Ponte do Guaíba, Road bridge in Porto Alegre, Brazil

Ponte do Guaíba, officially Ponte Getúlio Vargas, is a 7.7 km road bridge over Lake Guaíba, formed by a low concrete deck on tall rectangular piers. Its bascule span lifts a 58-metre, 400-tonne section of roadway to 24 metres to let large ships pass. It carries the BR-116 and BR-290 highways between Porto Alegre and the south of Rio Grande do Sul.

Ferries from Vila Assunção carried traffic across Lake Guaíba until the 1950s, when saturation prompted twelve competing proposals from five firms. The winning design, drawn up in Germany in 1954 and tested in Grenoble, was signed off by governor Ernesto Dornelles on 26 October 1954; work began on 20 October 1955 with about 3,500 labourers. The bridge opened on 28 December 1958 under governor Ildo Meneghetti with a single access interchange; the remaining accesses were finished under Leonel Brizola. A second, taller crossing was inaugurated in December 2020.

The bridge serves as a daily pathway for residents and workers moving between the city and communities to the south. It has become part of how people in the region think about connections and belonging.

The crossing is open to all vehicles and becomes very crowded during rush hours, especially in the morning and evening. Drivers should expect longer travel times and plan their journeys with flexibility.

The new span completed in 2020 is tall enough at approximately 36 meters to allow ships to pass underneath without stopping traffic. This was a major improvement over the older structure, which required regular closures.