Evergreen Point Floating Bridge (1963)
floating bridge opened 1963
The Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, officially the Governor Albert D. Rosellini Bridge, and commonly called the SR 520 Bridge or 520 Bridge, was a floating bridge in the U.S. state of Washington that carried State Route 520 across Lake Washington, connecting Medina with the Montlake neighborhood of Seattle.
The bridge's total length was approximately 15,580 feet (4,750 m) and it carried four lanes of traffic, two in each direction. Its 7,578-foot (2,310 m) floating section was the longest floating bridge in the world until April 11, 2016, when its replacement exceeded it by 130 feet (40 m).
The bridge was named for Evergreen Point, the westernmost of the three small Eastside peninsulas that SR 520 crosses. (The other two are Hunts Point and Yarrow Point.) In 1988, it was renamed for the state's 15th governor, Albert D. Rosellini, who had advocated its construction.
Although there were plans to replace the bridge several years following its completion, it was not until much later that investigations revealed the aging bridge to be in poor condition and unable to withstand the major hazards for which it was originally designed. This finding may have accelerated plans to finally replace it. In response to these hazards and the need to expand the current infrastructure, construction on a replacement began in 2012; the new bridge opened in April 2016. The original bridge was closed to traffic on April 22, 2016, and was disassembled over the following months.
History
The bridge was opened for commuter traffic on August 28, 1963, after three years of construction.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Evergreen Point Floating Bridge (1963)” as floating bridge opened 1963. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as floating bridge opened 1963. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5589521. The Library of Congress control number is sh97004584. Authority coordinates are 47.641, -122.260. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2016, 1988, 2012 and 1963.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Evergreen Point Floating Bridge (1963)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.