A distinctive feature are the cables or stays, which run directly from the tower to the deck, normally forming a fan-like pattern or a series of parallel lines.

Early examples, including the Brooklyn Bridge, often combined features from both the cable-stayed and suspension designs.

It returned to prominence in the later 20th century when the combination of new materials, larger construction machinery, and the need to replace older bridges all lowered the relative price of these designs.

[2] Cable-stayed bridges date back to 1595, where designs were found in Machinae Novae, a book by Croatian-Venetian inventor Fausto Veranzio.

John A. Roebling took particular advantage of this to limit deformations due to railway loads in the Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge.

[8] Albert Caquot's 1952 concrete-decked cable-stayed bridge[9] over the Donzère-Mondragon canal at Pierrelatte is one of the first of the modern type, but had little influence on later development.

Other key pioneers included Fabrizio de Miranda, Riccardo Morandi, and Fritz Leonhardt.

However, this involves substantial erection costs, and more modern structures tend to use many more cables to ensure greater economy.

In suspension bridges, large main cables (normally two) hang between the towers and are anchored at each end to the ground.

[10] There are also seven main arrangements for support columns: single, double, portal, A-shaped, H-shaped, inverted Y and M-shaped.

[10] Depending on the design, the columns may be vertical or angled or curved relative to the bridge deck.

[14] A self-anchored suspension bridge has some similarity in principle to the cable-stayed type in that tension forces that prevent the deck from dropping are converted into compression forces vertically in the tower and horizontally along the deck structure.