The Chicago River Bridges
In 2025, four downtown Chicago bridges closed simultaneously: State Street (emergency closure, no reopening date), Lake Street (closed until January 2028), Chicago-Halsted, and Cortland. (Chicago Tribune; CDOT) Alderman Brendan Reilly warned that the closures could turn the central business district into an island, and the congestion spillover backed cars onto active Metra tracks at 333 N. Canal Street.
Ten Chicago River bridges in total need high-priority repairs. (CDOT) These are some of the most visible structures in the state, carrying traffic through the Loop in a city with real resources and a professional Department of Transportation. If Chicago cannot keep pace with the maintenance math on its own river crossings, the problem facing smaller jurisdictions downstate is more severe by every measure.
The Numbers
Illinois has 26,927 bridges, the third-largest inventory in the country behind Texas and Ohio. (ARTBA 2025) Of those, 2,563 are rated in poor condition, a rate of 10% that ranks the state #11 nationally. The national average is 6.7%. (ARTBA 2025)
That 10% rate has held roughly flat in recent years, but the absolute count tells a different story. In 2021, Illinois had 2,405 poor bridges. By 2025, the count had risen to 2,563, an increase of 158 bridges over four years. (ARTBA 2025) A flat percentage in a growing inventory means the problem is getting larger, not holding steady.
Separately, ARTBA identifies 4,174 bridges statewide that need some form of repair work beyond the 2,563 already in poor condition. (ARTBA 2025)
Deficient bridge deck area accounts for 11.2% of the statewide total, ranking Illinois 6th nationally by that measure. (ARTBA 2025) The full state profile is available on ARTBA's Illinois bridge report.
The Fragmentation Problem
Illinois has roughly 7,000 units of local government, the most in the nation. (Illinois Comptroller) Of those, 1,428 are townships that collectively maintain 71,000 miles of road, which accounts for approximately 53% of the state's total road mileage. Townships also maintain close to half the state's bridge inventory. (Township Officials of Illinois)
Township road commissioners are elected officials. Many serve small jurisdictions with annual road budgets under $500,000 and no in-house engineering staff. Procuring a bridge replacement requires environmental review, structural design, right-of-way coordination, and construction management, all of which demand capacity that small townships rarely have. Even generous cost-share programs do not solve the procurement bottleneck when the local sponsor cannot manage the project.
The ownership numbers explain why the spending is not closing the gap. Roughly 70% of poor bridges in Illinois sit on locally owned roads, and 72% of rural bridges are locally owned. (ASCE Illinois Report Card; ISA 2024) The largest single category in the inventory is rural local road bridges, which number 12,171 out of the 26,927 total. (ARTBA 2025) These are predominantly short-span structures over creeks and drainage channels, maintained by townships and small counties.
The delivery bottleneck: Federal and state programs can cover 80% of a bridge replacement, but each project still requires a local sponsor to manage environmental review, structural design, right-of-way coordination, and construction oversight. When that sponsor is a township with no engineering staff and an annual road budget under $500,000, the money sits longer than the bridge deteriorates. Scale the problem across 1,428 townships and the arithmetic explains why spending keeps rising while the poor-bridge count does too.
The Township Bridge Program puts $60 million per year into these structures at up to 80% cost share, which is a meaningful commitment. (IDOT) But $60 million spread across 1,428 townships, each with its own application cycle, engineering requirements, and construction timeline, moves slowly against an inventory of more than 12,000 rural local road bridges.
Where the Money Is
Illinois is not underinvesting. In October 2025, the state announced Rebuild Illinois at $50.6 billion over six years, the largest multi-year infrastructure program in state history, with $32.5 billion allocated to roads and bridges. (Governor's Office) The state motor fuel tax stands at $0.483 per gallon, doubled from its prior level in 2019 and indexed to inflation annually. (IDOT)
Federal money is flowing as well. Illinois received a total IIJA bridge formula allocation of $1.5 billion, making it the 4th-largest bridge recipient nationally at $297.3 million per year. (FHWA; ARTBA) As of June 2025, $1.2 billion had been accessed and $632.8 million committed toward 228 projects. (FHWA)
All of this money is flowing. Rebuild Illinois is deploying, IIJA bridge funds are being committed at scale, and the Township Bridge Program is distributing $60 million annually, yet the poor-bridge count still went up by 158 in four years. The investment is real, but the delivery system, fragmented across thousands of local jurisdictions, cannot convert dollars to completed projects fast enough to outpace deterioration.
