Bridge Inspections

By law, the Hamilton County Engineer's Office is responsible for the regular detailed structural inspection of 423 Bridges and large Roadway Culverts located within Hamilton County in multiple Townships, Villages and Municipalities.   Most of these inspections are completed by Hamilton County Bridge Engineer, Tom Brayshaw, P.E. and a small cross-functional team of HCE employees.  Currently, twenty-seven (27) bridges located within the limits of the City of Cincinnati are completed by members of the City of Cincinnati's Department of Transportation and Engineering through an annual agreement.

All detailed inspections are completed in a standardized format and entered into the State of Ohio's Bridge Inventory System with the goal of ensuring public safety, identifying items that require routine maintenance, and making sure that the organization(s) responsible for major rehabilitation or replacement can plan ahead for these large capital costs.

Inspections rate the main components of these crucial structures using standardized methodologies to identify even the smallest defects.  While quite detailed and complicated, the overall results of these inspections are simplified into a single structural rating on a scale of 1 to 9 which is correlated with a descriptive National Bridge Inventory (NBI) rating:

View the HCE Bridge Inspection Dashboard