Designed by the famous engineer Paul Venezuelan Lustgarten, was built in concrete or reinforced concrete and has a length of 8678 meters and 134 batteries. At its core is the bridge-type bridge atirantado, their bases are anchored to the bottom of Lake Maracaibo at a depth of 60 meters (to allow vessels of up to 45 m in height may come to light over the lake and 235 m) , With two lanes per direction. It supports an average traffic of 45 thousand cars per day.

The bridge allowed to unite both sides of the lake and connect in an expeditious manner to the city of Maracaibo with the rest of Venezuela. The initial projects for the bridge were scrapped because it was considered that a metal structure would require much maintenance, given the humid climate of the area. In addition to require little maintenance, in Venezuela cement is a material less expensive than steel and maintain the esthetic requirements of the work.

For its construction were used 138 thousand tons of cement, 20 thousand tons of metal, 67 thousand linear meters of drilling piles and the workforce of more than 2,600 people.

The bridge was planned and executed in part in the government of General Marcos Perez Jimenez, who because of his overthrow, is unable to complete work on the book for what it is inaugurated on August 24, 1962 by the president of Venezuela, for the time Rómulo Betancourt. It was for several years, the world’s longest bridge of its kind and remains one of the reinforced concrete in the world.

Importantly, it is considered the first modern bridge of its kind, in fact the technology for offshore construction was designed entirely by Venezuelans, which involved the design of barges for hincado pile (barges hammer) and for the kind of pile introducing the lake bed, accessories for the distribution of loads to be hoisted, technological milestones that have gone unnoticed and for which there are few historical records.

Two years later, on April 6, 1964 at approximately 22:45, the super tanker Esso Maracaibo, which loaded with 262 thousand barrels of crude oil (for a total weight of 36,000 tons), the ship suffered a glitch in the room turboalternadores of which got out of line power plants of the spacecraft, was launched immediately and alert the captain and chief engineer ordered the emergency maneuvers to launch stern anchors with winches steam, that the purpose of trying to change the course of the ship and vararla on the banks of sand surrounding the ship channel, but only managed to ship virara about its stern, in turn toward the east coast of the lake, but for the short distance rozaron cells 31 and 32, Eng. Lustgarden said in an interview for the SAPGRU that the incident angle with respect to the axis of the ship channel was 15 degrees, which caused the collapse of 249 m from the structure.

It should be noted that the action of turning to the emergency rudder of the ship to avoid hitting power batteries, was not completed successfully and depended solely on the action of the stern anchor for the ship to turn on its axis, the nature of this action was to avoid the impact against the Central Battery resulting in greater damage to the structure. Killed 7 people who were in three vehicles and a truck that fell over the edge. The bridge was repaired in eight months involving the Creole Petroleum Co. and the company Hereema, among others.

At present the facility has an exhibition room and audiovisual room where he planned documentary on the techniques used to build the structure, guided walks Facilities for the control and monitoring of the bridge, lookouts with binoculars coast and other tourist atractivios and cultural.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century has been renovated and illuminated in its six major pillars, thereby using 96 luminaries of 600 W, which can change color. This system of manufacturing Danish lighting was designed to be contemplated from the city of Maracaibo.

The General Rafael Urdaneta bridge or bridge over Lake, as it is called locally, crosses the narrowest part of Lake Maracaibo in Zulia state, northwest of Venezuela, and connects the city of Maracaibo with the rest of the country. He was named in honor of General Rafael Urdaneta, Zulia hero of the independence of Venezuela.