Michigan’s Thousands of Bridges Come Up Short in One Statistic

Those Michigan license plates that read Water Winter Wonderland aren't false advertising. There are bodies of water in every direction of the Mitten State.

Clearly, it is no surprise that Michigan has thousands of bridges -- 11,284 of them, to be exact. But the results of one study make it somewhat surprising that Michigan doesn't have more bridges - or at least more to them.

The state has a ton of pride in its bridges. Heck, there's a Historic Bridge Park in Battle Creek that showcases many retired and functional bridges to admire.

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Of course, the Mighty Mackinac Bridge takes the cake as a state symbol connecting the Lower and Upper Peninsulas. It isn't alone though. The Ambassador Bridge connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, Canada, gives plenty of interstate drivers anxiety while the I-94 Gateway Arch Bridge welcomes many to the Detroit Metro.

One more will be added to the fraternity when the Gordie Howe International Bridge opens for use in 2025 to serve as a third connection between Southeast Michigan and Canada.

However, even accounting for the absurd number of bridges throughout the state, and the sheer size of the notable ones, Michigan still falls short compared to the rest of the country.

Stacker recently put together a ranking of all 50 states based on the concentration of bridges in the state, or the most bridges per 100 miles of public roadway.

While some sparse states fill the bottom 10, it's not as though the most dense states take the top spots. Hawai'i understandably topped the list, but Ohio took the top spot among the contiguous 48 states with 22.1 bridges per 100 miles of public road. Having over 27,000 bridges certainly helped.

Michigan, on the other hand, only has 9.2 bridges per 100 miles of public road, ranking them 43rd among all states. For comparison, Alaska, which only has 1,632 bridges, is tied with Michigan at 9.2 bridges per 100 miles.

Michigan also has the 8th highest percentage of roads in poor condition at 11.4%. Three of the states with a higher percentage of bridges have considerably fewer total bridges while the other four states have considerably more to keep up with.