Because nearly one-half of the bridges in the United States are listed as either functionally or structurally deficient lends impetus to search for new ideas for building and maintaining bridges. Most of these bridges are on secondary and rural roads where spans are short, which makes timber a prime candidate for construction. The Forest Service, US Department of Agriculture, with a vast number of bridges under its care, is cooperating with the University of Wisconsin to investigate new techniques for timber bridge design and construction. Described in this paper are promising new ideas, which are being examined for bridge construction, rehabilitation, and production of efficient performance and low cost in timber bridge systems. The scope of the research covers reviewing recent advancements in bridge design, applying new techniques to enhance the performance of common bridge types, and evaluating totally new structural configurations for use in bridges. The performance enhancement may be achieved by increasing the transverse spread of load through distributor beams, prestressing techniques, and dowels. New structural configurations include plane trusses, multileaf trusses, and composite beams assembled together to produce parallel chord longitudinal deck systems. The research involves theoretical evaluations to estimate span capabilities. The more promising concepts, which are based on structural potential, estimated cost, and simplicity, are being experimentally tested to verify models, theory, and design procedures.