I think it's a snow thing - asphalt seems to wear down really fast in rural PA, probably from freezing at nights and snow and ice, so you can't do paving as cheaply out in the mountains or so on. The county dumps gravel down once a year and let's passing traffic wear it smoother over time, but it sucks to drive on fresh.

Freeze thaw and Temp range. MN may experience air temps from -20 to 100 over the course of a year. And you might experience 50 degree swings in a week (-20 to +30).

Absolutely. The freeze thaw cycle is brutal on asphalt in many ways. Surface cracks expand, frost heaves distort and the material itself weakens. This is before any additional damage caused by plowing or ice scraping.

A lot of that is the road profile. Western NY has notably better county highways than PA because they tend to have wide shoulders that mitigate plow damage and frost heaving on the he edges.