Total bridges
10
Public highway bridges in Lea County
County profile · official public datasets
Lea County, NM
10 public highway bridges tracked in the FHWA National Bridge Inventory: 10% rated Good, 90% Fair, 0% Poor.
- 10
- Public bridges
- 10%
- Good condition
- 0%
- Poor condition
The verdict
According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory.
Lea 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 22%
- lowest Poor share in state
- 0%
- Poor-condition share
- 10
- public highway bridges
- 1967
- 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.
Lea County Bridge Snapshot
According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory, Lea County ranks #7 of 32 New Mexico counties with at least 5 public highway bridges on Poor-condition share (lower share ranks better; currently 0%). Lea County, New Mexico contains 10 public highway bridges. Roughly 10% are rated “Good,” 90% “Fair,” and 0% “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.
Good condition
10%
1 of 10 rated 7-9
Fair condition
90%
9 of 10 rated 5-6
Poor condition
0%
0 of 10 rated 4 or below
In-state Poor-share rank
#7 of 32
Among New Mexico counties with 5+ bridges, lower share ranks better
Condition distribution
Share of 10 NBI-tracked bridges by lowest applicable component rating.
Good 10% (1)
Fair 90% (9)
Poor 0% (0)
80% of Lea County's bridges have passed the 50-year mark
8 of the 10 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 10% 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.
When Lea County's bridges were built
10 bridges with a recorded construction year, grouped by decade
- 1930s
1930–1939
3 bridges
- 1970s
1970–1979
6 bridges
- 2010s 1
2010–2019
1 bridges
What this shows Construction peaked in the 1970s, when 6 of the county's bridges still in the inventory were built, which is 60% of those with a recorded year. That cohort is now 45 to 54 years old in the 2024 inventory. Its average build year is 1967, 6 years older than the New Mexico average of 1973.
How Lea County compares with New Mexico's closest counties by inventory size
The 5 New Mexico counties nearest Lea County in number of bridges, with their condition splits. Its 0% Poor share is the 4th-lowest of these 6. Its average build year of 1967 against a peer-group mean of 1969 is in line with the group.
Showing the 5 closest of 31 New Mexico counties eligible for comparison.
| County | Bridges | Good | Fair | Poor | Avg. built |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Valencia County | 48 | 27.1% | 68.8% | 4.2% | 1977 |
| De Baca County | 24 | 8.3% | 91.7% | 0% | 1959 |
| Curry County | 21 | 47.6% | 52.4% | 0% | 1984 |
| Harding County | 13 | 53.8% | 46.2% | 0% | 1977 |
| Lea County (this page) | 10 | 10% | 90% | 0% | 1967 |
| Roosevelt County | 9 | 33.3% | 66.7% | 0% | 1947 |
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 Lea 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 Lea County, both outside New Mexico so the neighborhoods are not the same-state size table above.
Similar inventory size
Nearest county inventories outside NM (10 bridges here).
- Lake and Peninsula County, AK · 10 bridges
- Gilchrist County, FL · 10 bridges
- Storey County, NV · 10 bridges
- Kidder County, ND · 10 bridges
Similar average build year
Nearest mean year-built outside NM (1967 here).
- Los Angeles County, CA · avg 1967 · 3,547 bridges
- Allegheny County, PA · avg 1967 · 1,294 bridges
- Sonoma County, CA · avg 1967 · 609 bridges
- Merced County, CA · avg 1967 · 528 bridges
Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release. Peers floor at 10 bridges so stub inventories cannot own the match.
Poor-condition bridges (0)
Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Related
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.