KINGSTON — This summer, one-and-a-half hour waits have become the norm for Thursday afternoon ferry sailings from Edmonds to Kingston. Fridays are another story.

“There are commuters who will sit and wait three hours on a Friday just to get home,” said Lynne Danielson, who has commuted to a job in Edmonds for 13 years.

Danielson has her own trick for beating the crowds. She rides a motorcycle on Thursdays and Fridays so she can whisk to the front of the line.

But this summer she is working on a more permanent solution.

Danielson and 17 other Kingston and Edmonds residents are serving on an advisory committee helping Washington State Ferries design a vehicle reservation system, which could be up and running on the route by 2011.

WSF planners believe the system could improve service for riders while dispersing the long ticketing lines, which would relieve congestion and the need for an estimated $290 million in holding area expansions.

In its 2009 session, the Legislature ordered WSF to study to develop a pilot project to test a reservations system. The Kingston/Edmonds route was chosen in part because of its existing congestion problems but also because it serves a diverse mix of riders.

With the help of the Edmonds/Kingston Partnership Group, WSF will design the pilot project this fall. It will be presented to the Legislature for approval in 2010.

If the pilot is successful in Kingston, it could be phased in throughout the ferry system.

WSF isn’t starting completely from scratch. It already takes more than 100,000 reservations a year for its Port Townsend/Keystone and Anacortes/Sidney, B.C., runs. But it plans to competely overhaul the technology used to power those reservation systems — as it’s considered an archaic system — and they plan to start fresh in Kingston.

Reservations were introduced at the Port Townsend terminal a little more than a year ago and have helped quell congestion, said Jefferson County Ferry Advisory Committee Chair Tim Caldwell.

“All in all, we feel the reservation system, at least for the Port Townsend route, has done what we anticipated it doing,” Caldwell said.

Only a few features from the Port Townsend reservation system will be kept for the Kingston route. Riders will be able to make reservations by phone or Internet and will pay a portion of their fare as a deposit. Riders will also be able to “stand by” to claim spots not filled by reservations.

Beyond that, are many variables to be decided.

Issues mulled by the Edmonds/Kingston Partnership Group at a meeting in Kingston Wednesday included how far in advance reservations can be made, how much of the boat should be set aside for reservations and what happens in the event of a cancellation.

For a reservation system to work in Kingston, it will need to be flexible enough to serve an eclectic ridership that includes daily commuters, commercial carriers and weekend warriors.

Commuters might book a month of fares the same two sailings each day. A family planning its vacation might make one ferry reservation four months in advance. Kingston Lumber owner Tom Waggoner, who expects his business to spend more than $60,000 on ferry fares this year, said his delivery times vary daily.

“We don’t know which boat we’re going to use in the morning,” he said. “And we have no clue when that truck is going to be back.”

Jerry Weed of Sequim reminded the group the Kingston ferry is used by a far-flung group of riders.

“You have to allow some flexibility for people to call and say ‘Hey I’m stuck in traffic’ or ‘the bridge is open, and I can’t get there,’” Weed said.

Wednesday was the partnership’s second monthly meeting. So far it has brainstormed plenty of ideas but is far from concrete answers. Its suggestions will be vetted with WSF staff members and molded into a plan in December.

North End County Commissioner Steve Bauer, a member of the partnership, cautioned the group several times to avoid creating a wishlist, rather than a deliverable plan.

“This conversation is great,” Bauer said. “But we have to be careful that we don’t ask for everything and have it so complicated that it falls apart.”

As for Danielson, she’s guardedly optimistic that the reservation system can fix the Kingston ferry. The success of the program will depend a lot on execution she said, and whether the Legislature will provide funding for implementation.

“Will it all be an exercise in futility?” she said. “Maybe.”