Total bridges
16
Public highway bridges in Cataño County
County profile · official public datasets
Cataño County, PR
16 public highway bridges tracked in the FHWA National Bridge Inventory: 6.3% rated Good, 81.3% Fair, 12.5% Poor.
- 16
- Public bridges
- 6.3%
- Good condition
- 12.5%
- Poor condition
The verdict
According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory.
Cataño County posts a better-than-median Poor-condition share among rated counties in the state across rated county bridge inventory.
- Top 41%
- lowest Poor share in state
- 12.5%
- Poor-condition share
- 16
- public highway bridges
- 1970
- 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.
Cataño County Bridge Snapshot
According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory, Cataño County ranks #30 of 74 Puerto Rico counties with at least 5 public highway bridges on Poor-condition share (lower share ranks better; currently 12.5%). Cataño County, Puerto Rico contains 16 public highway bridges. Roughly 6.3% are rated “Good,” 81.3% “Fair,” and 12.5% “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
6.3%
1 of 16 rated 7-9
Fair condition
81.3%
13 of 16 rated 5-6
Poor condition
12.5%
2 of 16 rated 4 or below
In-state Poor-share rank
#30 of 74
Among Puerto Rico counties with 5+ bridges, lower share ranks better
Condition distribution
Share of 16 NBI-tracked bridges by lowest applicable component rating.
Good 6.3% (1)
Fair 81.3% (13)
Poor 12.5% (2)
Cataño County's Poor-condition bridges carry 115,800 vehicle crossings a day
That is 9.7% of the county's reported daily bridge traffic on 12.5% of its bridges: Poor-condition structures carry less traffic than their share of the inventory. Each Poor bridge averages 57,900 crossings a day against 48,500 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 16 of 16 bridges in this county that report an average daily traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.
81.3% of Cataño County's bridges have passed the 50-year mark
13 of the 16 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 6.3% 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 86.9% of the county's Poor-condition bridge traffic
PR 22 WESTBOUND over BAYAMON & HONDO RIVE, built 1976, carries 100,600 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 115,800 daily crossings on Poor-rated bridges that report a traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.
When Cataño County's bridges were built
16 bridges with a recorded construction year, grouped by decade
- 1940s 2
1940–1949
2 bridges
- 1950s 1
1950–1959
1 bridges
- 1970s
1970–1979
11 bridges
- 1980s 1
1980–1989
1 bridges
- 2000s 1
2000–2009
1 bridges
What this shows Construction peaked in the 1970s, when 11 of the county's bridges still in the inventory were built, which is 68.8% of those with a recorded year. That cohort is now 45 to 54 years old in the 2024 inventory. Its average build year (1970) matches the Puerto Rico average (1974).
How Cataño County compares with Puerto Rico's closest counties by inventory size
The 5 Puerto Rico counties nearest Cataño County in number of bridges, with their condition splits. Its 12.5% Poor share is the 5th-lowest of these 6. Its average build year of 1970 against a peer-group mean of 1981 is 11 years older.
Showing the 5 closest of 73 Puerto Rico counties eligible for comparison.
| County | Bridges | Good | Fair | Poor | Avg. built |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hormigueros County | 17 | 29.4% | 58.8% | 11.8% | 1990 |
| Toa Alta County | 17 | 41.2% | 47.1% | 11.8% | 1981 |
| Comerío County | 16 | 25% | 75% | 0% | 1980 |
| Lares County | 16 | 12.5% | 81.3% | 6.3% | 1968 |
| Vega Alta County | 16 | 12.5% | 68.8% | 18.8% | 1984 |
| Cataño County (this page) | 16 | 6.3% | 81.3% | 12.5% | 1970 |
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 Cataño 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 Cataño County, both outside Puerto Rico so the neighborhoods are not the same-state size table above.
Similar inventory size
Nearest county inventories outside PR (16 bridges here).
- Aleutians East County, AK · 16 bridges
- North Slope County, AK · 16 bridges
- Alamosa County, CO · 16 bridges
- Grant County, KS · 16 bridges
Similar average build year
Nearest mean year-built outside PR (1970 here).
- Hamilton County, OH · avg 1970 · 783 bridges
- Yavapai County, AZ · avg 1970 · 543 bridges
- Garfield County, OK · avg 1970 · 504 bridges
- San Luis Obispo County, CA · avg 1970 · 401 bridges
Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release. Peers floor at 10 bridges so stub inventories cannot own the match.
Good-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.