Our county commissioners hosted five forums around the county to get an earful about ferries. Here’s a snapshot of what Kingston said. The full comments for all the meetings will be on the county website. If not, give me a call, 360-434-0583.
Communications: When delays or service cutbacks happen, we don’t get the word and rumors prevail. The info on the ferry alerts and those big electronic road signs isn’t all that useful and Washington State Ferries’ published plan for shifting boats around in a breakdown often isn’t followed.
Ferry boats: WSF should look into extending the lifetime of our jumbo ferries. When they are replaced that should be with a new class of similar sized boats, and not with the smaller 144s. All new boat designs should focus on reducing crewing and improving reliability. Slowing down the Jumbos to save money will lose runs, revenue and not measurably reduce fuel use.
Maintenance: Doing ferry maintenance in the summer, when demand is high, instead of the winter, when demand is low, doesn’t make sense and hurts our economy. Shorting the WSF maintenance budget is expensive with costly repairs and lost service.
Service: Most other runs get extra summer boats. The long waits at Kingston-Edmonds are a barrier to tourism and, with the highest traffic in the system, we’re overdue for a third summer boat. Besides reducing back-ups the third boat would make money. By contrast leaving the spare boat tied up in Eagle Harbor, doesn’t make a cent.
Fares: Ferry communities need predictably affordable fares. Strategies that hike up fares during commute hours are killers to local economies with fewer young people using ferries and moving here. The Legislature’s funding is the key. In return for state funding, WSF should guarantee a given level of service at a given fare. This shouldn’t be hard to do with WSF being less than 3 percent of Washington State Department of Transportation’s budget.
Schedules: The pause in the evening boats is inconvenient and it appears that in setting schedules, customer convenience takes the back seat. On-time performance is measured by the departure time when it should be measured by the arrival time.
Staffing: Either from lack of training or defined procedures the summer staff is less efficient in loading the boats. Infrequent summer travelers load slow and leave large gaps between cars. In the holding lot traffic is held up at the toll booths when the boat’s being loaded, causing back-ups through town and wasting time.
Parking: We need better directional signs and convenient parking in Kingston and Edmonds. On weekends the Edmonds’ Sounder lot could be opened up for parking. This would be a boon to summer visitors when there are long back-ups. We also need more readily available park and ride/vanpool facilities.
Transit: Rural communities don’t have the connections between ferries and transit to support fare policies that promote walk-ons. They just make us pay disproportionately more to ride the boats.
Terminals: The Edmonds terminal will eventually have to separate ferry and train traffic to function as the trains are projected to double by 2030. Long ferry traffic back-ups on the shoulders continue in Kingston after decades of effort to get a solution.
Reservations: While it is a clear plus for commercial traffic, it appears to be too complicated and inconvenient for the rest of us.
WSF planning: WSF needs to be thinking like a business. There doesn’t appear to be a focus on growing riders and reducing costs which is critical to financial survival. Rather, strategies like “adaptive management” are doing the reverse. The Governor has committed to a “lean” system and asset management but we don’t see it.
— FerryFare is written by Walt Elliott, chairman of the Kingston Ferry Advisory Committee. Contact him at elliottmoore@comcast.net.
