Longest US suspension span in years open

Thousands turned out for opening day festivities Sunday at the new mile-long Tacoma Narrows bridge, the longest suspension bridge to open in the U.S. in more than 40 years.

The party started with a 5K run and walk across the bridge that drew more than 10,000 participants. Then State Treasurer Mike Murphy and House Speaker Frank Chopp paid the first toll, crossing the bridge in a 1923 Lincoln Touring Car, the first to cross the original bridges, built in 1940 and 1950.

The deck later opened to pedestrians who were invited to stroll across the bridge, which is scheduled to open to traffic early Monday. State transportation officials estimated that 50,000 people showed up to check out the new bridge.

The new bridge _ connecting Tacoma, about 30 miles south of Seattle, with the Kitsap Peninsula to the west _ is built parallel and to the south of the 1950 span. At 5,400 feet from end to end, it's the longest suspension bridge built in the United States since the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge opened in New York in 1964.

Builders logged more than 3.5 million hours over five years working on the bridge, with only three injuries serious enough to keep workers off the job the following day.

The original Tacoma Narrows bridge, dubbed Galloping Gertie, was the world's third-longest suspension bridge when it opened on July 1, 1940. It collapsed in a windstorm about four months later, becoming famous as "the most dramatic failure in bridge engineering history," the Department of Transportation said on its Web site.

The bridge built in 1950 was designed to carry 60,000 vehicles a day but handles an average of more than 90,000 a day, the transportation department said.