Uploaded on 2016-09-01 by Jason Beffa

Lake Washington divides Greater Seattle on the west side of the lake from it's largest residential suburbs on the east side (Bellevue, Kirkland and Redmond). The lake is 18 miles long, and between 1.75 to 4 miles wide. Therefor the thousands of commuters who live on the east side of the lake and work in Seattle - or vice versa for Microsoft/Google/Expedia etc. employees working on the east side and living in Seattle - are dependent on two bridges built approx. 4 miles apart from each other to provide transportation infrastructure between these areas. At the moment, no mass transit systems other than buses have the ability to cross the lake, resulting in a monstrous traffic epidemic that reaches far north and south of each bridge. The bridge in this picture was built over the past 5 years in hopes of relieving some of this traffic pressure (and has gone over budget by more than USD $450 million), but so far in it's first 6 months of use the Seattle Department of Transportation has no serviceable data to show any definitive reduction in commute times.