County profile · official public datasets

McLean County, KY

75 public highway bridges tracked in the FHWA National Bridge Inventory: 8% rated Good, 81.3% Fair, 10.7% Poor.

Compiled by PlainBridges

75
Public bridges: 8%
Good condition: 10.7%
Poor condition

The verdict

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

McLean County pairs a higher-than-median Poor-condition share among rated counties in the state with an older average build year than the state inventory.

97th
of 120 on Poor share: 10.7%
Poor-condition share: 75
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.

McLean County Bridge Snapshot

According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory, McLean County ranks #97 of 120 Kentucky counties with at least 5 public highway bridges on Poor-condition share (lower share ranks better; currently 10.7%). McLean County, Kentucky contains 75 public highway bridges. Roughly 8% are rated “Good,” 81.3% “Fair,” and 10.7% “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

75

Public highway bridges in McLean County

Good condition

8%

6 of 75 rated 7-9

Fair condition

81.3%

61 of 75 rated 5-6

Poor condition

10.7%

8 of 75 rated 4 or below

In-state Poor-share rank

#97 of 120

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

Condition distribution

Share of 75 NBI-tracked bridges by lowest applicable component rating.

Good

8% (6)

Fair

81.3% (61)

Poor

10.7% (8)

McLean County's Poor-condition bridges carry 10,014 vehicle crossings a day

That is 11.2% of the county's reported daily bridge traffic on 10.7% of its bridges: Poor-condition structures carry more traffic than their share of the inventory. Each Poor bridge averages 1,252 crossings a day against 181 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 75 of 75 bridges in this county that report an average daily traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.

62.7% of McLean County's bridges have passed the 50-year mark

47 of the 75 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 8% 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 30.7% of the county's Poor-condition bridge traffic

KY-136 over MYER CREEK, built 1956, carries 3,076 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 8-bridge count understates how much of the daily burden sits on a single crossing.

Share is of the 10,014 daily crossings on Poor-rated bridges that report a traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.

1920s

7
1930s

13
1940s

6
1950s

14
1960s

5
1970s

7
1980s

5
1990s

12
2000s

2
2010s

2
2020s

2

What this shows Construction peaked in the 1950s, when 14 of the county's bridges still in the inventory were built, which is 18.7% of those with a recorded year. That cohort is now 65 to 74 years old in the 2024 inventory. Its average build year is 1963, 15 years older than the Kentucky average of 1978.

How McLean County compares with Kentucky's closest counties by inventory size

The 5 Kentucky counties nearest McLean County in number of bridges, with their condition splits. Its 10.7% Poor share is the 4th-lowest of these 6. Its average build year of 1963 against a peer-group mean of 1978 is 15 years older.

Showing the 5 closest of 119 Kentucky counties eligible for comparison.

Bridge inventory size and condition shares for McLean County and the 5 Kentucky counties closest to it in inventory size
County	Bridges	Good	Fair	Poor	Avg. built
Wolfe County	77	54.5%	41.6%	3.9%	1979
Wayne County	76	22.4%	61.8%	15.8%	1978
Mercer County	75	32%	61.3%	6.7%	1982
McLean County (this page)	75	8%	81.3%	10.7%	1963
Carlisle County	74	35.1%	62.2%	2.7%	1973
Montgomery County	74	23%	66.2%	10.8%	1978

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

Similar inventory size

Nearest county inventories outside KY (75 bridges here).

Washington County, CO · 75 bridges
Bradford County, FL · 75 bridges
Toombs County, GA · 75 bridges
Dent County, MO · 75 bridges

Similar average build year

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

Worcester County, MA · avg 1963 · 1,014 bridges
Honolulu County, HI · avg 1963 · 682 bridges
Chester County, PA · avg 1963 · 680 bridges
Essex County, NJ · avg 1963 · 505 bridges

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

All 75 Good 6 Fair 61 Poor 8

All bridges (75)

Sort:

