Total bridges
5
Public highway bridges in Pierce County
County profile · official public datasets
Pierce County, ND
5 public highway bridges tracked in the FHWA National Bridge Inventory: 60% rated Good, 20% Fair, 20% Poor.
- 5
- Public bridges
- 60%
- Good condition
- 20%
- Poor condition
The verdict
According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory.
Pierce 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.
- 48th
- of 53 on Poor share
- 20%
- Poor-condition share
- 5
- public highway bridges
- 1956
- 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.
Pierce County Bridge Snapshot
According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory, Pierce County ranks #48 of 53 North Dakota counties with at least 5 public highway bridges on Poor-condition share (lower share ranks better; currently 20%). Pierce County, North Dakota contains 5 public highway bridges. Roughly 60% are rated “Good,” 20% “Fair,” and 20% “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
60%
3 of 5 rated 7-9
Fair condition
20%
1 of 5 rated 5-6
Poor condition
20%
1 of 5 rated 4 or below
In-state Poor-share rank
#48 of 53
Among North Dakota counties with 5+ bridges, lower share ranks better
Condition distribution
Share of 5 NBI-tracked bridges by lowest applicable component rating.
Good 60% (3)
Fair 20% (1)
Poor 20% (1)
Pierce County's Poor-condition bridges carry 20 vehicle crossings a day
That is 1.3% of the county's reported daily bridge traffic on 20% of its bridges: Poor-condition structures carry less traffic than their share of the inventory. Each Poor bridge averages 20 crossings a day against 500 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 5 of 5 bridges in this county that report an average daily traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.
100% of Pierce County's bridges have passed the 50-year mark
5 of the 5 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 60% 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 100% of the county's Poor-condition bridge traffic
53rd Ave NE over CREEK, built 1970, carries 20 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 1-bridge count understates how much of the daily burden sits on a single crossing.
Share is of the 20 daily crossings on Poor-rated bridges that report a traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.
When Pierce County's bridges were built
5 bridges with a recorded construction year, grouped by decade
- 1930s
1930–1939
1 bridges
- 1950s
1950–1959
2 bridges
- 1960s
1960–1969
1 bridges
- 1970s
1970–1979
1 bridges
What this shows Construction peaked in the 1950s, when 2 of the county's bridges still in the inventory were built, which is 40% of those with a recorded year. That cohort is now 65 to 74 years old in the 2024 inventory. Its average build year is 1956, 19 years older than the North Dakota average of 1975.
How Pierce County compares with North Dakota's closest counties by inventory size
The 5 North Dakota counties nearest Pierce County in number of bridges, with their condition splits. Its 20% Poor share is the 6th-lowest of these 6. Its average build year of 1956 against a peer-group mean of 1971 is 15 years older.
Showing the 5 closest of 52 North Dakota counties eligible for comparison.
| County | Bridges | Good | Fair | Poor | Avg. built |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Divide County | 13 | 30.8% | 61.5% | 7.7% | 1975 |
| Logan County | 13 | 61.5% | 23.1% | 15.4% | 1973 |
| McIntosh County | 11 | 45.5% | 45.5% | 9.1% | 1973 |
| Kidder County | 10 | 10% | 90% | 0% | 1962 |
| Sheridan County | 8 | 87.5% | 12.5% | 0% | 1974 |
| Pierce County (this page) | 5 | 60% | 20% | 20% | 1956 |
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 Pierce County's. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.
Poor-condition bridges (1)
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.