Forks in the road

Speed bumps, detours and potholes in local and state transportation history:

1853 — Washington Territorial Legislature designates major territorial highway routes. Nothing much happens.

1890 — State Legislature designates a dozen state highways. Nothing much happens.

1899 — Urban bicyclists and rural teamsters form the Washington Good Roads Association.

1900 — The state's first automobile (a Woods Electric) arrives.

1909 — Henry Ford introduces the Model T and sponsors the nation's first transcontinental auto race, which terminates at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition on the University of Washington campus.

1919 — Seattle purchases private streetcar lines to form the Municipal Street Railway, but the inflated price dooms the system to eventual bankruptcy.

1928 — Legislature dissolves Highway Committee and vests authority to hire state highway director in the governor.

1929 — Aurora Avenue alignment of the proposed George Washington Memorial Bridge is announced.

1930 — City Council approves a controversial Pacific Avenue (Highway 99) "speedway" through Woodland Park, which is affirmed by voters in a referendum.

1932 — Aurora Bridge opens Feb. 22; the Woodland Park Speedway is finished a year later.

1940 — Original Lake Washington floating bridge, first proposed in 1921, opens on July 2.

1941 — Seattle's last streetcars are replaced by motor buses and trackless trolleys.

1951 — Legislature creates new appointed state Highway Commission and the state takes over the private Black Ball Line ferry system.

1954 — First segment of the Alaskan Way Viaduct opens. The Battery Street Tunnel and southern extension open over the next five years.

1958 — Voters reject mass-transit authority for new Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle.

1962 — "Stop the Ditch" protest challenges Interstate 5 route through Seattle on June 5.

1963 — Evergreen Point floating bridge, now named for Gov. Albert D. Rosellini, opens a year late.

1968/1970 — King County voters twice reject "Forward Thrust" bonds for a light-rail system.

1970 — I-5 is essentially completed after a decade of construction and $1.5 billion.

1972 — Seattle voters cancel plans for R.H. Thomson Expressway and South Lake Union "Bay Freeway."

1972 — County voters finally approve an all-bus Metro Transit system.

1984 — Scandal-plagued high-level West Seattle Bridge survives referendum and opens.

1990 — Scandal-plagued downtown Seattle transit tunnel opens and the original Lake Washington floating bridge sinks.

1993 — Expanded I-90 is completed.

1995 — Regional voters reject $6.7 billion Sound Transit plan.

1996 — Regional voters approve $3.9 billion Sound Transit plan.

2001 — Nisqually earthquake on Feb. 28 exposes structural weakness of Alaskan Way Viaduct.

2005 — Gov. Christine Gregoire assumes direct responsibility for WSDOT under new state law and voters reject Initiative 912 and scrap Seattle monorail.