The George Washington Memorial Bridge (commonly called the Aurora Bridge) is a cantilever and truss bridge that carries Aurora Avenue N. (State Route 99) over the west end of Seattle's Lake Union between Queen Anne and Fremont, just east of the Fremont Cut. The bridge is 2,945 ft (898 m) long, 70 ft (21 m) wide, and 167 ft (51 m) above the water, and is owned and operated by the Washington State Department of Transportation.
The bridge was opened to traffic on February 22, 1932. It was accepted to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. The bridge is a popular location for suicide jumpers and numerous reports have used the bridge as a case study in fields ranging from suicide prevention to the effects of prehospital care on trauma victims.
In 1998 a bus driver was shot and killed while driving over the bridge, causing his bus to crash and resulting in the death of one of the passengers.
Read more about George Washington Memorial Bridge: Design, History, Suicides, Metro Bus Tragedy
Famous quotes containing the words washington, memorial and/or bridge:
“I thought it altogether proper that I should take a brief furlough from official duties at Washington to mingle with you here to-day as a comrade, because every President of the United States must realize that the strength of the Government, its defence in war, the army that is to muster under its banner when our Nation is assailed, is to be found here in the masses of our people.”
—Benjamin Harrison (18331901)
“I hope there will be no effort to put up a shaft or any monument of that sort in memory of me or of the other women who have given themselves to our work. The best kind of a memorial would be a school where girls could be taught everything useful that would help them to earn an honorable livelihood; where they could learn to do anything they were capable of, just as boys can. I would like to have lived to see such a school as that in every great city of the United States.”
—Susan B. Anthony (18201906)
“London Bridge is broken down,
Dance oer my lady lee,
London Bridge is broken down,
With a gay lady.
How shall we build it up again?
Dance oer my lady lee,”
—Unknown. London Bridge (l. 16)