Uploaded on 2016-08-10 by Jason Beffa

Jason Beffa Seattle, USA 520 Floating Bridge project This is the 520 floating bridge located in Seattle, Washington, USA. It’s the longest floating bridge in the world. Reaching across the north end of Lake Washington and connecting the city of Seattle with the eastside suburb of Bellevue. This bridge is made up predominantly of steel reinforced concrete. Though most of the concrete structures were made locally in Aberdeen, WA (90 miles from Seattle), a large portion of the mechanical parts were imported from China, as well as Korean and Chinese computer hardware used to monitor and control the bridge control system, and a Canadian company that makes specialized energy conserving high wattage street lights. This is a good example of a global construction project that didn't really need to be global, as Washington state has the necessary resources to have built this entire project from scratch within the Seattle area. Instead, the decision was made to take the lowest bid possible. Unfortunately the project is already $400+ million over budget, which shows that the lowest can almost never be trusted to be the final amount paid to contractors.