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Jessie Perion
HON 192H 02
16SEP12
“Visionary Masterpiece or Highway of Destruction?”
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When the Lake Washington Floating Bridge opened on July 2, 1940, it was the longest
and largest floating bridge in the world (Zylstra 2). Today it was been surpassed only by
Evergreen Point Floating Bridge. The Lake Washington Bridge, located in Seattle, Washington,
connects the city to Mercer Island. The older photograph was taken in 1940, when the bridge
originally opened. The newer image was taken in the 2000s, after many remodels to the bridge.
Both pictures are taken from the Seattle side of the bridge. They show heavy traffic on the
bridge. Both bridges still contain a slotted tunnel over part of the highway. Each picture shows
trees and shrubs around the entrance to the bridge. While the Lake Washington Floating Bridge
may make travelling to Mercer Island easier, was building the bridge really beneficial?
The 1940 picture shows a lot of cars getting on and off Lake Washington Bridge. There
are people standing in the median of the roads, some with bicycles. There are also people
walking along the side of the bridge. There are some cars parked near the entrance to the bridge,
presumably to walk across it or carpool. There are many streetlamps and shrubs near the
entrance. The bridge project came underway because Homer Hadley decided he had missed the
ferry to Mercer Island too many times (“Floating Bridge Pays for Itself” 2). But, was this bridge
best for everyone or was it just one man’s pent-up frustrations? When the bridge was first built it
had a toll to pay for the cost; it was removed in 1949 when the bridge was paid off. When the
bridge first opened most people were entranced by it. They used to drive slowly along the
highway to look at the view or park along the side and take pictures (Boswell 11). Lewis
Mumford states in his 1922 essay Modernism in Architecture, “The perpetual drag to New York,
and the endeavor of less favorably situated cities to imitate the virtues and defects of New York,
is explicable as nothing other than the desire to participate in some measure in the benefits of
city life.” Were Seattleites really excited about the new bridge or were they excited about the
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prospect of becoming more like New York City? New York City has been a wealthy, prosperous
city for several hundred years. The new bridge makes Seattle look more like New York City and
in turn flourish like it. Between 1940 and 1950, the population and property values increased by
more than 300 percent on Mercer Island (13). People were flocking to Seattle and Mercer Island
in the hopes that they were the next big cities. The bridge itself wasn’t really that safe. It had an
area in the middle, known as “the bulge,” that slid apart to allow boats to pass underneath it,
(Lange 5). This forced cars to drive in a reversible lane, which led to many serious accidents (5).
Some cars going to fast occasionally flipped upside-down or flew into the lake. While “the
bulge” was replaced during construction, was the safety of Seattle’s citizens worth the few
minutes they saved taking the bridge over a ferry?
The newer picture was taken in the 2000s and shows cars traveling in both directions on
the bridge. In 1989 a second, parallel bridge was built next to the old, named the Homer M.
Hadley Memorial Bridge. The original Lake Washington Floating Bridge was then renamed the
Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge. There are many signs above the travelers, indicating
upcoming exits. There are a few trees in between the bridges. There are a lot more cars coming
from Mercer Island than going to it. The left bridge has a section of road where cars can turn
around and travel back to the island. In 199, new construction on the bridge began in order to
increase the width of the lanes. The water being used during construction couldn’t be dumped
into the lake, so it was stored in the pontoons attached to the bridge. One of the pontoons was left
open during a storm; it filled completely with water and collapsed the bridge (Lange 6). The
original Lake Washington Floating Bridge sank on November 25, 1990. The bridge
reconstruction was completed in 1993. Although the new bridge is structurally safer, the cement
pollutants put people and aquatic life at risk. The concrete dust contains a lot of toxic elements,
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which get into people’s lungs and can make them more susceptible to some cancers (Morgan 3).
The production of concrete emits a great deal of carbon dioxide, which is a large contributor to
global warming. The bridge also increases the carbon dioxide levels of the lakes, which impacts
the marine life. The bridge causes an increase in water runoff, which leads to flooding and soil
erosion.
While both pictures illustrate the same bridge, there are some differences to them. The
newer picture shows the bridges with eight lanes, while the older bridge only had four. The 1940
photograph depicts a lot of people outside their cars. The cars in the older photo are much closer
together, while the cars in the newer picture are more spaced out. The 2000s picture portrays two
separate bridges, each carrying cars in a different direction. Catherine Tumber writes in her book
Small, Gritty, and Green: The Promise of America’s Smaller Industrial Cities in a Low-Carbon
World, “This drive toward concentration is facilitating the rise of megaregions anchored by big
cities and including smaller cities “smart” enough to integrate with them.” Mercer Island is
attempting to become a megaregion by connecting itself to the prosperous city of Seattle.
Increasing the number of lanes on the bridge allows more cars to travel to the island.
Megaregions occur when two or more cities expand outward and into each other (Florida 1).
They contain millions of people and produce massive amounts of products, but by working
mainly with each other they cut off smaller cities that depend on them for support (2). Catherine
Tumber feels that smaller industrial cities can be just as beneficial as megaregions and without
the carbon footprint. They have the ability to institute projects such as green technology, city
agriculture, and thriving public schools. By creating megaregions, planners are cutting off small
industrial cities’ resources to take one these ventures. By connecting the bridge directly to
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Mercer Island, it cuts off the resources of the smaller industrial cities around it, which in turn
causes less people to travel to these cities.
The Lake Washington Floating Bridge has had many ups-and-downs in its seventy-two
year history, but have the positives outweighed the negatives? While travel to Mercer Island is
faster, that access came at a cost of over nine million dollars, most of which was paid for by
Seattle residents. The bridge has endangered the lives of Seattleites, both by its hazardous roads
and the pollutants it places in the air and lake. Ferry boats are also a much better tourist attraction
than bridges. So, would Seattle have been better off leaving their ferry boat system in place?
Nevertheless, the Lake Washington Floating Bridge is here to stay, so Seattle residents might as
well make the best of it.
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Works Cited
A.P. “Floating Bridge Pays for Itself.” The Southeast Missourian. Southeast Missourian, 19 July
1949. Web. 14 Sept. 2012.
Boswell, Sharon and Lorraine McConaghy. “A bridge to the future.” The Seattle Times. Seattle
Times, 16 June 1996. Web. 14 Sept. 2012.
Florida, Richard. “Who’s Your City?: What Is a Megaregion?” Cbsnews. Moneywatch, 19 Mar.
2008. Web. 06 Oct. 2012.
From Lewis Mumford. The City. [reprinted in Harold E. Stearns, editor. Civilization in the
United States. New York: Harcourt Brace and Co., 1922. 3-20.]
Lange, Greg. “Lake Washington Floating Bridge is Dedicated on July 2, 1940.” History Link, 14
Jan. 1999. Web. 15 Sept. 2012.
Morgan, Lee. “What Are the Dangers of Working in a Concrete-Based Plant?” Ehow. Ehow, n.d.
Web. 6 Oct. 2012.
Tumber, Catherine. Small, Gritty, and Green: The Promise of America’s Smaller Industrial
Cities in a Low-Carbon World. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2012. Print.
Zylstra, Brian. “Building the first Lake Washington floating bridge.” Washington Secretary of
State Blogs. Secretary of State, 28 Jan. 2011. Web. 15 Sept. 2012.