Application
Residential properties
Home owners and acreage buyers with a private drive, a seasonal creek, or a building site on the far side of water.
- Published spans
- 20 to 72 ft
- Widths
- 8 and 10 ft
- Rated
- 16,000 lb
Where this usually lands
Also worth a look: Bridge Kits .
The vehicle nobody plans for
Most residential crossings are specified around daily use, and then something heavy shows up. A concrete truck during a build. A moving van. An ambulance at two in the morning. Those vehicles are the reason a driveway bridge is rated the way it is, and they are the reason this is worth more thought than a household usually gives it.
The Utility Truss family spans 20 to 72 ft at 8 and 10 ft wide, rated 8 ton across every model. That is the family most private drives end up in. Ten feet of width is the more comfortable choice where a delivery vehicle has to cross without a spotter.
When a kit is the right answer
If the crossing serves a golf cart, a UTV, a mower, and nothing heavier, and if the span is 20 ft, a bolt-together Kit does the job at 4 ton. It ships flat, it can be assembled in place, and it does not need a crane on site. That last point is what makes it the answer for a property a crane cannot reach.
The trade is real and worth stating plainly: 4 ton is half the Utility’s rating, and a Kit that gets used by a delivery truck is being asked for something it was not engineered for.
What it costs to get there
Freight to a residential address behaves differently to freight to a commercial yard. A truck needs room to turn, and limited access is a surcharge rather than an inconvenience. Where the last stretch is narrow or soft, that is worth raising before anything is scheduled.
Concrete foundations are recommended for many applications and may not always be required. What the abutments need is settled once someone has seen the banks.
Worth settling before you order
- A private drive has to carry more than the family car. A moving van, a concrete truck during construction, a septic pumper, and a fire engine are the vehicles that decide the rating, and most of them arrive rarely and matter enormously.
- Emergency access is worth checking with the local fire authority before the span is ordered. Some jurisdictions set a minimum load rating and width for a driveway bridge, and that requirement governs regardless of what the household drives.
- Delivery to a residence is its own problem. A tractor-trailer needs somewhere to turn around, and a residential address with limited access changes the freight, sometimes substantially.
- A 20 ft crossing that only ever takes a UTV and a mower can be a bolt-together Kit at 4 ton, assembled in place without a crane. The moment a delivery truck has to use it, it is a Utility span instead.
- Raw steel is available on the Cowboy line and it will oxidize. Its appearance changes with the environment, it may require maintenance, and it is not equivalent to powder coat protection. Roadrunner recommends painting or coating a bridge bought raw.
Questions that come up
What size bridge do I need?
Measure the crossing bank to bank, then add bearing length at each end. Standard spans run 20 to 72 feet. Width follows what crosses it: 4 feet for foot traffic, 8 feet for a single vehicle, 10 feet for two-way cart traffic or maintenance trucks.
How much does a prefabricated steel bridge cost?
Bridge Kits start at $4,950 and Utility Truss spans at $20,750, for the base bridge before freight and taxes. Span, width, load rating, finish, decking and railing all move it. Send your crossing dimensions and we will price the actual configuration rather than a range.
Can I install a bridge without concrete?
Often, yes. Concrete foundations are recommended for many applications and may not always be required. What your crossing needs depends on soil, bank geometry, and the load crossing it. That gets settled during the site evaluation, when someone walks the location with you before anything is fabricated.
Can you ship a bridge to my property?
Yes. Bridges ship by freight to the delivery address, including rural and private property. Fully assembled spans arrive on a truck ready to set. Kits ship flat. What matters is whether the truck can physically reach the site and what equipment is waiting when it does.
Can I buy a bridge online?
Not yet. Standard kits will move to online checkout once freight and engineering acknowledgements are in place. Today every order goes through a person, which for a structural product on an unseen site is the right sequence. You can configure your bridge online and we respond with a quote.
Start with your crossing
Seven questions about the span and what has to get over it, and you get the families that fit and the ones that do not. Or send it to us and an engineer will read it.