Photo by Brian Bundridge – M/V Walla Walla departing Edmonds

With many projects coming up, such as the Alaskan Way Viaduct, the 6-month closure of the Hood Canal Bridge, and replacement of SR-520 floating bridge – not to mention the rest of the 277 state-wide projects on the list of things to do, it comes as no surprise that there is still a huge hole in our transportation system even with our excellent bus, heavy and upcoming light-rail. Some may be pondering what exactly I am talking about – we have buses, we have rail, we have decent roads and an improving ferry system. This is all true but more can be done and needs to be done, starting with the ferry system.

When I started getting serious at blogging, I became a big number cruncher when the Seattle to Port Townsend holiday passenger ferry service was going. I knew it was something that wouldn’t last long and made several trips on the M/V Snohomish. Along with others, we all fought hard to keep the service running but the State of Washington pulled because of the amount of fuel needed for the boat. It was factored however if the service was ran near its capacity, which it was quickly approaching, the service could figuratively pay for itself with the 4 trips a day and the price adjusted accordingly.

Since the passing of I-695, the road and ferry system has been lacking heavily. The demise of the Steel Electric class ferries was the biggest tale of troubles for the system. Since I-695 targeted the bulk of the funding for King County Metro, Washington State Ferries, and some local road projects, what you are seeing now such as the budget shortfall at Metro, lagging ferry system, several year delay of acquiring new ferries, plus the sagging economy has rippled in a way unforeseen to many.

As somebody who used to commute via ferry from Bainbridge to Kirkland in the heyday (Ok, 3 years ago) I enjoyed my time on the ferries and understood the system as not only as another form of mass transit but also as a State Highway. My interest in the ferry system peaked more once I found out that the very same engines that power these ferries are also the same in locomotives (score!)

Previously, I talked about expanding Amtrak Cascades, which would benefit British Columbia, Washington and Oregon States. I also touched briefly on expanding passenger service via Stevens and Stampede Pass. This week, I’ll start on the Washington State Ferry Division and what can be done to help it along. Like the Amtrak Cascades series, this will be broken up into 4 long posts every week. So let’s begin!

The Washington State Ferry system is the largest in the United States with over 7 million riders a quarter (No, this is not a typo) with the bulk of passengers on the Seattle – Bainbridge Island route followed closely by the Mukilteo – Clinton and Edmonds – Kingston runs. These critical routes are normally congested and backed up due to their high ridership and nothing can readily be done due to the lack of vessels required to increase service and the ever lack of cash flow.

Setbacks to improvements of ferry terminals have mostly been put on hold as the State relocates money for various other “high priority” projects. Edmonds Crossing and Mukilteo have most notably been hit by these cuts in their funding. Ridership on the Northern ferry routes have increased slightly since the introduction of Sound Transit’s Sounder Commuter Rail, offering connectivity between the ferry docks and Seattle during the morning and evening rush hours. With 4 trains running and the recent opening of Mukilteo Station, ridership on Sounder has increased by 21% and when the ferry projects are finished, it is expected for the service to increase nearly 60% between Edmonds and Mukilteo. While Sounder isn’t an hourly service it does play a vital role in reducing auto traffic across the ferries for those that do commute into Downtown Seattle.

For ferry commuters, life became hell in November 2007 when Paula Hammond declared that the vessels were no longer safe for passenger use. While safety is paramount, the old vessels were loved by all but their age showed greatly. The timing of Paula Hammond’s decision to take the boats was however the worst time to pull equipment on any major transportation system – near Thanksgiving and Christmas, WSF’s busiest time of the year. During this event, WSF had put up the M/V Chinook and Snohomish for sale on ebay as part of ending their passenger-only ferry service. Paula and WSF decided to pull the Snohomish from the sale and prep it for return of service for the Holiday season. Its tour of duty included Seattle – Bremerton, Seattle – Bainbridge, and a special Seattle – Port Townsend run. It started temporary regular service between Keystone and Port Townsend until WSF borrowed and modified the M/V Steilacoom II from the City of Tacoma. Since the Steilacoom has been in service, WSDOT has opted to keep the Snohomish in “Ready” status. The sale of the M/V Chinook on ebay has gone bid-less twice so far with the vessel listed at $4.5 million dollars. Most recently, WSF has approved a plan for Todd Shipyards to build a new 64 car “Island Home” class ferry which will replace the Steilacoom II vessel. This new ferry will be the first of 6 new vessels for the system.

WSF has begun an aggressive maintenance program which at times, causes havoc and delays. The schedule is posted on the ferry main website for those that need to adjust their schedule accordingly.

Next week, we’ll touch on funding, projects that are in the works, current service, and connectivity with Sounder Commuter Rail and Amtrak.

14 Replies to “Washington Ferry System – Part 1”

  1. Any word on what this new ferry will be named? I sincerely hope that WSF keeps their tradition of giving the vessels Wa-Wa (Chinook Jargon) names, or naming them after local peoples. We don’t celebrate the richness of the history of the people native to our land nearly as much as we could, and I hope we don’t loose this one tradition, to a name as un-inspiring as “Island Home”

    1. I believe the new vessels will be given local Native American names. There is no real reason to change the tradition now and no lack of potential names for the new vessels.

  2. Great entry.

    I am an enthusiast from Vancouver, BC, of the BC Ferry and Translink services. BC Ferries is the largest ferry system in North America, operating almost 40 vessels across a span of 46 ports of call.

    TransLink operates 175 transit routes (about a quarter of them being every 10 minutes or less), with 1300 buses.

