America’s bridges are easy to ignore until one closes, develops a frightening restriction, or fails entirely. The Federal Highway Administration’s public InfoBridge database offers a remarkably direct way to see how those structures are performing, from nationwide trends down to individual bridge records.
InfoBridge is the public-facing portal for the FHWA’s Long-Term Bridge Performance program. Its tools allow users to filter bridges by location and other characteristics, inspect individual records, compare historical data, and view charts summarizing performance. The site’s dashboard also provides historical graphs and tabulated summaries for selected bridges, turning a huge federal dataset into something that students, researchers, infrastructure watchers, and curious commuters can actually explore. The FHWA’s InfoBridge home page provides access to the portal and its documentation.
The numbers explain why that access matters. The American Road & Transportation Builders Association’s analysis of the 2024 National Bridge Inventory found that approximately 221,800 U.S. bridges—36 percent of the country’s total—need major repair work or replacement. That includes 42,067 bridges classified as being in poor condition, crossed by motorists an estimated 168.5 million times each day. ARTBA also counted 76,175 bridges that should ultimately be replaced.
Those labels are more precise than a simple “old” or “unsafe” designation. Under federal rules, a bridge’s condition classification is based on ratings for its deck, superstructure, and substructure; the lowest applicable rating determines whether the structure falls into the Good, Fair, or Poor category. Ratings of 7 through 9 are Good, 5 or 6 are Fair, and 0 through 4 are Poor under the National Highway Performance Program’s criteria.
InfoBridge can show more than a static snapshot. The portal includes National Bridge Inventory records and Long-Term Bridge Performance research data, while its forecast tools use FHWA research to model how selected bridges may perform over time. The default forecast view uses the 2025 NBI data submission, although users can choose to search across historical submissions dating back to 1993.
That distinction is important: “poor” does not automatically mean a bridge is about to collapse, and age alone is not a diagnosis. A bridge may remain open under inspection, weight, or traffic restrictions while engineers plan repairs, while a structure rated Fair can still require substantial investment. What InfoBridge provides is visibility into the system engineers and transportation agencies use to track those decisions—and a useful reminder that maintaining infrastructure is an ongoing process, not a one-time construction job.
