(thousands of kilometers)

Embedded Dataset Excel:

Dataset Excel:

Notes:

A public road is any road under the jurisdiction of and maintained by a public authority (federal, state, county, town or township, local government or instrumentality thereof) and open to public travel. No consistent data on private road mileage is available (although prior to 1980 some nonpublic roadway mileage is included). Most data is provided by the states to the US DOT Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Some years contain FHWA estimates for some states. 

Numbers may not add to totals due to rounding.

1 kilometer = 0.621371 miles.

Description:

KEY:  N = data does not exist.

^a 1960-95 data includes the 50 states and the District of Columbia; 1996-2008 data includes the 50 states, District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico; 2011-16 data includes the 50 states and the District of Columbia; 2017-18 data includes the 50 states, Puerto Rico (data may be incomplete), and the District of Columbia.

^b  Paved mileage includes the following categories: low type (an earth, gravel, or stone roadway that has a bituminous surface course less than 1" thick); intermediate type (a mixed bituminous or bituminous penetration roadway on a flexible base having a combined surface and base thickness of less than 7"); high-type flexible (a mixed bituminous or bituminous penetration roadway on a flexible base having a combined surface and base thickness of 7" or more; high-type composite (a mixed bituminous or bituminous penetration roadway of more than 1" compacted material on a rigid base with a combined surface and base thickness of 7" or more; high-type rigid (Portland cement concrete roadway with or without a bituminous wearing surface of less than 1"). 

^c Beginning in 1997, data is no longer available for paved minor collectors and local public roads.

^d Unpaved mileage includes the following categories: unimproved roadways using the natural surface and maintained to permit passability; graded and drained roadways of natural earth aligned and graded to permit reasonably convenient use by motor vehicles, and that have adequate drainage to prevent serious impairment of the road by normal surface water–surface may be stabilized; and soil, gravel, or stone roadways drained and graded with a surface of mixed soil, gravel, crushed stone, slag, shell, etc.–surface may be stabilized. The percentage of unpaved roads that are nonsurfaced dropped from approximately 42% in the 1960s to about 37% in the first half of the 1970s, to about 32% in 1980 and has held at about 22% since 1985. 

Source:

1960-95: U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, Highway Statistics Summary to 1995 (Washington, DC), table HM-212, available at https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics.cfm as of Jan. 7, 2010.

1996-2008: U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, Highway Statistics (Washington, DC: Annual issues), table HM-12, available at https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics.cfm as of Jan. 7, 2010.

2009-2010: Due to the transition for data model, there are no plans for U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration to produce the data for those years currently.

2011-20: U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, Highway Statistics (Washington, DC: Annual issues), table HM-12, available at https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics.cfm as of Dec. 20, 2021.