County profile · official public datasets

Hodgeman County, KS

109 public highway bridges tracked in the FHWA National Bridge Inventory: 44% rated Good, 54.1% Fair, 1.8% Poor.

109
Public bridges
44%
Good condition
1.8%
Poor condition

The verdict

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

Hodgeman County pairs a top-quartile lowest Poor-condition share among rated counties in the state with an older average build year than the state inventory.

Top 24%
lowest Poor share in state
1.8%
Poor-condition share
109
public highway bridges
1963
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.

Hodgeman County Bridge Snapshot

According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory, Hodgeman County ranks #25 of 104 Kansas counties with at least 5 public highway bridges on Poor-condition share (lower share ranks better; currently 1.8%). Hodgeman County, Kansas contains 109 public highway bridges. Roughly 44% are rated “Good,” 54.1% “Fair,” and 1.8% “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

109

Public highway bridges in Hodgeman County

Good condition

44%

48 of 109 rated 7-9

Fair condition

54.1%

59 of 109 rated 5-6

Poor condition

1.8%

2 of 109 rated 4 or below

In-state Poor-share rank

#25 of 104

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

Condition distribution

Share of 109 NBI-tracked bridges by lowest applicable component rating.

Good
44% (48)
Fair
54.1% (59)
Poor
1.8% (2)

Hodgeman County's Poor-condition bridges carry 55 vehicle crossings a day

That is 0.1% of the county's reported daily bridge traffic on 1.8% of its bridges: Poor-condition structures carry less traffic than their share of the inventory. Each Poor bridge averages 28 crossings a day against 623 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 109 of 109 bridges in this county that report an average daily traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.

66.1% of Hodgeman County's bridges have passed the 50-year mark

72 of the 109 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 44% 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 54.5% of the county's Poor-condition bridge traffic

R Road over PAWNEE RIVER, built 1940, carries 30 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 2-bridge count understates how much of the daily burden sits on a single crossing.

Share is of the 55 daily crossings on Poor-rated bridges that report a traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.

When Hodgeman County's bridges were built

109 bridges with a recorded construction year, grouped by decade

bridges

What this shows Construction peaked in the 1930s, when 21 of the county's bridges still in the inventory were built, which is 19.3% of those with a recorded year. That cohort is now 85 to 94 years old in the 2024 inventory. Its average build year is 1963, 9 years older than the Kansas average of 1972.

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

How Hodgeman County compares with Kansas's closest counties by inventory size

The 5 Kansas counties nearest Hodgeman County in number of bridges, with their condition splits. Its 1.8% Poor share is the 3rd-lowest of these 6. Its average build year of 1963 against a peer-group mean of 1968 is 5 years older.

Showing the 5 closest of 103 Kansas counties eligible for comparison.

Bridge inventory size and condition shares for Hodgeman County and the 5 Kansas counties closest to it in inventory size
County Bridges Poor
Sheridan County 116 9.5%
Comanche County 110 0.9%
Gove County 109 1.8%
Hodgeman County (this page) 109 1.8%
Sherman County 105 1.9%
Rawlins County 103 14.6%

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 Hodgeman 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 Hodgeman County, both outside Kansas so the neighborhoods are not the same-state size table above.

Similar inventory size

Nearest county inventories outside KS (109 bridges here).

Similar average build year

Nearest mean year-built outside KS (1963 here).

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

Fair-condition bridges (59)

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.