Total bridges
144
Public highway bridges in Howard County
County profile · official public datasets
Howard County, TX
144 public highway bridges tracked in the FHWA National Bridge Inventory: 36.1% rated Good, 63.2% Fair, 0.7% Poor.
- 144
- Public bridges
- 36.1%
- Good condition
- 0.7%
- Poor condition
The verdict
According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory.
Howard County pairs a better-than-median Poor-condition share among rated counties in the state with an older average build year than the state inventory.
- Top 46%
- lowest Poor share in state
- 0.7%
- Poor-condition share
- 144
- public highway bridges
- 1974
- 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.
Howard County Bridge Snapshot
According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory, Howard County ranks #113 of 247 Texas counties with at least 5 public highway bridges on Poor-condition share (lower share ranks better; currently 0.7%). Howard County, Texas contains 144 public highway bridges. Roughly 36.1% are rated “Good,” 63.2% “Fair,” and 0.7% “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
36.1%
52 of 144 rated 7-9
Fair condition
63.2%
91 of 144 rated 5-6
Poor condition
0.7%
1 of 144 rated 4 or below
In-state Poor-share rank
#113 of 247
Among Texas counties with 5+ bridges, lower share ranks better
Condition distribution
Share of 144 NBI-tracked bridges by lowest applicable component rating.
Good 36.1% (52)
Fair 63.2% (91)
Poor 0.7% (1)
Howard County's Poor-condition bridges carry 6,098 vehicle crossings a day
That is 0.7% of the county's reported daily bridge traffic on 0.7% of its bridges: Poor-condition structures carry the same share of traffic than their share of the inventory. Each Poor bridge averages 6,098 crossings a day against 4,174 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 144 of 144 bridges in this county that report an average daily traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.
68.8% of Howard County's bridges have passed the 50-year mark
99 of the 144 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 36.1% 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
SH 350 over IH 20, built 1964, carries 6,098 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 6,098 daily crossings on Poor-rated bridges that report a traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.
When Howard County's bridges were built
144 bridges with a recorded construction year, grouped by decade
- 1930s 10
1930–1939
10 bridges
- 1940s 3
1940–1949
3 bridges
- 1950s
1950–1959
42 bridges
- 1960s
1960–1969
40 bridges
- 1970s 8
1970–1979
8 bridges
- 1980s 7
1980–1989
7 bridges
- 1990s 2
1990–1999
2 bridges
- 2000s 3
2000–2009
3 bridges
- 2010s 13
2010–2019
13 bridges
- 2020s 16
2020–2029
16 bridges
What this shows Construction peaked in the 1950s, when 42 of the county's bridges still in the inventory were built, which is 29.2% of those with a recorded year. That cohort is now 65 to 74 years old in the 2024 inventory. Its average build year is 1974, 6 years older than the Texas average of 1980.
How Howard County compares with Texas's closest counties by inventory size
The 5 Texas counties nearest Howard County in number of bridges, with their condition splits. Its 0.7% Poor share is the 3rd-lowest of these 6. Its average build year of 1974 against a peer-group mean of 1965 is 9 years newer.
Showing the 5 closest of 246 Texas counties eligible for comparison.
| County | Bridges | Good | Fair | Poor | Avg. built |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bosque County | 145 | 45.5% | 53.1% | 1.4% | 1959 |
| Cass County | 145 | 44.1% | 55.9% | 0% | 1967 |
| Fisher County | 145 | 46.9% | 48.3% | 4.8% | 1962 |
| Ector County | 144 | 38.2% | 61.8% | 0% | 1974 |
| Karnes County | 144 | 43.8% | 54.9% | 1.4% | 1963 |
| Howard County (this page) | 144 | 36.1% | 63.2% | 0.7% | 1974 |
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 Howard 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 Howard County, both outside Texas so the neighborhoods are not the same-state size table above.
Similar inventory size
Nearest county inventories outside TX (144 bridges here).
- Muscatine County, IA · 144 bridges
- Anderson County, KS · 144 bridges
- Webster County, KY · 144 bridges
- Muskegon County, MI · 144 bridges
Similar average build year
Nearest mean year-built outside TX (1974 here).
- Knox County, TN · avg 1974 · 588 bridges
- Summit County, OH · avg 1974 · 563 bridges
- Onondaga County, NY · avg 1974 · 472 bridges
- Orange County, NY · avg 1974 · 472 bridges
Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release. Peers floor at 10 bridges so stub inventories cannot own the match.
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.