County profile · official public datasets

Montgomery County, AL

596 public highway bridges tracked in the FHWA National Bridge Inventory: 37.9% rated Good, 59.9% Fair, 2.2% Poor.

596
Public bridges
37.9%
Good condition
2.2%
Poor condition

The verdict

According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory.

Montgomery County posts a better-than-median Poor-condition share among rated counties in the state across large county bridge inventory.

Top 40%
lowest Poor share in state
2.2%
Poor-condition share
596
public highway bridges
1975
avg year built

Poor is an FHWA condition category from the lowest applicable component rating (4 or below), not a live crossing-safety or closure decision. Rankings cover counties with at least five public highway bridges.

Montgomery County Bridge Snapshot

According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory, Montgomery County ranks #27 of 67 Alabama counties with at least 5 public highway bridges on Poor-condition share (lower share ranks better; currently 2.2%). Montgomery County, Alabama contains 596 public highway bridges. Roughly 37.9% are rated “Good,” 59.9% “Fair,” and 2.2% “Poor.” Poor means the lowest applicable deck, superstructure, substructure, or culvert rating is 4 or below on the 0–9 NBI scale. It is a condition category, not a live safety or closure decision.

Responsible agencies inspect covered bridges on risk-based intervals under current NBIS rules and submit inventory data to FHWA annually. The list below shows every NBI-tracked bridge in the county. Use the “Sort by” controls to change the ordering, and click any row for its reported inspection date, traffic count, and condition fields.

Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory. See methodology for full definitions.

Total bridges

596

Public highway bridges in Montgomery County

Good condition

37.9%

226 of 596 rated 7-9

Fair condition

59.9%

357 of 596 rated 5-6

Poor condition

2.2%

13 of 596 rated 4 or below

In-state Poor-share rank

#27 of 67

Among Alabama counties with 5+ bridges, lower share ranks better

Condition distribution

Share of 596 NBI-tracked bridges by lowest applicable component rating.

Good
37.9% (226)
Fair
59.9% (357)
Poor
2.2% (13)

Montgomery County's Poor-condition bridges carry 255,818 vehicle crossings a day

That is 4.6% of the county's reported daily bridge traffic on 2.1% of its bridges: Poor-condition structures carry more traffic than their share of the inventory. Each Poor bridge averages 21,318 crossings a day against 1,362 for a Good-condition one. A Poor rating is a condition category, not a closure or a live safety judgement; it means the lowest applicable component rating is 4 or below.

Computed over the 576 of 596 bridges in this county that report an average daily traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.

46.7% of Montgomery County's bridges have passed the 50-year mark

274 of the 587 bridges with a recorded construction year were built in 1974 or earlier. Age alone is not a defect: a well-maintained older bridge can rate Good, and 37.9% of this county's inventory does. Even so, this older cohort is the population from which future Poor ratings are drawn, which is why the age profile below matters alongside the condition split above.

Cutoff derives from the 2024 release year minus a 50-year design life. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.

One structure carries 40.8% of the county's Poor-condition bridge traffic

I-85 over S JACKSON ST, built 1969, carries 104,310 vehicles a day, the most of any Poor-rated structure here. The county's Poor-condition exposure is concentrated rather than evenly spread, so the 13-bridge count understates how much of the daily burden sits on a single crossing.

Share is of the 255,818 daily crossings on Poor-rated bridges that report a traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.

When Montgomery County's bridges were built

587 bridges with a recorded construction year, grouped by decade

bridges

What this shows Construction peaked in the 1960s, when 149 of the county's bridges still in the inventory were built, which is 25.4% of those with a recorded year. That cohort is now 55 to 64 years old in the 2024 inventory. Its average build year (1975) matches the Alabama average (1974).

Source FHWA National Bridge Inventory (year built) As of 2024 NBI release

How Montgomery County compares with Alabama's closest counties by inventory size

The 5 Alabama counties nearest Montgomery County in number of bridges, with their condition splits. Its 2.2% Poor share is the 4th-lowest of these 6. Its average build year of 1975 against a peer-group mean of 1979 is in line with the group.

Showing the 5 closest of 66 Alabama counties eligible for comparison.

Bridge inventory size and condition shares for Montgomery County and the 5 Alabama counties closest to it in inventory size
County Bridges Poor
Madison County 710 1.3%
Mobile County 612 2.8%
Montgomery County (this page) 596 2.2%
Tuscaloosa County 482 0.6%
Calhoun County 386 3.9%
Baldwin County 381 1.3%

Each share is of that county's own total tracked bridges; peers are the counties with 5 or more bridges whose inventory size is closest to Montgomery County's. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.

Nationwide counties with similar inventory size or average build year

Two NBI-derived peer sets for Montgomery County, both outside Alabama so the neighborhoods are not the same-state size table above.

Similar inventory size

Nearest county inventories outside AL (596 bridges here).

Similar average build year

Nearest mean year-built outside AL (1975 here).

Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release. Peers floor at 10 bridges so stub inventories cannot own the match.

Fair-condition bridges (357)

Data sourced from official public datasets. See our methodology for details. Retrieved and formatted by PlainBridges

Every figure on PlainBridges is rendered directly from federal source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page draws directly on federal source data, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. NBI condition categories reflect the latest reported inventory record, not a live safety, closure, or travel decision.