Having established the initial geometry and cable force of a typical three span suspension bridge under permanent load, the additional maximum response of the cable and the stiffening girder due to live load are determined, by means of an analytic procedure, considering the girder first hinged at its ends and then continuous through the main towers. The problem of interaction between the cable and the stiffening girder is examined taking under due consideration the second order effects, whereby, through the analogy to a fictitious tensioned beam under transverse load, a closed -form solution is achieved by means of a simple quadratic equation. It is found that the behavior of the whole system is governed by five simple dimensionless parameters which enable a quick determination of all the relevant design magnitudes of the bridge. Moreover, by introducing these parameters, a set of diagrams is presented, which enable the estimation of the influence of the geometric and loading data on the response and permit its immediate evaluation for preliminary design purposes.