Tens of thousands help open new 520 bridge | Slideshow

It was a chaotic scene this weekend as tens of thousands swarmed the new State Route 520 bridge across Lake Washington, nearly overloading the brand new, more than $4 billion project.

Gov. Jay Inslee cut a ribbon to officially dedicate the bridge on Saturday, April 2, and food trucks and activity tents kept families fed and entertained, but the opening of the longest floating bridge in the world (confirmed by Guinness World Records) meant more than just a fun weekend event.

After more than a decade of planning and five years of construction, the bridge will offer a wider, safer platform for motorists, pedestrians, cyclists and — according to Inslee — even unicyclists.

The new 520 bridge is 150 feet longer and nearly twice as wide as the old bridge, 7,710 feet long and 116 feet wide. Motorists now have not only the two lanes in each direction the old bridge featured, but also a high-occupancy vehicle lane in each direction as well as a shoulder for disabled vehicles to pull over. A 14-foot-wide pedestrian and bicycle path is on the northernmost side, a feature the old bridge lacked.

A fun-run kicked off the weekend’s events, and more than 13,000 runners, joggers and walkers took off from the Seattle side of the bridge. Groups were separated into timed and untimed, and crowds were packed so tightly many of the runners had to walk for the first stage of the race. A 5k raced was planned but ultimately canceled. A 10-kilometer race was the only run on Saturday.

More than 4,300 runners competed in the timed race. Joel Ambo was the quickest male finisher, with a time of 32:33 while Ruth Perkins was the first female runner, finishing in 36:02.

As the bridge’s West Approach Project isn’t scheduled to open until 2017, folks coming from Seattle had to take shuttles to the bridge. And had to take shuttles back. This led to a several hour wait in lines in the sunshine as buses carted people back and forth.

Washington State Department of Transportation said more than 43,000 people were on the bridge on Saturday — so many that organizers cut off new arrivals, and focused on the shuttles taking people off the bridge.

Even with unseasonably warm weather and transportation issues, the opening ceremony at 10:30 a.m. went off smoothly.

Louie Ungaro, vice-chairman for the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, gave the bridge a traditional blessing. Kevin Millar, acting secretary of transportation for Washington State Department of Transportation, took a photo of the gathered crowd before thanking the tireless work of his colleagues and thousands of Washingtonians who had made the bridge possible.

The bridge is supported by 77 pontoons constructed in Aberdeen and brought to Lake Washington parallel to the old bridge. The West Approach project will be completed (and the complete cyclist and pedestrian path across the bridge as well) in 2017, the old 520 bridge will be dismantled and taken off the lake later this year.

About 7,000 cyclists crossed the nearly 1.5-mile long bridge on Sunday, April 3 for the Emerald City Bike Ride.

This weekend, both bridges will be shut down again while WSDOT prepares for April 11, when westbound lanes of the new bridge will be officially opened to traffic.