Jefferson County has the most bridges in Alabama. How safe are they?

Jefferson County has the most bridges in Alabama. How safe are they?

Over the next year, Jefferson County, which has more bridges than any other county in the state, plans to spend more than $50 million on projects involving bridge repairs and replacements, according to officials.

That’s a positive development for the 2.6 percent of the bridges in the county that have been assessed as being in “poor condition.”

That assessment is based on an analysis from Truckinfo.net, and compiled by Stacker, which says that roughly 24 bridges in Jefferson County are in poor shape.

According to the Federal Highway Administration, 559 of Alabama’s 16,176 bridges are judged to be in “poor condition,” including many in central Alabama. Jefferson County, with more than 1,000 bridges, is in third place for the most bridges in poor condition, behind Covington County (2.7%) and Calhoun County (3.4%).

In the Federal Highway Administration’s 2023 national bridge inventory, the Lede identified at least 21 Jefferson County bridges that were listed in poor condition.