Total bridges
37
Public highway bridges in Essex County
County profile · official public datasets
Essex County, VA
37 public highway bridges tracked in the FHWA National Bridge Inventory: 21.6% rated Good, 73% Fair, 5.4% Poor.
- 37
- Public bridges
- 21.6%
- Good condition
- 5.4%
- Poor condition
The verdict
According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory.
Essex County pairs a higher-than-median Poor-condition share among rated counties in the state with a newer average build year than the state inventory.
- 88th
- of 129 on Poor share
- 5.4%
- Poor-condition share
- 37
- public highway bridges
- 1980
- 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.
Essex County Bridge Snapshot
According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory, Essex County ranks #88 of 129 Virginia counties with at least 5 public highway bridges on Poor-condition share (lower share ranks better; currently 5.4%). Essex County, Virginia contains 37 public highway bridges. Roughly 21.6% are rated “Good,” 73% “Fair,” and 5.4% “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
21.6%
8 of 37 rated 7-9
Fair condition
73%
27 of 37 rated 5-6
Poor condition
5.4%
2 of 37 rated 4 or below
In-state Poor-share rank
#88 of 129
Among Virginia counties with 5+ bridges, lower share ranks better
Condition distribution
Share of 37 NBI-tracked bridges by lowest applicable component rating.
Good 21.6% (8)
Fair 73% (27)
Poor 5.4% (2)
Essex County's Poor-condition bridges carry 350 vehicle crossings a day
That is 0.3% of the county's reported daily bridge traffic on 5.4% of its bridges: Poor-condition structures carry less traffic than their share of the inventory. Each Poor bridge averages 175 crossings a day against 3,778 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 37 of 37 bridges in this county that report an average daily traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.
40.5% of Essex County's bridges have passed the 50-year mark
15 of the 37 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 21.6% 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 69.1% of the county's Poor-condition bridge traffic
GORDONS MILL RD. over PISCATAWAY CREEK, built 1923, carries 242 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 350 daily crossings on Poor-rated bridges that report a traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.
When Essex County's bridges were built
37 bridges with a recorded construction year, grouped by decade
- 1920s 1
1920–1929
1 bridges
- 1930s 1
1930–1939
1 bridges
- 1950s
1950–1959
5 bridges
- 1960s 3
1960–1969
3 bridges
- 1970s
1970–1979
5 bridges
- 1980s
1980–1989
6 bridges
- 1990s
1990–1999
10 bridges
- 2000s 2
2000–2009
2 bridges
- 2010s 2
2010–2019
2 bridges
- 2020s 2
2020–2029
2 bridges
What this shows Construction peaked in the 1990s, when 10 of the county's bridges still in the inventory were built, which is 27% of those with a recorded year. That cohort is now 25 to 34 years old in the 2024 inventory. Its average build year is 1980, 6 years newer than the Virginia average of 1974.
How Essex County compares with Virginia's closest counties by inventory size
The 5 Virginia counties nearest Essex County in number of bridges, with their condition splits. Its 5.4% Poor share is the 3rd-lowest of these 6. Its average build year of 1980 against a peer-group mean of 1971 is 9 years newer.
Showing the 5 closest of 128 Virginia counties eligible for comparison.
| County | Bridges | Good | Fair | Poor | Avg. built |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cumberland County | 39 | 59% | 38.5% | 2.6% | 1978 |
| Clarke County | 38 | 28.9% | 71.1% | 0% | 1968 |
| Essex County (this page) | 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 |
| Powhatan County | 34 | 20.6% | 73.5% | 5.9% | 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 Essex 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 Essex County, both outside Virginia so the neighborhoods are not the same-state size table above.
Similar inventory size
Nearest county inventories outside VA (37 bridges here).
- Sitka City and County, AK · 37 bridges
- Suwannee County, FL · 37 bridges
- Teton County, ID · 37 bridges
- Dickinson County, MI · 37 bridges
Similar average build year
Nearest mean year-built outside VA (1980 here).
- Tulsa County, OK · avg 1980 · 1,135 bridges
- Miami-Dade County, FL · avg 1980 · 1,057 bridges
- Pulaski County, AR · avg 1980 · 721 bridges
- McLennan County, TX · avg 1980 · 714 bridges
Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release. Peers floor at 10 bridges so stub inventories cannot own the match.
Good-condition bridges (8)
DUNBROOKE ROAD
GoodOver: PISCATAWAY CREEK
0.1M RTE647-0.9M RTE 642, Essex, VA
Built 2020 Load: 45.4 t ADT: 832
PILKINGTON ROAD
GoodOver: OCCUPACIA CREEK
1.5M RTE636-0.9M RTE637, Essex, VA
Built 2016 Load: 46.2 t ADT: 203
CHURCH LANE
GoodOver: TIGNOR CREEK
0.01M NCL-1.18M SCL TAPP., Essex, VA
Built 2016 Load: 54.6 t ADT: 6,755
LATANES MILL RD.
GoodOver: PISCATAWAY CREEK
1.1M RTE623-0.1M RTE647, Essex, VA
Built 1994 Load: 55.9 t ADT: 430
CHURCH LANE
GoodOver: HOSKINS CREEK
0.0M CL TAPPA-1.6M RTE360, Essex, VA
Built 2003 Load: 56.2 t ADT: 21,115
BESTLAND RD.
GoodOver: DRAGON RUN
0.9M RTE607-1.0M RTE684, Essex, VA
Built 2023 Load: 61.4 t ADT: 370
CHEATWOOD MILL RD
GoodOver: HOSKINS CREEK
0.5M RTE626-1.0M RTE676, Essex, VA
Built 1988 Load: 65.0 t ADT: 106
OCCUPACIA ROAD
GoodOver: OCCUPACIA CREEK
1.2M RTE658-0.2M RTE17, Essex, VA
Built 2007 Load: 67.0 t ADT: 411
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.