After introduction of the earthquake resistant design code, it is required to achieve seismic performance of existing bridges as well as earthquake resistant design of new bridges. The achievement of seismic performance for existing bridges should satisfy the no collapse requirement based on the basic concept of earthquake resistant design, therefore, various methods with different strengthening scale should be suggested according to bridge types and importance categories. At present for typical bridges, most studied and applied strengthening methods are bearing change, pier strengthening and shear key installation for improvement of seismic performance. In this study a typical existing bridge, for which earthquake resistant design is not considered, is selected as an analysis bridge. Design changes are carried out to satisfy the no collapse requirement by way of the ductile failure mechanism and seismic performances are checked. It is shown that the seismic performance of existing bridges can be achieved by way of redesign of bridge system, e.g. determination of pier design section for substructure and change of bearing function for connections between super/sub-structure.