Sitting atop Lake Washington, the new State Route 520 is now the longest floating bridge in the world—beating its predecessor, the old State Route 520, by 130 feet [...].

This new bridge has stronger pontoons than the last one, and can withstand more buffeting from wind and waves. It also has a stormwater collection system, bus lanes in both directions, a path for bikes and pedestrians, and the capacity to someday accommodate a light rail system. — atlasobscura.com

“The one thing that everybody's sort of excited about is this idea that the stadium is designed as much for the tailgating, the pre-game, as for the game itself,” Ingels says in the 60 Minutes promo. — CityLab.com

After officials announced that Metro, Washington’s subway system, would be shut down for 29 hours, riders began preparations for another problematic travel day in a city already well known for its cramped and sometimes dangerous train commutes.

The controlled chaos began early Wednesday and will continue until 5 a.m. Thursday, affecting 91 Metro stations that provide 700,000 rides each day in the city and its suburbs. — the New York Times

“Shady,” “unethical,” “secretive,” “robbed of our due process” — these were just a few of the choice terms used by angry residents this past week at a packed City Council meeting about the selling of Pine Tree Park [in Kent, outside of Seattle, WA].

Longtime Seattle land-use attorney Rick Aramburu has another term for what happened: illegal. It’s also a growing trend in the swath of cities around Seattle, places that no longer receive much scrutiny from the press.

“It’s becoming a cancer" — seattletimes.com

The proposed Fourth and Columbia Tower...would be a mixed-use office and residential tower rising up 1,111 feet above the street. It would be 101 stories, with two levels of retail shopping, four levels of above-grade parking, and six levels of office space. It would also play home to 350 hotel rooms, and 1,200 residential units...But being the tallest could be something [developer] Crescent Heights may not want to give up. — KOMO News

On Tuesday, Callison and architecture/engineering firm RTKL announced they have officially joined forces as CallisonRTKL...[CEO Lance] Josal said the merger is good news for both firms and 'especially for the Seattle office.' In talking to the firm's senior leaders, Josal said there has been 'a little bit of frustration on their part' because they felt the firm 'may have lost a bit of swagger locally' and wanted an owner that would invest in the firm... — Puget Sound Business Journal

Seattle's tallest skyscraper is about to get a much taller neighbor.

New information submitted to the city shows that the skyscraper planned for Fourth Avenue and Columbia Street will be 101 stories tall. — Biz Journals

“I was a little disappointed in the fire service,” said Belles, standing on the charred hillside next to the dome in his semi-rural neighbourhood on the edge of town. — theguardian.com

There are ways to bring elegance to 5 over 1 structures, but it requires a high degree of skill and commitment. Only a very talented designer can take such a limited palette of materials and make the resulting building interesting, if not elegant. But developers must be willing to hire those skilled designers. Many are simply not interested. [...] Hence, the wildly uneven — and often uninspiring — architecture in Seattle today. — crosscut.com

The bridge, should it be built, would be about a mile long. It would span Sinclair Inlet, connecting Bremerton and Port Orchard, about 15 miles west of Seattle. Today, it’s a 10-mile, often traffic-clogged, drive between the towns. Rep. Jesse Young, whose district includes these two towns, thinks using an old carrier or two would make a fine tourist attraction and tribute to the military. — Wired

Megaprojects almost always fall short of their promises—costing too much, delivering underwhelming benefits, or both. Yet...cities still fall for them, seduced by new technologies and the lure of the perfect fix. A mix of factors has given Seattle a particularly acute sense of angst. The project depends on a singular piece of engineering. And Bertha’s building a highway for cars in a city where workers overcrowd buses and commuters wrap themselves in waterproof everything to bike in the rain. — Bloomberg

If there’s anything positive to emerge from the current mess, it’s that local advocates like Cary Moon, who warned against building the tunnel in the first place, are commanding attention again. Moon recently took to the pages of the local alt-weekly, the Stranger, to argue that in light of the tunnel project’s spectacular, slow-motion meltdown, the city should explore other options. — streetsblog.org

Ancient Egypt endured plagues of locusts. Seattle has its tunnel, which over the last year has featured a series of setbacks and fiascos that, depending on one’s outlook, can be the setup for a punch line, or an eye-rolling narrative of put-upon endurance.

In the latest blow, project engineers said this week that 30 or more buildings in the historic Pioneer Square area [...] had unexpectedly settled, possibly because of water pumping related to the project. — nytimes.com