The Numbers Now
Missouri has 24,647 bridges, the 7th largest bridge inventory in the country. (ARTBA 2025) Of those, 2,163 are rated in poor condition, a rate of 9% that ranks #13 nationally. The national average is 6.7%. (ARTBA 2025)
More than half the inventory, roughly 52%, has exceeded its intended 50-year design life, and the average bridge age is 49 years. (ARTBA 2025) Another 935 bridges carry weight restrictions that block school buses, fire trucks, and loaded grain trucks. (FHWA NBI 2024)
Two different counts circulate. MoDOT's dashboard shows 804 poor bridges because it tracks only state-system structures. ARTBA counts all National Bridge Inventory bridges statewide, which produces the 2,163 figure. (MoDOT; ARTBA 2025) The difference is scope, not disagreement: MoDOT's number covers the 42% of bridges the state owns, while ARTBA's includes the 58% owned by counties, cities, and special road districts. This page uses ARTBA's 2,163 as the headline figure throughout.
In 2017, Missouri had roughly 3,085 bridges classified as structurally deficient under the terminology in use at the time. The federal rating system has since shifted to "poor condition" as the standard label, but the underlying inspection criteria are the same. All current and comparative figures on this page use "poor condition." (ARTBA 2025; FHWA)
The full state profile is available on ARTBA's Missouri bridge report.
The Funding Gap
Missouri operates the 7th largest road and bridge system in the country on 45th-ranked funding per mile. (MoDOT) That mismatch between system size and revenue explains more about the state's bridge conditions than any single policy decision.
The gas tax sat at 17 cents per gallon from 1996 to 2021, the fourth-lowest rate in the country. SB 262, signed in 2021, phased in increases reaching 29.5 cents per gallon by July 2025, projected to generate $400 to $500 million in additional annual revenue. (MoDOT; MO Legislature) But the law includes a refund mechanism that allows residents to reclaim the increase, and SB 494, introduced in 2025, proposed repealing the increases entirely. (MO Legislature)
Federal money has supplemented state funds. The IIJA Bridge Formula Program allocated $523.4 million to Missouri over the life of the law, with $102.3 million committed to 243 projects as of June 2025. (FHWA; ARTBA 2025) ARTBA estimates the total bridge replacement and rehabilitation backlog at $2.77 billion. (ARTBA 2025) For context, the FY 2025-2029 Statewide Transportation Improvement Program averages roughly $2.1 billion per year for all roads and bridges combined. The backlog figure exceeds an entire year of total road and bridge construction spending.
The Programs That Moved the Needle
Three successive capital programs account for over 1,080 bridge improvements in roughly 15 years, and they are the reason Missouri's numbers look the way they do today.
| Program | Period | Bridges Improved | Cost | Key Detail |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Safe & Sound | 2008–2012 | 802 | $685M | 42-day avg closure |
| Focus on Bridges | 2019–2023 | 250 | $351M | All rural, ag-dependent areas |
| FARM Bridge | 2021–2023 | 31 | — | Weight-restricted timber-pile replacements |
Safe & Sound was the largest single bridge program in Missouri history. Between 2008 and 2012, MoDOT replaced or rehabilitated 802 bridges at a cost of $685 million, averaging 42-day closures per bridge. (MoDOT) The program targeted the worst of the state-system backlog and demonstrated that Missouri could fix bridges at scale when it committed the capital.
The Focus on Bridges program followed in 2019, improving 250 bridges at $351 million through a combination of general revenue, an INFRA grant, and a $301 million bonding program. (MoDOT) All 250 were in rural, agriculture-dependent areas where poor bridges hit farmers and rural communities hardest.
The FARM Bridge Program ran from 2021 to 2023 and replaced 31 weight-restricted, one-lane timber-pile bridges across 18 northern Missouri counties. (MoDOT) These were among the most functionally obsolete crossings in the state, bridges that could not carry a loaded grain truck or a piece of modern farm equipment.
Together, these programs drove the poor-bridge count from roughly 3,085 in 2017 to 2,163 in 2025. That is one of the better improvement arcs in this series. But each program had a defined start date and a defined end date. The base revenue between programs was never enough to sustain the pace, which is the structural problem these pages keep returning to.
Where the Problem Concentrates
Congressional District 6 covers northern and western Missouri's rural areas and anchors the geographic concentration of poor bridges in the state. The district contains 8,786 bridges, 942 of which are rated poor, a rate of 10.7%. (ARTBA 2025) This is the agricultural heartland where a dense county road network crosses hundreds of streams and drainage channels, and where the 935 weight-restricted bridges statewide land disproportionately.
