Total bridges
5
Public highway bridges in Mathews County
County profile · official public datasets
Mathews County, VA
5 public highway bridges tracked in the FHWA National Bridge Inventory: 0% rated Good, 60% Fair, 40% Poor.
- 5
- Public bridges
- 0%
- Good condition
- 40%
- Poor condition
The verdict
According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory.
Mathews County pairs a higher-than-median Poor-condition share among rated counties in the state with an older average build year than the state inventory.
- 129th
- of 129 on Poor share
- 40%
- Poor-condition share
- 5
- public highway bridges
- 1963
- 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.
Mathews County Bridge Snapshot
According to the Federal Highway Administration's 2024 National Bridge Inventory, Mathews County ranks #129 of 129 Virginia counties with at least 5 public highway bridges on Poor-condition share (lower share ranks better; currently 40%). Mathews County, Virginia contains 5 public highway bridges. Roughly 0% are rated “Good,” 60% “Fair,” and 40% “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
0%
0 of 5 rated 7-9
Fair condition
60%
3 of 5 rated 5-6
Poor condition
40%
2 of 5 rated 4 or below
In-state Poor-share rank
#129 of 129
Among Virginia counties with 5+ bridges, lower share ranks better
Condition distribution
Share of 5 NBI-tracked bridges by lowest applicable component rating.
Good 0% (0)
Fair 60% (3)
Poor 40% (2)
Mathews County's Poor-condition bridges carry 20,503 vehicle crossings a day
That is 87.6% of the county's reported daily bridge traffic on 40% of its bridges: Poor-condition structures carry more traffic than their share of the inventory. 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 5 of 5 bridges in this county that report an average daily traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.
80% of Mathews County's bridges have passed the 50-year mark
4 of the 5 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 0% 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 68% of the county's Poor-condition bridge traffic
WBL over BURKE MILL STREAM, built 1948, carries 13,944 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 20,503 daily crossings on Poor-rated bridges that report a traffic count. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.
When Mathews County's bridges were built
5 bridges with a recorded construction year, grouped by decade
- 1930s
1930–1939
1 bridges
- 1940s
1940–1949
2 bridges
- 1970s
1970–1979
1 bridges
- 2000s
2000–2009
1 bridges
What this shows Construction peaked in the 1940s, when 2 of the county's bridges still in the inventory were built, which is 40% of those with a recorded year. That cohort is now 75 to 84 years old in the 2024 inventory. Its average build year is 1963, 11 years older than the Virginia average of 1974.
How Mathews County compares with Virginia's closest counties by inventory size
The 5 Virginia counties nearest Mathews County in number of bridges, with their condition splits. Its 40% Poor share is the 6th-lowest of these 6. Its average build year of 1963 against a peer-group mean of 1986 is 23 years older.
Showing the 5 closest of 128 Virginia counties eligible for comparison.
| County | Bridges | Good | Fair | Poor | Avg. built |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Emporia city County | 7 | 57.1% | 42.9% | 0% | 1984 |
| Fairfax city County | 7 | 42.9% | 57.1% | 0% | 1983 |
| Falls Church city County | 5 | 60% | 20% | 20% | 1998 |
| Galax city County | 5 | 40% | 60% | 0% | 1966 |
| Hopewell city County | 5 | 80% | 20% | 0% | 1999 |
| Mathews County (this page) | 5 | 0% | 60% | 40% | 1963 |
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 Mathews County's. Source: FHWA National Bridge Inventory, 2024 release.
Good-condition bridges (0)
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.