CONSTRUCTION PORN

GIANT PONTOONS GO THROUGH THE LOCKS

The Washington State Department of Transportation is building us a shiny new floating bridge across Lake Washington, 13 miles from Seattle to Redmond. The hard part, because it's a floating bridge, will be to get all 77 pontoons lined up, especially since they're not being built onsite, but are being towed in from Tacoma and Aberdeen.

They'll arrive one by one at Shilshole Bay, then get maneuvered by their tugboat escorts through the Hiram Chittenden Locks. Each pontoon weighs 11,000 tons, and measures 360 feet long, 75 feet wide and 30 feet high. They just barely fit, but they do: the largest lock is 80 feet wide. Whew!


(Don't laugh: when Metro built the bus tunnel under Third Avenue in Seattle, they didn't get the rails right and had to close it for two years to "retrofit" the tunnel for light rail.)

From the locks, it's a piece of cake: Salmon Bay, Ship Canal, Lake Union, Portage Bay, Montlake Cut, Union Bay and the new bridge.

Here's a video from WSDOT showing how it's done.

All previous Construction Porn on Curbed
All previous WSDOT coverage on Curbed