Thousands turn out for opening day of new Tacoma Narrows bridge

re: "TACOMA -- Thousands turned out for opening day festivities at the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge on Sunday as state transportation crews geared up to open the milelong span to traffic. / The party started in the morning 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 and crossed 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 before it was to open to traffic early Monday morning...[snip]...At 5,400 feet from end to end, the new bridge -- built parallel and to the south of the 1950 span -- is the longest suspension bridge built in the United States since the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge opened in New York in 1964. /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..."...