These Bay Area Cities Have The Best, Worst Streets. See How Your Town Ranks

LARKSPUR, CA — How are your local roads? Smooth and newly paved? Or full of cracks and potholes?

A new report analyzing the Bay Area’s roads, published by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, allows residents to view the health of their streets online.

This year marks the tenth consecutive year Bay Area streets have ranked an average score of 67, according to MTC.

“The new pavement numbers present a mix of good news and bad news,” said MTC Chair and Pleasant Hill Mayor Sue Noack. “The sheer size of the Bay Area’s local streets and roads network makes this a hard needle to move.”

Some of the worst roads in the region are in Oakland, Berkeley, Petaluma and Concord, the report found. Meanwhile, the best roads were in Larkspur, Palo Alto and Cupertino.

Each city was ranked by its Pavement Condition Index, which measures a road’s wear and tear. Scores range from 0 to 100 and reflect each city’s three-year moving average ending in 2024. A score of 0 indicates a completely worn-down or broken street, while 100 indicates new or newly repaved streets.

The only city with a “poor” rating was Vallejo in Solano County, which scored 44 in 2024. Oakland was listed as “at-risk” with a score of 58. Larkspur received an 87, the highest overall in the Bay Area.

In addition to Larkspur, six other Bay Area cities scored in the “very good” range for the 2022 to 2024 period, including Palo Alto, Orinda and Cupertino.

Meanwhile, Pacifica, Petaluma and unincorporated Napa County moved from “poor” to “at-risk,” with three-year scores of 50. San Francisco improved by one point from 2023 to 75.

The MTC report said overall pavement conditions across the Bay Area’s 44,000 lane-miles of local streets remain in “fair” territory, with many roads showing serious wear and likely needing rehabilitation soon. PCI scores of 90 or higher are considered “excellent,” 80–89 “very good,” 70–79 “good,” 60–69 “fair,” 50–59 “at-risk” and 25–49 “poor.” Roads scoring below 25 are considered “failed.”

Among the region’s three largest cities, San José’s three-year moving average rose to 73 from 71, San Francisco’s to 75 from 74, and Oakland’s to 58 from 57.

St. Helena in Napa County achieved the biggest one-year gain, with its 50 lane-miles scoring 63, up from 52 the year before. Other cities with significant improvements included Colma (84, up from 74), Los Gatos (82, up from 75), Atherton (79, up from 73) and Mill Valley (79, up from 74).

Larkspur earned the title of "Bay Area pavement champion" for 2024, with streets scoring 87 on both the one-year and three-year indexes, MTC said.

As recently as 2017, the city reported “poor” ratings but passed local sales tax measures to rehabilitate its 65-lane-mile street network.

Other cities with three-year scores in the “very good” range for 2022–2024 included Palo Alto (83), Orinda and Cupertino (82), Hillsborough and unincorporated Solano County (81), and Los Altos Hills (80).

See how your city ranked here.