Find the North Carolina bridges classified in ‘poor’ condition by the federal government

Editor’s note: This story and visualization are part of our new “Data In Your Life” series, in which we mine public databases to tell quick stories about the world around us.

In the early hours of March 26, a 985-foot container ship struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, bringing a portion of the 1.6-mile-long bridge down in less than 40 seconds.

Although the Key Bridge might have fallen no matter its condition, the high-profile accident focused attention on bridge safety across the nation. The Federal Highway Administration maintains a public database of bridge ratings in every state that considers multiple parts of a bridge’s structure, including the deck, superstructure, substructure and culvert.

The federal government assigns three designations to rate the condition of bridges: Good, fair and poor. In 2023, the Key Bridge was in the “fair” group, along with about 49% of the country’s bridges. Another 44% are rated “good” and almost 7% are “poor.”

The Key Bridge in Baltimore relied on piers, which were essential to its structural integrity.

Without sufficient protective barriers surrounding the piers, other bridge components couldn’t compensate for the missing support when the large container ship, called the Dali, crashed into one of the piers, The New York Times reported in March. Even with stronger protective barriers, it’s possible the bridge still wouldn’t have been able to withstand a hit from such a large ship.

The state of North Carolina bridges

In North Carolina, 51.9 percent of the state’s thousands of bridges carry the “fair” rating. About 7.1 percent of North Carolina’s bridges were rated as in “poor” condition as of 2023. The data does not include the commonly used names of the bridges.

North Carolina has 13,700 bridges that the state Department of Transportation inspects. According to a previous report from The News & Observer, NCDOT estimates the cost of replacing “poor” bridges is $4 billion, much more than the $333 million in state funding and $139 million in federal funding allocated for that in 2024. An additional $47 million is set aside for maintenance and $86.5 million for preservation.

More info on North Carolina bridges:

• About one-third of the state’s bridges were built in the last 20 years.
• About 37% were built more than 50 years ago. 72% have no deficiencies. 20% are rated as “functionally obsolete,” which means the bridge is safe but no longer meets the demands of traffic but needs to be improved or replaced.
• The five counties with the highest share of structurally deficient bridges are all in the mountain region of the state, where flooding and landslides take more of a toll on roads: Ashe, 31%; Mitchell, 24%; Macon, 22%; Wilkes, 21%; and Madison, 20%. These five counties comprise 21% of all structurally deficient bridges.
  
  
• Approximately 2,000 bridges, or about 15%, have weight limits. Of those, about 1,200 are functionally obsolete or structurally deficient.

News & Observer data editor David Raynor contributed to this report.