About Brookfield Floating Bridge
Vermont Route 65 crosses Sunset Lake in Brookfield on a bridge that does not stand on conventional piers. It floats.
The first floating bridge at the location was built in 1820 because the lake was too deep for practical supporting piles. Successive replacements continued the unusual solution, and the current structure, opened in 2015, is the eighth generation of floating bridge at the site.
The modern version is roughly 318 feet long and uses buoyant pontoons beneath the roadway. Cars can cross the lake on the one-lane structure when it is open to vehicle traffic, while pedestrians experience the strange sensation of walking on a public road resting directly on the water.
The bridge looks modest compared with giant suspension bridges and dramatic mountain crossings, but its engineering premise is much stranger. For more than two centuries, Brookfield has faced the problem of a deep lake and repeatedly answered it with the same basic idea: if the road cannot stand in the water, let the road float instead.