Total bridges
80
Public highway bridges in Isle of Wight County
County profile · official public datasets
Isle of Wight County, VA
80 public highway bridges tracked in the FHWA National Bridge Inventory: 30% rated Good, 65% Fair, 5% Poor.
- 80
- Public bridges
- 30%
- Good condition
- 5%
- Poor condition
The verdict
According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory.
Isle of Wight 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.
- 84th
- of 129 on Poor share
- 5%
- Poor-condition share
- 80
- 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.
Isle of Wight County Bridge Snapshot
According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory, Isle of Wight County ranks #84 of 129 Virginia counties with at least 5 public highway bridges on Poor-condition share (lower share ranks better; currently 5%). Isle of Wight County, Virginia contains 80 public highway bridges. Roughly 30% are rated “Good,” 65% “Fair,” and 5% “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
30%
24 of 80 rated 7-9
Fair condition
65%
52 of 80 rated 5-6
Poor condition
5%
4 of 80 rated 4 or below
In-state Poor-share rank
#84 of 129
Among Virginia counties with 5+ bridges, lower share ranks better
Condition distribution
Share of 80 NBI-tracked bridges by lowest applicable component rating.
Good 30% (24)
Fair 65% (52)
Poor 5% (4)
Isle of Wight County's Poor-condition bridges carry 11,721 vehicle crossings a day
That is 7.1% of the county's reported daily bridge traffic on 5% of its bridges: Poor-condition structures carry more traffic than their share of the inventory. Each Poor bridge averages 2,930 crossings a day against 785 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 80 of 80 bridges in this county that report an average daily traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.
48.8% of Isle of Wight County's bridges have passed the 50-year mark
39 of the 80 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 30% 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 90.3% of the county's Poor-condition bridge traffic
South Church St over Cypress Creek, built 1975, carries 10,582 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 4-bridge count understates how much of the daily burden sits on a single crossing.
Share is of the 11,721 daily crossings on Poor-rated bridges that report a traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.
When Isle of Wight County's bridges were built
80 bridges with a recorded construction year, grouped by decade
- 1930s 3
1930–1939
3 bridges
- 1940s 6
1940–1949
6 bridges
- 1950s
1950–1959
16 bridges
- 1960s 6
1960–1969
6 bridges
- 1970s
1970–1979
12 bridges
- 1980s 5
1980–1989
5 bridges
- 1990s
1990–1999
12 bridges
- 2000s
2000–2009
10 bridges
- 2010s 6
2010–2019
6 bridges
- 2020s 4
2020–2029
4 bridges
What this shows Construction peaked in the 1950s, when 16 of the county's bridges still in the inventory were built, which is 20% of those with a recorded year. That cohort is now 65 to 74 years old in the 2024 inventory. Its average build year is 1979, 5 years newer than the Virginia average of 1974.
How Isle of Wight County compares with Virginia's closest counties by inventory size
The 5 Virginia counties nearest Isle of Wight County in number of bridges, with their condition splits. Its 5% Poor share is the 4th-lowest of these 6. Its average build year of 1979 against a peer-group mean of 1974 is 5 years newer.
Showing the 5 closest of 128 Virginia counties eligible for comparison.
| County | Bridges | Good | Fair | Poor | Avg. built |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prince Edward County | 82 | 42.7% | 51.2% | 6.1% | 1978 |
| Warren County | 81 | 34.6% | 64.2% | 1.2% | 1974 |
| Lynchburg city County | 80 | 55% | 42.5% | 2.5% | 1977 |
| Madison County | 80 | 28.8% | 65% | 6.3% | 1971 |
| Isle of Wight County (this page) | 80 | 30% | 65% | 5% | 1979 |
| Dickenson County | 76 | 7.9% | 90.8% | 1.3% | 1970 |
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 Isle of Wight 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 Isle of Wight County, both outside Virginia so the neighborhoods are not the same-state size table above.
Similar inventory size
Nearest county inventories outside VA (80 bridges here).
- Moffat County, CO · 80 bridges
- Burke County, GA · 80 bridges
- Gooding County, ID · 80 bridges
- Madison County, ID · 80 bridges
Similar average build year
Nearest mean year-built outside VA (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.
Fair-condition bridges (52)
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.