Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, Seattle, Washington

Inspired by an article on a local traffic mishap:

This is the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, which carries WA 520 across Lake Washington. It was closed for a while earlier this week when high winds caused damage to a bolt in the bridge, and from what I understand, the resulting impact to traffic created a particularly hellish evening commute.

The 4 lane bridge was completed in 1963, and is one of the bridges connecting the City of Seattle with its suburbs across Lake Washington. Given the bottlenecks formed by having only a few ways out of the city to the east, it’s probably no surprise that this bridge sees horrific traffic, even before considering that the bridge must be closed under high wind conditions.

Plans to replace the bridge with a 4-to-6-lane electronically tolled facility, possibly with HOV lanes, are under development.

For more information, you can check out the following:

• Wikipedia entry for the bridge
• Washington State Highways page on WA 520
• WSDOT WA 520 project website
• WSDOT traffic cam