Shallow spread footings on soil are becoming an attractive choice for suppo
rting highway bridge structures. However, to encourage their utilization, w
ell-documented, comprehensive case histories must be established and made a
ccessible to practicing bridge and geotechnical engineers. In addition, per
formance prediction methods for spread footing foundations must be verified
further using carefully compiled field data. This paper is the writers' at
tempt toward achieving these goals, presenting details of a recently comple
ted research project on 30 bridge spread footings in Ohio. The project data
show that spread footings can be used successfully to support highway brid
ge structures on both cohesionless and cohesive soils, provided that the su
bsoil conditions are suitable and that the existing performance prediction
methods are accurate.