    I feel your pain – both our transit and ferry systems have had severe funding slashes over the past 5 years. Our ferry system has been forced to raise fares nearly 40% over the past few years, and our transit system can’t afford to pay for our 4th ALRT line, to replace our at-capacity rapid-bus (B-Line) system.

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    Pete: I congratulate the WSF of continuing on their naming tradition. We ditched ours in 1993, with the “Spirit of” names (the introduction of the Spirits of Vancouver Island and British Columbia) instead of the “Queen” names. And more recently with the introduction of our “Coastal” class ferries from Germany, which by the way are the largest double-ended ferries in the world.

  3. Good post, although next time I would send it off for a little peer edit before it goes on the site…

  4. Hammond pulled the Port Townsend(PT) – Keystone ferry the day before Thanksgiving!!! The only thing more shocking than her timing was the US Coast Guard’s ultimatum that WSF pull the boats due to hull pitting or the USCG would pull the steel boats from service themselves!!!
    I was heading across deception pass on that Thanksgiving eve headed to the boat, when i heard about the closure on the radio.
    I rode the PT – Seattle passenger ferry and was told it was not economically feasible. I remember crunching the numbers at 3.50$ diesel and the unsubsidized fare should have cost $15 each way.

    Bring back the Mosquito Fleet. Seattle to PT. PT to Anacortes. Bellingham to Vancouver, BC (2010?!) Bham to Friday Harbor. Kingston to Seattle. Bremerton (not too fast in Rich Passage) to Seattle. Oly to Tacoma. Gig Harbor to Seattle. Tacoma to Federal Way/Des Moines to Seattle.

  5. The ferry system needs to be separated from the Highway Department. Like the entire WSDOT, the mission should be mobility for people and connectivity, not free-flow capacity for cars.

    The ferry system absolutely needs to move cars, but should add some passenger only runs.

    Perhaps a Seattle-Bainbridge-Edmonds-Port Townsend run should be considered. It could possibly be extended to Port Angeles to connect with the ferry to Victoria.

    Another option would be Seattle-Vashon-Southworth-Gig Harbor-Ruston. It is essentially the Vashon Is. P.O. ferry that King County is discussing, with an extention to Pierce County. It would probably have similar costs and ridership to the existing ST bus.

      1. I believe the 4 old steel electric boats are the ones being towed to Mexico for scrapping.

        The 2 350 passenger only boats WSF sold to San Francisco are the Chinook and Snohomish which are both very new (1998/9) and have been hardly used in the 9/10 years WSF has owned them.

  7. Agreed on the peer editing, I re-read the post this morning and was pretty aghast about it! Definitely not my best typed post of the year.

    I like the idea of bringing back the Mosquito fleet and I wholeheartedly agreed that the ferry division needs to be separated from WSDOT into its own agency.

    Personally, I would prefer it to be that way (removing WSDOT) as it would mean equal food options on ALL runs, not just special items for select runs (bias much?) Better control over their funding and how fares are managed, retaining their passenger-only ferry service since that is what the bulk of the ferry ridership is – walk-on traffic.

    I like the idea also of returning and expanding the passenger ferries. The auto service is setup perfectly as they are now however there needs to be at least one replacement boat per route, within two hours of its terminal and should be at ready status with a crew on stand-by. If I was to expand passenger service, I agree again with Ryan-Guy, except on the Bham to Friday Harbor, Oly to Tacoma, and Tacoma to Federal Way and Des Moines. I just don’t see any feasible strong ridership which would sustain the service. Victoria Express should do any route into British Columbia (though their service on during the ferry crisis was incredible!)

    Longer distance trips, like Seattle to PT can be done in 90 minutes or less with a 35 to 40 knot vessels. The holiday schedule that WSF had was great and worked well, even though it only had 4 round trips. Routes like the Seattle – PT run has such a strong, strong potiential to reduce traffic and loads on the Port Townsend – Keystone and Edmonds – Kingston route – You will be amazed at how many people commute from the PT area to Seattle.

    When the Hood Canal floating bridge is closed next year for 6 months (if all goes well) the people there will only have one “fast” option and that is driving 3 hours via PT to Keystone and can either take the Clinton – Mukilteo ferry then onward to Seattle or drive through Anacortes to Seattle. The last option would be “pleading” for WSF to run the Snohomish during that time. With the current fuel prices, the Snohomish with 150 passengers would break even on fuel @ 7.00 one way. 350 passengers would pay for fuel and maintenance on the run completely and it has the strong potential to do this and ultimate make money.

    1. Too late to use the Snohomish and the Chinook, I’m afraid. WSF has sold the two passenger ferries to a transit authority in San Francisco.

      There was some issues with the boats with their being particularly expensive to operate. With some major modifications, they could be remodeled and made more efficient, probably for less than it costs to build a new one. But WSF is short of funds right now, with a bigger need to get some car ferries built before Pierce County demands their Steilacoom II back, so they were sold off.

      Reference P-I article here:

  8. I read your post with interest and then was shocked by your comment that the Hood Canal bridge will be closed for 6 months.
    This is NOT TRUE! It will be closed for 6 weeks during the months of May and Jun 2009. If all goes well there is a 5 day incentive for the contractor to complete the bridge early. The bridge replacement structure is over 87% complete now and is awaiting the actual construction period. Please get the correct information out there. Publicize the web site http://www.hoodcanalbridge.com for the correct information.

    I live on the Olympic Peninsula and this false information will hurt our businesses here.

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