About BridgeSafety
Is the bridge you drive over safe?
What we do
BridgeSafety translates the federal bridge inventory into searchable condition grades for every road bridge in the country.
We focus on U.S. bridge safety and structural condition. Every page on bridgesafety.org is built from the FHWA National Bridge Inventory (NBI), cited and linkable so readers can trace any number back to its source.
Who runs this
BridgeSafety is built and maintained by the BridgeSafety Team. We're a small group working on making public U.S. bridge safety and structural condition data easier for non-specialists to read. If you have a correction, a data tip, or a question about how a number was derived, the contact email below reaches us directly.
Who this is for
BridgeSafety is built for commuters, civil engineers, transportation reporters, and local officials.
Why this exists
Public data on U.S. bridge safety and structural condition is technically free, but practically locked behind file formats, acronyms, and paywalled dashboards. BridgeSafetyexists to close that gap: take the raw federal and public-sector data, and turn it into pages a normal person can read in thirty seconds.
How we work
- Primary source only. We pull from the FHWA National Bridge Inventory (NBI) and cite the exact dataset and version on every page.
- No invented numbers. If a figure is not in the underlying public data, it does not appear on bridgesafety.org. We never generate synthetic statistics to fill gaps.
- Methodology, in plain English. We parse the FHWA annual National Bridge Inventory release, normalize each bridge’s deck, superstructure, and substructure condition ratings, and compute a single readable condition grade. The sufficiency rating and any structural-deficiency flag are carried through verbatim.
- Refreshed on a schedule. Refreshed once per year, within roughly 60 days of FHWA posting the annual NBI file.
- Corrections welcome. Readers flag issues all the time. When the source fixes a record, BridgeSafety follows.
Known limitations
NBI inspections happen on state-set intervals (typically two years), so recent repairs or closures may not yet appear. Sufficiency ratings are assigned by each state DOT and inspection rigor varies; we do not publish load ratings or live weight postings.
Why the NBI is the right dataset for bridge-safety reporting
The Federal Highway Administration maintains the National Bridge Inventory (NBI) — a complete record of every public road bridge in the United States longer than 20 feet. The dataset includes the bridge’s age, structural condition, average daily traffic, river or feature crossed, owning agency, and the formal sufficiency rating that determines federal funding eligibility for replacement or rehabilitation. The NBI is updated annually as each state submits its inspection results.
For public bridge-safety analysis, the NBI is the only comprehensive dataset that exists. State and local agencies maintain their own inspection records, but only the NBI rolls everything up to a national, methodologically-consistent picture. Every structurally deficient or fracture-critical bridge in the country appears in this dataset, alongside every routine bridge that is operating normally.
BridgeSafety publishes the NBI data in a public-facing format. Every state page summarizes the state’s bridge inventory; every county page narrows to the county level; every bridge detail page surfaces the specific NBI record. Every numeric value links back to the originating FHWA NBI dataset.
How the pipeline works
The pipeline pulls the annual NBI release from FHWA when each new vintage publishes. The pull includes every bridge in the United States; the per-state and per-county pages aggregate the same dataset to different geographic levels. The data does not refresh more often than annually because that is the FHWA publication cadence.
The Structurally Deficient designation is the most important single field. A bridge gets that designation when at least one of its primary components (deck, superstructure, substructure) is rated in poor or worse condition on the FHWA 0-9 condition scale. Structurally deficient does not mean unsafe for traffic — FHWA explicitly notes that bridges with this designation remain open and safe when they meet load-rating requirements — but it does mean the structure has reached a condition where rehabilitation or replacement is needed.
The Fracture Critical designation applies separately. A bridge is fracture-critical when its design includes a tension element whose failure would collapse the structure. Fracture-critical bridges are inspected on a tighter schedule (typically every two years) and the designation flags additional structural risk. Both Structurally Deficient and Fracture Critical are reported on every bridge detail page.
Where the NBI has known limits
Three things to know. First, the NBI covers bridges over 20 feet on public roads — it excludes private bridges, footbridges, and rail bridges. Pedestrian and bike-path bridges shorter than 20 feet are not in the dataset. Railroad bridges are covered by a separate inspection regime under the FRA.
Second, condition ratings are inspector judgments calibrated against a federal scale, but inspector-to-inspector variation does exist. A bridge rated 5 by one inspector might be rated 4 by another whose calibration runs stricter. The trend over time on a specific bridge is more reliable than the absolute rating in any single year.
Third, sufficiency rating is a composite federal score that determines funding eligibility, not a direct measure of safety. A bridge can have a low sufficiency rating because of capacity or geometric issues rather than structural condition. The detail pages on the site surface both the structural condition fields and the sufficiency rating so readers can see which factors are driving the headline number.
Independence
BridgeSafety is an independent publication. We are not funded, owned, or directed by any of the agencies, companies, or organizations that appear in our data. Hosting is paid for by advertising — see our Privacy Policy for details — and we do not take paid placements, sponsored rankings, or "remove-my-entry" fees.
History
BridgeSafety launched in 2026 as part of a small portfolio of independent public-data sites. It has been maintained and updated continuously since.
Contact
Tips, corrections, data-partnership questions, and press inquiries: hello@bridgesafety.org. More options on our contact page.