Holiday Rush

Posted on by Frank Chiachiere

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

Everything’s okay at the airports today:

Eager to avoid crushing lines and frustrating delays, many travelers did not wait until yesterday to fly to their Thanksgiving Day destinations. Instead, they left Tuesday, which has become one of the busiest travel days of the year, or even earlier.

Anyone have a bad experience? Sounds like everything’s moving along swimmingly.

Sea-Tac Airport third runway – 1 year to go

Posted on by Brian Bundridge

This year for Thanksgiving could be a first for the Puget Sound region – It won’t be raining and low chance of fog! This will mean minimal flight delays in and out of Sea-Tac Airport. Typically during the holiday season, Sea-Tac Airport is overflowing with people leaving and departing the Puget Sound region but flight delays has always been a huge issue because of heavy, dense fog, hard rain, windy, and just about every other year, power would go out thanks to these elements. The 3rd runway will be open about this time next year which will allow the use of 2 runways landing and departing without interruption. This will be a welcome site to all when it goes open. I’m not sure how things will be setup for landing and departures but I’m sure it will speed things up along nicely.

The other good tidbit is that the initial road work construction at Sea-Tac Airport, including the new loop should be completed by this point as well. The new roadway, which was needed for Sound Transit’s Central Link Light-Rail system will speed up getting into and out of the airport and the improvements on SR-518 will be a welcomed addition.

http://www.portseattle.org/seatac/construction/

WSF Steel Electric Ferries pulled from service

Posted on by Brian Bundridge

With Thanksgiving coming up later this week, Washington State Ferries made a challenging decision to pull the 80-year old Steel Electric class ferries, the Quinault, Klickitat, Illahee and Nisqually, from operating service to examine the hulls of these ships. Hull pitting on the Quinault has officials concerned about weak hull structure and safety. The Steel Electric class ferries are the only boats that can navigate the shallow and narrow waterways of the Keystone harbor.

To help lessen the impacts of the loss of passenger-vehicle service on Port Townsend-Keystone, WSF will:

  • Operate three vessels on the Edmonds-Kingston route from Wednesday, November 21 to Sunday evening, November 25 to handle the extra traffic expected over the Thanksgiving weekend. This route is the best detour for people traveling from the Olympic Peninsula to Whidbey Island.
  • Operate the high-speed passenger ferry Snohomish between Port Townsend and Keystone. WSF is making every attempt to have the service up and running by Friday, November 23 to serve customers during their Thanksgiving travel. The passenger ferry will maintain the current schedule.

If you recall, the Snohomish and the Chinook were placed up for sale last week but due to this issue the vessels are in dry dock and will operate on the Port Townsend – Keystone route.

More at WSDOT – http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/News/2007/11/20_steelelectricferriesoutofservice.htm

Seattle Times – http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004027510_webferry21m.html

Seattle Post-Intelligencer – http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/transportation/340508_ferry21.html