Tacoma Narrows Bridge

Tacoma Narrows Bridge
The bridges in 2015, as seen from the Tacoma side. 1950 bridge on the right, 2007 bridge on the left.
Coordinates	47°16′5″N 122°33′2″W / 47.26806°N 122.55056°W / 47.26806; -122.55056
Carries	8 lanes of SR 16, cyclists and pedestrians
Crosses	Tacoma Narrows
Locale	Tacoma to the Kitsap Peninsula United States
Maintained by	Washington State Department of Transportation
Characteristics
Design	Twin suspension
Total length	5,400 ft (1,645.92 m)[1]
Longest span	2,800 ft (853.44 m)[1]
Clearance below	187.5 ft (57.15 m)
History
Construction start	April 12, 1948 (westbound) October 4, 2002 (eastbound)
Opened	October 14, 1950 (westbound) July 15, 2007 (eastbound)
Statistics
Toll	Eastbound only (passenger car)[2]: $5.50 (cash/credit price) $4.50 (transponder price) $6.50 (pay by mail)
Location

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge is a pair of twin suspension bridges that span the Tacoma Narrows strait of Puget Sound in Pierce County, Washington. The bridges connect the city of Tacoma with the Kitsap Peninsula and carry State Route 16 (known as Primary State Highway 14 until 1964) over the strait. Historically, the name "Tacoma Narrows Bridge" has applied to the original bridge, nicknamed "Galloping Gertie", which opened in July 1940 but collapsed possibly because of aeroelastic flutter four months later, as well as to the successor of that bridge, which opened in 1950 and still stands today as the westbound lanes of the present-day two-bridge complex.

The original Tacoma Narrows Bridge opened on July 1, 1940. The original bridge received its nickname "Galloping Gertie" for the vertical movement of the deck observed by construction workers during windy conditions. While engineers and engineering professor F. B. Farquharson were hired to seek ways to stop the odd movements, months' experiments were unsuccessful.^[3] The bridge became known for its pitching deck, and collapsed into Puget Sound the morning of November 7, 1940, under high wind conditions. Engineering issues, as well as the United States' involvement in World War II, postponed plans to replace the bridge for several years; the new bridge was opened on October 14, 1950.

By 1990, population growth and development on the Kitsap Peninsula had caused traffic on the bridge to exceed its design capacity; as a result, in 1998 Washington voters approved a measure to support building a parallel bridge. After a series of protests and court battles, construction began in 2002 and the new bridge opened to carry eastbound traffic on July 16, 2007, while the 1950 bridge was reconfigured to carry westbound traffic.^[4]

At the time of their construction, both the 1940 and 1950 bridges were the third-longest suspension bridges in the world in terms of main span length, behind the Golden Gate Bridge and George Washington Bridge. The 1950 and 2007 bridges are as of 2017 the fifth-longest suspension bridge spans in the United States and the 43rd-longest in the world.

Tolls were charged on the bridge for the entire four-month service life of the original span, as well as the first 15 years of the 1950 bridge. In 1965, the bridge's construction bonds plus interest were paid off, and the state ceased toll collection on the bridge. Over 40 years later, tolls were reinstated as part of the financing of the twin span, and are at present collected only from vehicles traveling eastbound.