KY-250

Over: WEST FORK OF BUCK CREEK

.5 MI W OF JCT KY 1080, McLean, KY

Built 1975 Load: 44.7 t ADT: 620

KY-1589

Over: CYPRESS CREEK

.60 MI EAST OF JCT KY 81, McLean, KY

Built 1956 Load: 45.0 t ADT: 137

US-431

Over: BUCK CREEK

.60 MI SOU. OF JCT KY 250, McLean, KY

Built 1968 Load: 47.1 t ADT: 6,309

KY-1046

Over: BR OF LONG FALLS CREEK

.30 MI SOU. OF JCT KY 140, McLean, KY

Built 1978 Load: 47.5 t ADT: 391

KY-796

Over: YELLOW CREEK

.1 MI W - KY 797, McLean, KY

Built 1993 Load: 50.0 t ADT: 66

KY-81

Over: MYER CREEK

.40 MI NOR. OF JCT KY 815, McLean, KY

Built 1937 Load: 50.1 t ADT: 4,105

KY-85

Over: CYPRESS CREEK

.2 MI E-KY 2226, McLean, KY

Built 1991 Load: 51.3 t ADT: 1,016

KY-136

Over: BR OF HAINER CREEK

.75 MI WEST OF JCT KY 798, McLean, KY

Built 1932 Load: 52.4 t ADT: 1,367

KY-593

Over: DELAWARE CREEK

.05 MI EAST OF JCT KY 258, McLean, KY

Built 1979 Load: 54.2 t ADT: 102

KY-1155

Over: CYPRESS CREEK

3.0 MI SOU. OF JCT KY 138, McLean, KY

Built 1967 Load: 59.1 t ADT: 351

STROUD-LEVY ROAD

Over: CYPRESS CREEK

.25 MI JCT KY 2226, McLean, KY

Built 2000 Load: 67.4 t ADT: 9

KY-256

Over: PORTERS DITCH

3.6 MI W OF JCT KY 81, McLean, KY

Built 1987 Load: 36.4 t ADT: 242

KY 2385

Over: BR OF POND DRAIN CR

0.75 MI WEST JCT KY 81, McLean, KY

Built 2018 Load: 38.9 t ADT: 145

McGEE CHAPEL ROAD

Over: UNNAMED STREAM TO GREEN

0.4 MI N. JCT KY 56, McLean, KY

Built 1955 Load: 39.9 t ADT: 30

BEULAH CHURCH ROAD

Over: BR OF LONG FALLS CREEK

.6 MI E. JCT KY 593, McLean, KY

Built 1990 Load: 45.1 t ADT: 194

CR 1215 Bell Road

Over: _Fork of Cypress Creek

1.0 mi N Jct KY1155, McLean, KY

Built 2016 Load: 46.5 t ADT: 32

KY 140

Over: Stroud Creek

1.3 MI W OF JCT KY 81, McLean, KY

Built 2022 Load: 50.5 t ADT: 440

KY-140

Over: BR OF LONG FALLS CREEK

.80 MI EAST OF JCT KY 815, McLean, KY

Built 1938 Load: 9.1 t ADT: 440

KY-81

Over: SLOUGH

.1 MI N OF JCT KY 1589, McLean, KY

Built 1925 Load: 18.0 t ADT: 1,508

KY-81

Over: UNNAME STREAM

AT MUHLENBERG - MCLEAN CL, McLean, KY

Built 1925 Load: 22.0 t ADT: 2,979

KY-2385

Over: POND DRAIN DITCH

1.5 MI W OF JCT KY 81, McLean, KY

Built 1988 Load: 32.2 t ADT: 145

KY-136

Over: BUCK CREEK

1.5 MI N.W. OF JCT US 431, McLean, KY

Built 1932 Load: 34.1 t ADT: 1,367

KY-140

Over: PORTERS DITCH

.20 MI NOR. OF JCT KY 136, McLean, KY

Built 1938 Load: 36.1 t ADT: 314

KY-136

Over: MYER CREEK

.20 MI EAST OF JCT KY 81, McLean, KY

Built 1956 Load: 39.9 t ADT: 3,076

KY-256

Over: YELLOW CREEK

.35 MI EAST OF JCT KY 797, McLean, KY

Built 1966 Load: 57.2 t ADT: 185

Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.

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

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Compiled by PlainBridges, Independent data publisher

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.