Total bridges
53
Public highway bridges in Rains County
County profile · official public datasets
Rains County, TX
53 public highway bridges tracked in the FHWA National Bridge Inventory: 45.3% rated Good, 50.9% Fair, 3.8% Poor.
- 53
- Public bridges
- 45.3%
- Good condition
- 3.8%
- Poor condition
The verdict
According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory.
Rains County posts a higher-than-median Poor-condition share among rated counties in the state across rated county bridge inventory.
- 226th
- of 247 on Poor share
- 3.8%
- Poor-condition share
- 53
- public highway bridges
- 1979
- 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.
Rains County Bridge Snapshot
According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory, Rains County ranks #226 of 247 Texas counties with at least 5 public highway bridges on Poor-condition share (lower share ranks better; currently 3.8%). Rains County, Texas contains 53 public highway bridges. Roughly 45.3% are rated “Good,” 50.9% “Fair,” and 3.8% “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
45.3%
24 of 53 rated 7-9
Fair condition
50.9%
27 of 53 rated 5-6
Poor condition
3.8%
2 of 53 rated 4 or below
In-state Poor-share rank
#226 of 247
Among Texas counties with 5+ bridges, lower share ranks better
Condition distribution
Share of 53 NBI-tracked bridges by lowest applicable component rating.
Good 45.3% (24)
Fair 50.9% (27)
Poor 3.8% (2)
Rains County's Poor-condition bridges carry 60 vehicle crossings a day
That is 0.1% of the county's reported daily bridge traffic on 3.8% of its bridges: Poor-condition structures carry less traffic than their share of the inventory. Each Poor bridge averages 30 crossings a day against 1,595 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 53 of 53 bridges in this county that report an average daily traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.
43.4% of Rains County's bridges have passed the 50-year mark
23 of the 53 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 45.3% 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 50% of the county's Poor-condition bridge traffic
CR 1495 over Little Slough Branch, built 1997, carries 30 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 60 daily crossings on Poor-rated bridges that report a traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.
When Rains County's bridges were built
53 bridges with a recorded construction year, grouped by decade
- 1920s 2
1920–1929
2 bridges
- 1940s 2
1940–1949
2 bridges
- 1950s
1950–1959
12 bridges
- 1960s
1960–1969
7 bridges
- 1970s 3
1970–1979
3 bridges
- 1980s 1
1980–1989
1 bridges
- 1990s
1990–1999
13 bridges
- 2000s
2000–2009
9 bridges
- 2010s 3
2010–2019
3 bridges
- 2020s 1
2020–2029
1 bridges
What this shows Construction peaked in the 1990s, when 13 of the county's bridges still in the inventory were built, which is 24.5% of those with a recorded year. That cohort is now 25 to 34 years old in the 2024 inventory. Its average build year (1979) matches the Texas average (1980).
How Rains County compares with Texas's closest counties by inventory size
The 5 Texas counties nearest Rains County in number of bridges, with their condition splits. Its 3.8% Poor share is the 6th-lowest of these 6. Its average build year of 1979 against a peer-group mean of 1960 is 19 years newer.
Showing the 5 closest of 246 Texas counties eligible for comparison.
| County | Bridges | Good | Fair | Poor | Avg. built |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sterling County | 54 | 55.6% | 44.4% | 0% | 1966 |
| Ward County | 54 | 18.5% | 79.6% | 1.9% | 1964 |
| Terrell County | 53 | 54.7% | 45.3% | 0% | 1957 |
| Throckmorton County | 53 | 56.6% | 41.5% | 1.9% | 1954 |
| Rains County (this page) | 53 | 45.3% | 50.9% | 3.8% | 1979 |
| Borden County | 52 | 53.8% | 46.2% | 0% | 1957 |
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 Rains 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 Rains County, both outside Texas so the neighborhoods are not the same-state size table above.
Similar inventory size
Nearest county inventories outside TX (53 bridges here).
- Cleburne County, AR · 53 bridges
- Citrus County, FL · 53 bridges
- Lumpkin County, GA · 53 bridges
- Stewart County, GA · 53 bridges
Similar average build year
Nearest mean year-built outside TX (1979 here).
- Pima County, AZ · avg 1979 · 1,150 bridges
- Jefferson County, KY · avg 1979 · 662 bridges
- Spartanburg County, SC · avg 1979 · 638 bridges
- McPherson County, KS · avg 1979 · 586 bridges
Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release. Peers floor at 10 bridges so stub inventories cannot own the match.
Poor-condition bridges (2)
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.