Total bridges
559
Public highway bridges in Chautauqua County
County profile · official public datasets
Chautauqua County, NY
559 public highway bridges tracked in the FHWA National Bridge Inventory: 44% rated Good, 46.3% Fair, 9.7% Poor.
- 559
- Public bridges
- 44%
- Good condition
- 9.7%
- Poor condition
The verdict
According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory.
Chautauqua County pairs a better-than-median Poor-condition share among rated counties in the state with a newer average build year than the state inventory.
- Top 50%
- lowest Poor share in state
- 9.7%
- Poor-condition share
- 559
- public highway bridges
- 1977
- 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.
Chautauqua County Bridge Snapshot
According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory, Chautauqua County ranks #31 of 62 New York counties with at least 5 public highway bridges on Poor-condition share (lower share ranks better; currently 9.7%). Chautauqua County, New York contains 559 public highway bridges. Roughly 44% are rated “Good,” 46.3% “Fair,” and 9.7% “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.
Good condition
44%
246 of 559 rated 7-9
Fair condition
46.3%
259 of 559 rated 5-6
Poor condition
9.7%
54 of 559 rated 4 or below
In-state Poor-share rank
#31 of 62
Among New York counties with 5+ bridges, lower share ranks better
Condition distribution
Share of 559 NBI-tracked bridges by lowest applicable component rating.
Good 44% (246)
Fair 46.3% (259)
Poor 9.7% (54)
Chautauqua County's Poor-condition bridges carry 94,849 vehicle crossings a day
That is 6.7% of the county's reported daily bridge traffic on 9.4% of its bridges: Poor-condition structures carry less traffic than their share of the inventory. Each Poor bridge averages 1,824 crossings a day against 2,396 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 556 of 559 bridges in this county that report an average daily traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.
44.2% of Chautauqua County's bridges have passed the 50-year mark
247 of the 559 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 15.9% of the county's Poor-condition bridge traffic
RTE I86 over BALL CREEK CHAUTAUQUA L, built 1982, carries 15,071 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 54-bridge count understates how much of the daily burden sits on a single crossing.
Share is of the 94,849 daily crossings on Poor-rated bridges that report a traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.
When Chautauqua County's bridges were built
559 bridges with a recorded construction year, grouped by decade
- pre-1900 2
Built before 1900
2 bridges
- 1900s 1
1900–1909
1 bridges
- 1910s 2
1910–1919
2 bridges
- 1920s 10
1920–1929
10 bridges
- 1930s
1930–1939
43 bridges
- 1940s 13
1940–1949
13 bridges
- 1950s
1950–1959
101 bridges
- 1960s 34
1960–1969
34 bridges
- 1970s
1970–1979
73 bridges
- 1980s
1980–1989
77 bridges
- 1990s
1990–1999
91 bridges
- 2000s
2000–2009
55 bridges
- 2010s
2010–2019
47 bridges
- 2020s 10
2020–2029
10 bridges
What this shows Construction peaked in the 1950s, when 101 of the county's bridges still in the inventory were built, which is 18.1% of those with a recorded year. That cohort is now 65 to 74 years old in the 2024 inventory. Its average build year is 1977, 5 years newer than the New York average of 1972.
How Chautauqua County compares with New York's closest counties by inventory size
The 5 New York counties nearest Chautauqua County in number of bridges, with their condition splits. Its 9.7% Poor share is the 4th-lowest of these 6. Its average build year of 1977 against a peer-group mean of 1976 is in line with the group.
Showing the 5 closest of 61 New York counties eligible for comparison.
| County | Bridges | Good | Fair | Poor | Avg. built |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steuben County | 627 | 41.5% | 54.4% | 4.1% | 1984 |
| Monroe County | 615 | 36.4% | 52.7% | 10.9% | 1975 |
| Chautauqua County (this page) | 559 | 44% | 46.3% | 9.7% | 1977 |
| Queens County | 514 | 30.4% | 62.3% | 7.4% | 1966 |
| Oneida County | 496 | 46.2% | 42.3% | 11.5% | 1972 |
| Cattaraugus County | 484 | 55.4% | 38.4% | 6.2% | 1982 |
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 Chautauqua 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 Chautauqua County, both outside New York so the neighborhoods are not the same-state size table above.
Similar inventory size
Nearest county inventories outside NY (559 bridges here).
- Larimer County, CO · 559 bridges
- Yakima County, WA · 558 bridges
- Pottawattamie County, IA · 557 bridges
- Shawnee County, KS · 563 bridges
Similar average build year
Nearest mean year-built outside NY (1977 here).
- San Diego County, CA · avg 1977 · 1,632 bridges
- King County, WA · avg 1977 · 1,238 bridges
- Riverside County, CA · avg 1977 · 1,117 bridges
- Shelby County, TN · avg 1977 · 1,077 bridges
Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release. Peers floor at 10 bridges so stub inventories cannot own the match.
Poor-condition bridges (54)
CREAMERY ROAD
PoorOver: TRIB LAKE ERIE
2.1 MILES SW OF WESTFIELD, Chautauqua, NY
Built 1939 Load: 60.8 t ADT: 171
RTE I86
PoorOver: RTE 394
1.1 MILES WEST KENNEDY IN, Chautauqua, NY
Built 1971 Load: 63.5 t ADT: 4,926
STONE ROAD
PoorOver: CASSADAGA CREEK
1.1 MI EAST OF FALCONER, Chautauqua, NY
Built 1987 Load: 67.1 t ADT: 1,021
HAMLET ROAD
PoorOver: FARRINGTON BROOK
.1 MI W OF INTERSEC CR 72, Chautauqua, NY
Built 1989 Load: 68.0 t ADT: 30
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.