Massachusetts highways ranked among the worst in the country when it comes to overall performance and cost effectiveness, according to a new national study, but Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack argues the calculations are off.

“Every year that report comes out we’re sort of down at the bottom because of the way we do things in Massachusetts and we count things a little differently,” Pollack said. “We think we spend that money well.”

A study released Wednesday by the Reason Foundation, a public policy research nonprofit organization, ranked Massachusetts No. 46 out of the 50 states for the worst performance and cost-effectiveness, following closely behind New York, Rhode Island, Alaska and Hawaii. Though the average American spends 35 hours a year stuck in traffic, drivers in Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, California and Georgia experience the longest delays, the report found.

Massachusetts, New Jersey, Florida, New York and Connecticut spent the most on highways on a per-mile basis, with each state spending more than $200,000 per mile of highway it controls.

“The way the Reason Foundation assembles its numbers ends up treating Massachusetts in a way that we don’t think presents an accurate picture of the cost-effectiveness of our spending,” Pollack countered.

The secretary pointed to the state’s five-year $18.3 billion transportation Capital Investment Plan, which was recently finalized for fiscal years 2020-2024 and identifies long-term investments and funding obligations to update transportation infrastructure.

Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito pointed to an $18 billion transportation bond bill filed by the administration, requesting an additional capital authorization to invest in building and modernizing the transportation system. The authorization would be used to fund existing programs as well as several new initiatives.

“The investments that we’re making in transportation are critical,” Polito said.

Pollack’s office later said the report uses “outdated spending data that is nearly a decade old and is no longer accurate,” and that there have been “many process and systems improvements made within the last decade.” It also pointed to a section of the report that deems Massachusetts’ roads the safest in the country through the low traffic-fatality rate.