With all the thrashing about cutting ferry service, I figured that I’d pour myself a drink and explain what little I know.

Financial Factoids
It takes $220 million to operate the ferry system; $150 million comes from fares and $70 million comes from taxes. Half of the tax money is from ferry-dedicated sources and the remaining $35 million per year is “transferred” from other state Department of Transportation accounts.   The governor says she can’t make these “transfers” and, without new revenue, we’ll lose ferry runs.

Prior to 2000, the Motor Vehicle Excise Tax provided this tax money. When MVET was annihilated, a Blue Ribbon Committee foretold ferry fare increases would make up the difference. When fares went up, however, labor and fuel costs increased and ridership went down.

Ballot measures in 2003 and 2005 elevated gas taxes to a prestigious 28 cents per gallon, pushing WSDOT revenues up to $2 billion per year. So why is $35 million per year for ferries, or 1.8 percent of the budget, such a problem?

Four hundred new projects were promised in those gas tax levies, and payments on bonds to fund them now gobble up most of  the $2 billion per year.  How’d that happen? After six years of double-digit revenue growth, WSDOT assumed that continued revenue growth would pay for operations and maintenance. When revenue projections flattened out in 2009, WSDOT was up the creek without a paddle.

This fall’s Task Force made it clear that Job No. 1 was sustaining roads, transit, bridges and ferries. The proposal to meet this need by raising fees, such as registration fees, will raise $3 billion over 10 years with $1 billion going to ferries.

Why raise fees? Because that requires only a simple majority vote of the Legislature.

Why $1 billion — $100 million per year — for ferries? Because $1 billion  includes operational and capital funding needs.  As reliable as rain, there will be calls for WSF to cut costs and raise fares. So in addition to the fare increases, we need two long overdue bills: Sen. Christine Rolfes’ SB3541, and Rep. Larry Seaquist’s HB3309. These bills will set up a ferry riders’ committee empowered to examine WSF’s costs and the necessity for increased fares.

Traffic
Twenty years in the making, a plan to solve Kingston’s ferry traffic woes has emerged as one of North Kitsap’s top three highway priorities. In the 1990s, a Kingston Traffic Circulation Study led to a conceptual design that included:

– Running both inbound and outbound traffic down the north side of the Community Center on 1st Street (the toll booths would be moved to the end of 1st St.).

– Widening State Route 104 between the Community Center and Lindvog Road.

– Building a holding lot, with a tally ticket booth and restrooms, on the WSDOT property at Lindvog Road (originally planned  to be a WSF passenger ferry’s park-and-ride).

As we’re crackerjack at churning out lots of plans, I wasn’t altogether surprised when the Kingston Circulation Plan, along with designs, were later burned in a fire, probably having been mistaken for heating fuel. An unusually talented group of state, county and Kingston representatives sallied forth to develop a replacement plan where we recommended:

– Putting in an automated tally dispenser at the Lindvog Rd. and SR 104 intersection.

– Using the WSDOT parking lot across from the “Filling Station” for an overflow holding area.

– Running both inbound and outbound traffic down the north side of the Community Center on 1st St.

When WSF was told to use a reservation system instead of expanding holding areas the only part of our proposal that survived was the last item, moving ferry traffic out of downtown.

Alternatives for a roundabout or signal lights at West Kingston Road were mulled over last winter.  The next steps are to get a sense of direction that the community would like to pursue and to seek funding for a State Route 104 design from the existing community center to the ferry dock, including a redesigned “main street.”  As the planner commented to the Kingston Citizens’ Advisory Council this “allows you to take back the downtown.”

— This column was written by Walt Elliott. He is a Kingston port commissioner and chairman of the Kingston Ferry Advisory Committee.