Total bridges
783
Public highway bridges in El Paso County
County profile · official public datasets
El Paso County, TX
783 public highway bridges tracked in the FHWA National Bridge Inventory: 54.4% rated Good, 44.8% Fair, 0.8% Poor.
- 783
- Public bridges
- 54.4%
- Good condition
- 0.8%
- Poor condition
The verdict
According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory.
El Paso 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
- 0.8%
- Poor-condition share
- 783
- public highway bridges
- 1986
- 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.
El Paso County Bridge Snapshot
According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory, El Paso County ranks #124 of 247 Texas counties with at least 5 public highway bridges on Poor-condition share (lower share ranks better; currently 0.8%). El Paso County, Texas contains 783 public highway bridges. Roughly 54.4% are rated “Good,” 44.8% “Fair,” and 0.8% “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
54.4%
426 of 783 rated 7-9
Fair condition
44.8%
351 of 783 rated 5-6
Poor condition
0.8%
6 of 783 rated 4 or below
In-state Poor-share rank
#124 of 247
Among Texas counties with 5+ bridges, lower share ranks better
Condition distribution
Share of 783 NBI-tracked bridges by lowest applicable component rating.
Good 54.4% (426)
Fair 44.8% (351)
Poor 0.8% (6)
El Paso County's Poor-condition bridges carry 37,097 vehicle crossings a day
That is 0.3% of the county's reported daily bridge traffic on 0.8% of its bridges: Poor-condition structures carry less traffic than their share of the inventory. Each Poor bridge averages 6,183 crossings a day against 15,845 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 783 of 783 bridges in this county that report an average daily traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.
39.1% of El Paso County's bridges have passed the 50-year mark
306 of the 783 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 54.4% 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 62.3% of the county's Poor-condition bridge traffic
US 85 EB over RIO GRANDE RIVER, built 1957, carries 23,118 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 6-bridge count understates how much of the daily burden sits on a single crossing.
Share is of the 37,097 daily crossings on Poor-rated bridges that report a traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.
When El Paso County's bridges were built
783 bridges with a recorded construction year, grouped by decade
- 1910s 1
1910–1919
1 bridges
- 1920s 5
1920–1929
5 bridges
- 1930s 17
1930–1939
17 bridges
- 1940s 13
1940–1949
13 bridges
- 1950s
1950–1959
68 bridges
- 1960s
1960–1969
121 bridges
- 1970s
1970–1979
126 bridges
- 1980s
1980–1989
75 bridges
- 1990s
1990–1999
79 bridges
- 2000s
2000–2009
76 bridges
- 2010s
2010–2019
158 bridges
- 2020s 44
2020–2029
44 bridges
What this shows Construction peaked in the 2010s, when 158 of the county's bridges still in the inventory were built, which is 20.2% of those with a recorded year. That cohort is now 5 to 14 years old in the 2024 inventory. Its average build year is 1986, 6 years newer than the Texas average of 1980.
How El Paso County compares with Texas's closest counties by inventory size
The 5 Texas counties nearest El Paso County in number of bridges, with their condition splits. Its 0.8% Poor share is the 3rd-lowest of these 6. Its average build year of 1986 against a peer-group mean of 1989 is in line with the group.
Showing the 5 closest of 246 Texas counties eligible for comparison.
| County | Bridges | Good | Fair | Poor | Avg. built |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fort Bend County | 795 | 72.8% | 24.7% | 2.5% | 1998 |
| El Paso County (this page) | 783 | 54.4% | 44.8% | 0.8% | 1986 |
| McLennan County | 714 | 51.8% | 46.2% | 2% | 1980 |
| Montgomery County | 710 | 69.2% | 30.1% | 0.7% | 1998 |
| Ellis County | 691 | 53.3% | 45.2% | 1.6% | 1987 |
| Bell County | 660 | 54.7% | 45% | 0.3% | 1984 |
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 El Paso 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 El Paso County, both outside Texas so the neighborhoods are not the same-state size table above.
Similar inventory size
Nearest county inventories outside TX (783 bridges here).
- Baltimore County, MD · 783 bridges
- Hamilton County, OH · 783 bridges
- Johnson County, KS · 781 bridges
- Fulton County, GA · 775 bridges
Similar average build year
Nearest mean year-built outside TX (1986 here).
- Caddo County, LA · avg 1986 · 682 bridges
- Weld County, CO · avg 1986 · 614 bridges
- Polk County, IA · avg 1986 · 545 bridges
- Canadian County, OK · avg 1986 · 493 bridges
Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release. Peers floor at 10 bridges so stub inventories cannot own the match.
Fair-condition bridges (351)
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.