Before 1970s, bridges in Ontario were designed by the American AASHTO Bridge Design Specifications, which permitted a very simple method for analyzing bridges for transverse load distribution under vehicle loads; this method was known as the D method. When the Ontario Highway Bridge Design Code (OHBDC) was conceived in 1976, one of the Technical Subcommittees (TSCs) for writing the code dealt with the analysis of bridge superstructures. It was required that the bridge analysis section of the new OHBDC would have simplified methods of analysis that are as simple as the AASHTO D method, but should be far more accurate. Such accurate simplified methods were indeed developed. This paper, besides providing a brief survey of the methods of bridge analysis in late 1960s and early 1970s, also gives some details of the OHBDC simplified methods of analysis and the limits of their application along with the rigorous methods of analysis that were permitted by the first edition of OHBDC.