Ownership explains much of the concentration. Roughly 58% of Missouri's bridges are locally owned by counties, cities, and special road districts, while 42% belong to MoDOT. (FHWA NBI 2024) Nationally, locally owned bridges are about twice as likely to be rated poor as state-owned structures, and Missouri follows that pattern. MoDOT is currently ahead of its own internal target of roughly 900 poor bridges on the state system, with 804 actual. The locally owned inventory is where the bulk of the 2,163 figure lives.
In Kansas City, at least 246 bridges carry the lowest passing grade, and the Highway 169 bridge connecting downtown to the northland was shut down in December 2025 due to structural issues. (MoDOT; FHWA NBI 2024) The Chester Bridge replacement, a $284 million cable-stayed span replacing a 1942 truss over the Mississippi River, is expected to finish in late 2026. The I-70 Rocheport Bridge over the Missouri River, at $240 million with an $81.2 million INFRA grant, reached completion in spring 2025. (MoDOT)
Agriculture and the Cost of Restrictions
Missouri agriculture generates over $88 billion in annual sales, nearly 15% of the state's economy. (USDA) The county bridge network is the supply chain that connects farms to grain elevators, processors, and rail terminals, and every weight-restricted crossing in that network is a bottleneck that forces detours during the most time-sensitive weeks of the year. (USDA; MoDOT)
935 bridges in Missouri cannot carry a school bus, a fire truck, or a loaded grain truck. In a state where the corn harvest alone generates roughly 1.5 million truck trips per year on rural roads, weight restrictions are an economic choke point that compounds across an entire harvest season. The FARM Bridge Program addressed 31 of these 935 bridges.
Weight restrictions that block a loaded grain truck or a piece of farm equipment force detours that add miles to every trip. Those extra miles compound across a harvest season, raising fuel costs, increasing wear on equipment, and slowing the movement of product from field to market. For a county road network built to serve agriculture, a weight-restricted bridge is not a minor inconvenience. It is a bottleneck in the supply chain.
The Grand River railroad bridge collapse in 2019 disrupted grain shipments during harvest season in Chariton County, illustrating how a single bridge failure can cascade through the agricultural supply chain. (MoDOT; local reporting) When one crossing goes down in a region where alternative routes are sparse, the economic impact radiates outward through delayed shipments, missed delivery windows, and higher transportation costs.
What Comes Next
The gas tax increase is fully phased in as of July 2025, but the refund mechanism and repeal pressure from SB 494 leave its long-term revenue contribution uncertain. (MO Legislature) IIJA funds are flowing but time-limited. MoDOT is ahead of its own internal target on the state system, and the 2017-to-2025 trajectory from roughly 3,085 to 2,163 poor bridges is one of the best improvement arcs in this series.
But 52% of the inventory is past its design life, the ARTBA estimate for bridge replacement and rehabilitation stands at $2.77 billion, and the state's history shows what happens when program-based capital runs out. (ARTBA 2025) Safe & Sound ended. Focus on Bridges ended. The FARM Bridge Program ended. Between those programs, the base revenue could not keep pace with deterioration across a 24,647-bridge system.
The question is whether the gas tax increase survives long enough to become the sustained funding floor the system has never had. Missouri knows how to fix bridges when it commits the capital. Whether it can sustain that commitment without another one-shot program is the open question.
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. Bridges rated poor are typically subject to increased inspection frequency, load restrictions, or both.
Data Sources
Statewide totals (24,647 bridges, 2,163 poor, 9%, rank #13) are from the ARTBA 2025 Bridge Report, based on 2025 FHWA National Bridge Inventory data. The $2.77 billion figure is ARTBA's estimate of Missouri's bridge replacement and rehabilitation needs. MoDOT's 804 poor-bridge figure covers only state-system bridges. Ownership breakdowns, weight restrictions, and geographic data are from the FHWA NBI 2024 dataset. Program data (Safe & Sound, Focus on Bridges, FARM Bridge) is from MoDOT. Funding figures are from MoDOT, the Missouri Legislature, ARTBA, and FHWA as cited inline.
Caveats
Bridge inspection practices and rating standards can vary by inspector and agency. The NBI captures a snapshot in time, and individual bridge conditions change between inspection cycles. The 2017 baseline of roughly 3,085 bridges used the "structurally deficient" label; the underlying inspection criteria are the same as those now used for "poor condition." Percentages are rounded to whole numbers except for the national average (6.7%) and Congressional District 6 (10.7%), which are published figures.