A recent photo montage displayed the kind of high winds and waves that can sweep across Lake Washington. It suggests to us that what Kirkland and surrounding areas could use is not an upgraded pontoon bridge but a toll road to Seattle running in a ring through the Eastside and circling completely back around the lake shore in the form of tolled express lanes.
A glance at a map suggests that the Kirkland and environs to Seattle segment could route through 522 and over to the interstate in North Seattle. Or possibly connect due west with Aurora, which is a state right-of-way just like 522 is. This might make for part of a sustainable transportation connector, which doesn’t depend on tricky floating bridges and just possibly take some heat off of the existing floating bridge infrastructures. Considering that out of the three floating bridges here in Western Washington, the Transportation Authority has managed to send two to the bottom of their respective bodies of water and that the third was mistakenly opened a dozen years ago during daylight hours, causing severe injuries to motorists who had no warning of the center span lifting as they drove over it. Perhaps a tolled route along Lake Washington shoreline by comparison ain’t so crazy.
A toll road can’t sink or have the center span opened by mistake. Some up-to-the-minute traffic management software worked up by electrical engineers really could get us somewhere were it added in. That kind of stuff would short out on a pontoon highway bridge with all the water blowing over it when the wind is howling. Running trains across a bucking pontoon highway bridge has never been done anywhere to my knowledge. Sure, trains can be put on barges and floated across the lake and that would be great fun for the railroad enthusiasts. Coal in train cars was barged across the same body of water back when. But you usually see trains crossing suspension bridges, which are in a very strong fixed position on tracks high above the water such as the East River bridges in New York City. Do you really want to be travelling in a train powered by electric motors when the circuits short out because the wind is blowing lake water across the pontoons when you have to get home or to work? There are almost a thousand union electricians standing around the hiring hall right now with nothing to do some of whom could be put to gainful employment maintaining a high-tech toll road years into the future who would be grateful for the chance and so would I be if I were one of them. If people vote with their feet then pay attention to where the feet are pressing – against the gas pedals of automobiles. And it appears to not be decelerating.
Miles F. Holden, Kirkland
