The future of the Puget Sound’s transportation is in its past – a past where water communities were well connected by fleets of small passenger ferries. Passenger-Only Ferries (POF) are the natural solution to congestion because they offer transportation choices to those of us living in the west Puget Sound region while minimizing traffic on its well-traveled corridors.
But the only way passenger ferries can once again become a viable transportation choice is through partnerships with private businesses, legislators, public transit authorities, labor and you, the taxpayer.
New York Waterway, the largest private ferry operator in the world, operates 57 vessels on 25 ferry routes and transports 15 million passengers annually into Manhattan. Commuters also get a free bus ticket to one of NY Waterway’s 115 buses. Dick Hayes, Kitsap Transit’s executive director, has said that it is this type of multi-modal system that the Kitsap Transit POF Investment Plan is modeled after. Both plans coordinate land transportation to and from passenger ferries.
The state has definitively pulled out of the POF business despite documented need and the desire to proceed. In 2006, the state directed the responsibility for operating POF service to local governments, specifically counties and local transit agencies. Central to the state solution is the existing alternative for local transit agencies to access new sales tax funding specifically for POF on the Puget Sound.
For some time, Kitsap Transit has worked to develop a stable source of funding for cross-Sound POF and vigorously pursued research to develop low-wake technology to allow high-speed POF service through Rich Passage. It has partnered with private franchise ferry operators to resume the Bremerton service abandoned by the state, initiated POF service from Kingston and started planning for direct POF service from Southworth to downtown Seattle.
In 2003, voters rejected a measure that would have increased sales tax by three-tenths of one cent to specifically fund POF service. In early 2007, voters will likely have one last opportunity for quite some time to make this happen. Currently, experts have estimated that the three-tenths of one cent increase would equate to approximately $33.67 per family for one year, based on the county’s median income. With the price of gas, that family would spend much more on fuel to get where they are going.
The citizens in North Kitsap are conscientious about the way they want their communities to grow. They must be, because Kitsap County is one of the last regions in the Northwest that offers more affordable housing choices than other areas, a multitude of great leisure activities and a reasonable commute to a world-class city. Communities along Puget Sound must embrace the importance of a system-wide approach to transportation. This means integrating our bus, rail and ferry services to give people more transportation choices.
By better integrating POF into our transportation network, we can connect people, jobs and their lives. POF are not just about people commuting to work; imagine not having to jump up from a Mariners’ game in the eighth inning or leave the 5th Avenue Theatre before the curtain call to catch the only ferry that will get you home before 2 a.m.! A fully integrated POF system will offer lifestyle choices.
Cross-Sound POF would provide a vital link between communities in Kitsap and the employment, commercial, medical, cultural and recreational centers on the east side of the Puget Sound. Ferries are an essential public service, like roads and streetlights, and the addition of POF is critical to our economy and the quality of life we cherish in the Northwest.
