Aerial view of the cable-stayed Sunshine Skyway in Tampa, Florida. Bridge engineers say a similar design would make sense for a replacement for the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.

Cable-stayed bridges now also span the Ohio River northeast of downtown Louisville, Kentucky (the Lewis and Clark Bridge), the Hudson River between Tarrytown and Nyack, New York (the new Tappan ...

A good analog to Baltimore's situation is the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, a cable-stayed structure over the Cooper River in Charleston, S.C., that was completed 18 years ago.

“Cable-stayed” bridges, as they’re known, are the kind most commonly used today in places where car and truck traffic must pass across wide, heavily navigated waterways — like the 1.6-mile ...