Total bridges
39
Public highway bridges in Cumberland County
County profile · official public datasets
Cumberland County, VA
39 public highway bridges tracked in the FHWA National Bridge Inventory: 59% rated Good, 38.5% Fair, 2.6% Poor.
- 39
- Public bridges
- 59%
- Good condition
- 2.6%
- Poor condition
The verdict
According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory.
Cumberland County posts a better-than-median Poor-condition share among rated counties in the state across rated county bridge inventory.
- Top 43%
- lowest Poor share in state
- 2.6%
- Poor-condition share
- 39
- public highway bridges
- 1978
- 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.
Cumberland County Bridge Snapshot
According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory, Cumberland County ranks #55 of 129 Virginia counties with at least 5 public highway bridges on Poor-condition share (lower share ranks better; currently 2.6%). Cumberland County, Virginia contains 39 public highway bridges. Roughly 59% are rated “Good,” 38.5% “Fair,” and 2.6% “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
59%
23 of 39 rated 7-9
Fair condition
38.5%
15 of 39 rated 5-6
Poor condition
2.6%
1 of 39 rated 4 or below
In-state Poor-share rank
#55 of 129
Among Virginia counties with 5+ bridges, lower share ranks better
Condition distribution
Share of 39 NBI-tracked bridges by lowest applicable component rating.
Good 59% (23)
Fair 38.5% (15)
Poor 2.6% (1)
Cumberland County's Poor-condition bridges carry 60 vehicle crossings a day
That is 0.4% of the county's reported daily bridge traffic on 2.6% of its bridges: Poor-condition structures carry less traffic than their share of the inventory. Each Poor bridge averages 60 crossings a day against 409 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 39 of 39 bridges in this county that report an average daily traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.
51.3% of Cumberland County's bridges have passed the 50-year mark
20 of the 39 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 59% 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
Ligontown Road over Angola Creek, built 1960, carries 60 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 60 daily crossings on Poor-rated bridges that report a traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.
When Cumberland County's bridges were built
39 bridges with a recorded construction year, grouped by decade
- 1930s
1930–1939
4 bridges
- 1940s 1
1940–1949
1 bridges
- 1950s 2
1950–1959
2 bridges
- 1960s
1960–1969
9 bridges
- 1970s
1970–1979
4 bridges
- 1980s 3
1980–1989
3 bridges
- 1990s
1990–1999
8 bridges
- 2000s 1
2000–2009
1 bridges
- 2010s
2010–2019
6 bridges
- 2020s 1
2020–2029
1 bridges
What this shows Construction peaked in the 1960s, when 9 of the county's bridges still in the inventory were built, which is 23.1% of those with a recorded year. That cohort is now 55 to 64 years old in the 2024 inventory. Its average build year (1978) matches the Virginia average (1974).
How Cumberland County compares with Virginia's closest counties by inventory size
The 5 Virginia counties nearest Cumberland County in number of bridges, with their condition splits. Its 2.6% Poor share is the 2nd-lowest of these 6. Its average build year of 1978 against a peer-group mean of 1972 is 6 years newer.
Showing the 5 closest of 128 Virginia counties eligible for comparison.
| County | Bridges | Good | Fair | Poor | Avg. built |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Petersburg city County | 41 | 29.3% | 61% | 9.8% | 1979 |
| Cumberland County (this page) | 39 | 59% | 38.5% | 2.6% | 1978 |
| Clarke County | 38 | 28.9% | 71.1% | 0% | 1968 |
| Essex County | 37 | 21.6% | 73% | 5.4% | 1980 |
| Bristol city County | 34 | 35.3% | 50% | 14.7% | 1954 |
| Harrisonburg city County | 34 | 44.1% | 41.2% | 14.7% | 1977 |
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 Cumberland 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 Cumberland County, both outside Virginia so the neighborhoods are not the same-state size table above.
Similar inventory size
Nearest county inventories outside VA (39 bridges here).
- Costilla County, CO · 39 bridges
- Ouray County, CO · 39 bridges
- Edmonson County, KY · 39 bridges
- McCreary County, KY · 39 bridges
Similar average build year
Nearest mean year-built outside VA (1978 here).
- Orange County, CA · avg 1978 · 1,164 bridges
- Sumner County, KS · avg 1978 · 659 bridges
- Allen County, IN · avg 1978 · 613 bridges
- Livingston County, IL · avg 1978 · 579 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.