation's Worst
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- More than 70 percent of the roadways in the San Francisco-Oakland area are in poor condition, forcing local drivers to spend nearly $1,000 annually to repair their vehicles, a national transportation research group's annual study revealed Tuesday.
The study by the Washington D.C.-based TRIP ranked San Francisco-Oakland's road as the worst of any major urban area in the country. With Los Angeles coming in second at 60 percent and San Jose third at 59 percent.
"Once again, California roads score badly in terms of pavement condition and cost to motorists from driving on a broken system," said Will Kempton, executive director of Transportation California, in a prepared release.
Among urban areas of less than 500,000 residents, Concord ranked as the top city when it came to dilapidated roads. The group found that 75 percent of Concord's streets were in poor condition with local residents spending $1,014 on repairs.
The Bast Bay city trailed just Oklahoma City when it came to annual cost of vehicle maintenance.
The group said conditions on local streets could deteriorate even more given the vehicle travel rates returning pre-recession levels and the increase of large truck traffic.
While California dominated the top 10 on the list, Michigan and Oklahoma also landed a pair of cities in the top 10 large urban areas. Detroit came in at fourth (55%) and Grand Rapids ninth (52%) while Oklahoma City came in eighth (53%) and Tulsa (49%) tenth.