The Geographic Spread
Cook County leads the state with 1,698 bridges and 169 in poor condition, a 10% rate that mirrors the statewide average. (FHWA NBI 2024) The I-90/94 elevated section over Stewart Avenue carries approximately 214,000 vehicles per day and is structurally deficient. Built in 1962, it is among the highest-traffic poor bridges in the state. (ARTBA 2025)
Lake County has the highest deficiency rate among Chicago-area counties at 13.2%. (FHWA NBI 2024) The I-80 Des Plaines River Bridge carries 42,000 vehicles daily and is described as structurally intolerable. (ARTBA 2025) South of Chicago, the Joliet Cass Street Bridge was reduced from three lanes to one indefinitely in 2024 after structural steel corrosion was discovered. (City of Joliet)
| Category | Bridge Count | Key Context |
|---|---|---|
| Rural local road bridges | 12,171 | Largest single category |
| Rural interstate bridges | 869 | |
| Urban interstate bridges | 1,449 | |
| Cook County total | 1,698 | 169 poor (10%) |
| Total inventory | 26,927 | 3rd nationally |
But the urban bridges, visible and high-traffic as they are, represent a fraction of the statewide problem. The real weight sits downstate, spread across 12,171 rural local road bridges. Most are short-span township structures over creeks and drainage channels, carrying farm equipment and local traffic on roads that will never make a headline until the bridge closes.
What It Costs
A November 2024 study by the Illinois Soybean Association found that 65% of the state's roughly 27,000 rural bridges are in fair or poor condition, combining two NBI rating categories. (ISA 2024) The study quantified the return on investment: every $1 invested in bridge maintenance yields nearly $5 in benefits for all roadway users. Over a 30-year horizon, sustained bridge investment would generate approximately 52,640 jobs, $2.83 billion in labor income, and $5.63 billion in added economic value. The full study is available from the Illinois Soybean Association.
TRIP data shows a complementary picture from a different angle. Using a rural-only denominator, TRIP finds that 9% of Illinois rural bridges are rated poor, the 12th highest rate nationally. (TRIP 2024) That 9% figure is lower than the 10% statewide ARTBA rate because the TRIP calculation excludes urban bridges from its denominator, while ARTBA includes all bridges statewide.
The safety data reinforces the economic case. Illinois rural non-Interstate roads have a fatality rate of 2.19 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, roughly double the 1.06 rate on all other state roads. (TRIP 2024) Weight-restricted or closed bridges force detours for farm equipment and grain trucks during harvest, adding time and cost to every trip while pushing heavy loads onto roads not designed for them.
What "Poor Condition" Means
A bridge is classified as being in "poor condition" if any one of its three primary components (deck, superstructure, or substructure) receives a rating of 4 or below on the NBI's 0-to-9 scale. A poor rating does not mean a bridge is unsafe or at risk of collapse. It means the bridge has deteriorated to the point where it needs repair or replacement.
Data Sources
Statewide totals (26,927 bridges, 2,563 poor, 10%, rank #11) are from the ARTBA 2025 Bridge Report, based on 2025 FHWA National Bridge Inventory data. The 4,174 bridges needing repairs figure is a separate ARTBA category distinct from the 2,563 poor bridges. Ownership and fragmentation data are from the ASCE Illinois Report Card, Township Officials of Illinois, and the Illinois Comptroller. Funding data is from the Governor's Office, IDOT, FHWA, and ARTBA as cited inline. The ISA rural bridge study was published in November 2024. TRIP rural bridge data uses a rural-only denominator that differs from ARTBA's statewide calculation.
Caveats
Bridge inspection practices and rating standards can vary by inspector and agency. The NBI captures a snapshot in time; individual bridge conditions change between inspection cycles. Township bridge ownership figures are approximate and compiled from multiple sources rather than a single NBI query. Percentages are rounded to whole numbers except for the national average (6.7%), Lake County's deficiency rate (13.2%), and the deck area deficiency rate (11.2%), which retain their published decimal values.