The development of ordinary national highways in China has now transitioned from ‘increasing capacity through expansion’ to a new stage of ‘optimizing existing assets and addressing gaps.’ In order to effectively enhance the overall efficiency of the national highway network, coordinate the improvement of incremental capacity while activating existing assets, comprehensively improve resource allocation efficiency, and better support economic and social development, it is necessary to further strengthen the central government’s expenditure responsibility for funding the full life-cycle construction and maintenance of ordinary national highways. This study identifies the problems and difficulties facing the development of ordinary national highways from four aspects: unclear boundaries of responsibilities between the central and local governments, lack of coordination in construction and maintenance processes, growing funding gaps for the maintenance of existing projects, and challenges in advancing new projects. Furthermore, the study systematically proposes recommendations for reinforcing the central government’s expenditure responsibility for the full life cycle construction and maintenance of ordinary national highways, including designating highway maintenance works as a central government’s responsibility, incorporating maintenance expenditure into fixed asset investment statistics, improving the central government funding guarantee mechanisms for highway maintenance, and expanding the Refined Oil Excise Tax into a Broad-based Energy Consumption tax. These recommendations provide decision-making references to alleviate funding gaps for highway maintenance, optimize regional coordination, and enhance the overall efficiency of the road network and the investment effectiveness of the sector.