Gov. Tim Kaine has an unlikely ally in his running feud with state Republicans: the Reason Foundation -- a free-market think tank where fans of high taxes and big government are scarcer than snowmen in the Sahara.

The governor cited the Foundation's research on transportation efficiency in his address opening the General Assembly's special session: Virginia has administrative expenses less than half the national average, below-average maintenance outlays, aggregate road expenditures that are the seventh-lowest in the country, and the second-lowest level of expenditure for construction and bridges in the country.

Now the Foundation has produced an update of its study on state highway system performance. The study notes that Virginia ranks 16th in overall performance and cost-effectiveness -- moving up two notches from the year before. That means the Kaine administration has made VDOT more efficient and effective.

Virginia also ranks 16th in fatalities. Virginia has 1.2 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. The Old Dominion ranks first in the nation for the condition of its rural interstate roadways, which probably helps reduce its fatality rate.

Virginia ranks 22nd in bridge safety; 23 percent of the state's bridges are considered structurally deficient or obsolete. Virginia also ranks 22nd in urban interstate congestion, but that comparatively high ranking masks a more sobering statistic: 42 percent of its urban interstate lane miles are congested. (On the flip side: Given the problems in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, most of the state is virtually congestion-free.)

And here's an eye-opener: Virginia ranks first (or, depending on your perspective, last) in capital outlays for state-controlled roads and bridges. The commonwealth spends $16,796 per state-controlled mile. The national average is $67,089. The state is in the middle of the pack (ranking 24th) for maintenance expenditures. Those figures reflect the oft-noted fact that Virginia's practice of spending money for maintenance first is leaving less and less money for construction.

Readers can figure out for themselves the interplay between those numbers -- e.g., how the low capital outlay for bridges now might affect bridge obsolescence in the future.

Republicans in the legislature sought to deflect Kaine's call for more highway investment by demanding yet another audit of VDOT, thereby implying the agency might be a cesspool of waste and inefficiency. The Reason Foundation study suggests to the contrary that VDOT has been getting more efficient, not less -- and that those who sincerely want to find solutions probably need to look elsewhere.