Standard Trail Bridge Drawings and Design Aids

The Forest Service has standard drawings and design aids for the construction of trail bridges. The standard drawings/design aids have been designed and developed in accordance with Forest Service Manual and Forest Service Handbook directions. The following information is provided FOR REFERENCE ONLY.

All bridge drawings should be approved for each specific bridge by a qualified engineer with trail bridge design experience. Drawings are intended to provide ideas for layout and detailing. No drawing or detail should be used for construction without design review by a qualified engineer. Forest Service bridges must be approved and/or designed by the Forest Service engineer or manager responsible for engineering.

The drawings are not meant to be used as individual sheets and should not be used by themselves. A complete drawing package should be downloaded so that the designer has all the required information for reference. All drawings are in PDF format and can be viewed with Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Currently, only four regions within the Forest Service have standard drawings/design aids. These are Northern Rockies Region (R1), R6 Pacific Northwest Region (R6), Eastern Region (R9), and Alaska Region (R10).

There are two different ways to download the standard drawings/design aids.

The first way is to download a complete set of drawings in a single PDF. This method should only be used with a high-speed Internet connection.

The second way is to download each individual drawing in PDF. This method is recommended for dial-up connections.

• Forest Service Standard Drawing/Design Aid Instructions
• Single Log Stringer Trail Bridge
• Multiple Log Stringer Trail Bridge
• 2×12 Sawn Lumber Trail Bridge
• Solid Sawn Timber Stringer Trail Bridge
• Parallam Stringer Trail Bridge
• Glued-Laminated Timber Stringer Trail Bridge
• Glued-Laminated Longitudinal Slab Trail Bridge
• Nail-Laminated Longitudinal Slab Trail Bridge
• Steel Stringer Trail Bridge
• Prefabricated Steel Truss Bridges
• Packable Timber Trail Bridges
• Snowmobile Trail Bridge
• Typical Abutment Details

Additional Trail Bridge Resources

The following resources give additional information on planning, siting, designing, constructing, inspecting and maintaining trail bridges. All of these items should be included in the decision process to select the best structure for aesthetic design, sustainability and longevity.