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April 15, 2015

All bridge pontoons now on Lake Washington

By JOURNAL STAFF

Photo from WSDOT [enlarge]

The final three pontoons that will make up the new SR 520 floating bridge arrived last week on Lake Washington.

From the Aberdeen casting basin, it took four days to tow the pontoons north on the Pacific Ocean, south on Puget Sound, east through the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks and onto the lake.

Pontoon F, the final one, is shown going below the Fremont Bridge.

Kiewit-General made the pontoons, which are the larger longitudinal variety measuring 360 feet long and weighing 11,000 tons each. In total, the contractor made 21 longitudinal, two cross and 10 supplemental pontoons at the Aberdeen basin. An additional 44 supplemental pontoons were made in Tacoma by the joint venture Kiewit/General/Manson.

Crews are bolting together and anchoring the 77 pontoons that will form the world's longest floating bridge when it opens in about a year. The new six-lane bridge is designed to resist stronger wind storms than the current bridge.




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