132 Central New York bridges rated poor as of June 30, 2026, including 40 in Onondaga County

As of June 30, 2026, 132 of the 1,228 highway bridges in Onondaga, Cayuga, Cortland, Madison and Oswego counties carry a federal “poor” condition rating, according to the New York State Department of Transportation’s county bridge tables. Onondaga County has 40 of them, and 15 are inside the city of Syracuse. Poor is a condition category, not a safety verdict. In NYSDOT’s own words, a poor rating “does not imply that it is unsafe or likely to collapse.”

What does a poor bridge rating mean?

The label comes from the Federal Highway Administration. Inspectors score a bridge’s deck, superstructure, substructure and, where there is one, culvert on a 0 to 9 scale. FHWA’s definition, from its National Bridge Inventory tables updated Sept. 3, 2026: “If the lowest rating is greater than or equal to 7, the bridge is classified as Good; if it is less than or equal to 4, the classification is Poor. Bridges rated 5 or 6 are classified as Fair.”

One component scoring a 4 is enough to make the whole bridge poor. NYSDOT’s Bridge Inventory Manual (April 2004, section RC09) describes a 4 as “POOR CONDITION advanced section loss, deterioration, spalling or scour.” Closure sits two steps lower on the same scale. A 2 is “CRITICAL CONDITION,” where “unless closely monitored it may be necessary to close the bridge until corrective action is taken,” and a 1 means the “bridge is closed to traffic.”

NYSDOT’s bridge data page, updated June 30, 2026, says what poor means in practice: “A poor condition bridge, when left open to traffic, typically requires a weight limit posting, significant maintenance and repair to remain in service and eventual rehabilitation, or replacement to address deficiencies. If a bridge is deemed unsafe, it is closed to traffic.” The page notes that poor replaced the older label “structurally deficient.”

How often are New York bridges inspected?

From the same NYSDOT page: “The state requires all highway bridges to be inspected at least every two years and is one of the few states in the nation that requires bridge inspection teams to be headed by licensed professional engineers.” Of the 132 poor-rated bridges in the five counties, 124 show a last inspection in 2024 or 2025, six in 2026 and two in 2023. The two oldest dates, I-690 over Lodi Street in Syracuse (June 15, 2023) and I-481 over the CSX and Amtrak line in the village of East Syracuse (Dec. 5, 2023), fall more than two years before the table date. The table does not explain the gap.

Poor-rated bridges by county, June 30, 2026

For scale, FHWA’s 2026 condition table (data as of Aug. 4, 2026) counts 1,780 of New York’s 17,613 bridges as poor, 10.1 percent, against a national figure of 41,148 of 624,939, or 6.6 percent. The five-county share of 10.7 percent sits close to the state number. Cayuga County, at 16.6 percent, is the outlier.

Who owns the poor-rated bridges?

Across the five counties, NYSDOT owns 55 of the 132, county governments 39, towns 29, the New York State Thruway Authority 5, villages 3, and one belongs to a city. In Onondaga County the split is lopsided: 31 of the 40 poor-rated bridges are NYSDOT’s, 3 belong to the county, 3 to villages, 2 to towns and 1 to the Thruway Authority.

Age runs through the list. Of the 132, 106 were built before 1970. The median build year is 1953, the oldest dates to 1865 and the newest to 2008.

The 15 poor-rated bridges in Syracuse

All 15 are owned by NYSDOT, and 14 are Interstate 81 or Interstate 690 structures, ramps or service roads. Eleven were built in 1968. Bridge identification numbers (BIN) are as listed in NYSDOT’s Onondaga County table.

NYSDOT’s I-81 Viaduct Project page says the project’s sixth construction contract, valued at $2.1 billion, awarded to CNY Alliance and described as the first contract of Phase 2, “focuses on rebuilding Interstate 690 from Leavenworth Avenue to North Crouse Avenue.” The bridge table does not say which of the 15 structures are scheduled for replacement under that contract or any other.

Why older numbers online say 155 and 48

The state’s open data portal carries a version of the same table, “Bridge Conditions, NYS Department of Transportation,” whose rows were last updated Feb. 20, 2020, according to the portal’s metadata. That version lists 155 poor-rated bridges among 1,216 in the five counties, 48 in Onondaga County and 10 in Syracuse, with inspection dates from 2017 to 2019.

Matching the two lists bridge by bridge: 74 are poor in both; 75 that were poor in 2020 are still listed but no longer flagged; 6 have dropped off the table; and 58 are newly rated poor. Bridges get repaired, replaced, added and re-rated, so the two snapshots are not a clean trend line. Of the 10 Syracuse bridges on the 2020 list, 7 remain poor. The I-81 bridge over East Colvin Street (inspected Sept. 17, 2025), the I-690 bridge over North Townsend Street (July 29, 2024) and the city-owned East Brighton Avenue bridge over the OnTrack rail line (Nov. 12, 2024) are no longer flagged. The table does not say why.

How to check a bridge yourself

NYSDOT posts a PDF table for every county at dot.ny.gov/main/bridgedata, one row per bridge: identification number, what it carries and crosses, owner, year built or replaced, date of last inspection and a Poor Status column marked Y or N.