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Best of 2011: The fragile state of Washington's ferries

A recent disruption in ferry service to the San Juan Islands illuminated just how close Washington's ferry system is to the edge. Can a new government task force resuscitate the struggling system?

Best of 2011: The fragile state of Washington's ferries

by

C.B. Hall

A recent disruption in ferry service to the San Juan Islands  illuminated just how close Washington's ferry system is to the edge. Can  a new government task force resuscitate the struggling system?

Editor's Note: In the run-up to the new year,   Crosscut is sharing ten days of its best stories from 2011, each with a   different theme. Today we are looking at coverage of the changing  Northwest. This story, by Crosscut writer C.B. Hall, first  appeared October 26.

Earlier this month, mechanical breakdowns on two  ferries serving the San Juan Islands reminded local ferry users and  Washington State Ferries (WSF) of the fragility of the system that  connects the islands with the state's mainland and the wider world.

The San Juans' service is one of ten WSF-operated routes in the Puget  Sound region. The ferry system lost a major source of funding in 1999,  when voters approved a referendum that killed the motor vehicle excise  tax, and investments in new boats have been minimal, leading to  predictions of cascading misfortunes if too many of the aging vessels  act up at the same time.

This month WSF and its patrons got a taste of how such a crisis might  unfold. The San Juan ferries kept running, after a fashion, but that  doesn't mean that the next concatenation of mishaps will pass by as  harmlessly.

On October 7, the 44-year-old Yakima — which carries up to 144 cars  between Anacortes and the four ferry-served islands — went down because  of abnormal bearing wear on a propulsion motor shaft. The next day WSF  shifted the 57-year-old, 87-car Evergreen State from its normal route  circulating among the four islands to the Yakima's route. The  44-year-old, 34-car Hiyu, which had been on standby at WSF's Bainbridge  Island maintenance facility, was pressed into service on the Evergreen  State's normal routes.

On the morning of the 11th, however, the Hiyu's  yeoman service came to an abrupt end. As WSF spokeswoman Marta Coursey  explained, “crews discovered that its fire pump shaft, which provides  water to the sprinkler system, was broken. . . The vessel was between  Orcas and Shaw islands. All the vehicles and passengers were off-loaded  on Orcas Island and the 144-car Elwha made an unscheduled stop at  Orcas.”

Fortunately, the spanking new, 64-car Chetzemoka happened, that very  day, to be completing its summer service on the Port Townsend-Coupeville  route and was about to commence scheduled servicing time at an  Anacortes shipyard. WSF redeployed the boat to the San Juans, and on  Wednesday it began handling the inter-island traffic. As of Sunday the  16th, repairs to the Yakima had been completed, allowing WSF to put it  back in service. The Evergreen State was restored to its inter-island  duties, the Hiyu sent back to its standby dock, and the Chetzemoka —  several days late — was returned to the Anacortes yard.

But not before the disruptions had temporarily reduced scheduled  ferry runs. Which, it turns out, play a significant role in dictating  how many island residents spend their time. Generally ferry riders rely  on a skill resembling improvisation to catch ferries to Anacortes — due  to space limitations, the only assurance of a car spot on an  Anacortes-bound boat is a very early arrival at the ferry terminal on  the island in question.

Lopez resident Gordon Jonasson, who was heading to  the mainland on Tuesday the 11th, said WSF personnel handled things  admirably. “They were ad-hocing the schedules. I was trying to reach the  1:35 [departure]  and it just so happened they'd scheduled an all-stops  boat for 1:35.” (A “Lopez only” boat normally leaves the island for  Anacortes at that time.) The boat accommodated Jonasson's car, but he  noted that he got to the ferry dock at 11:15 to wait. ”I suspect people  that were going to go that day [but arrived at at the ferry line later]  just cancelled,” he said.

Coming back from the mainland on Saturday, Jonasson arrived at the  Anacortes terminal at 3:15 pm for a 4:30 ferry — the Evergreen State —   which he got onto, but others close behind him in the queue had to wait  for another sailing. The usual vessel, the Yakima, with room for 57 more  cars, would have accommodated the “overloads” easily.

For San Juan Islands residents, vessel capacity is a crucial, but not  the only, element of transportation decisions. The capacity of each  boat going to Anacortes — the number of cars it can carry — is  apportioned among the islands, where it will pick up motorists. WSF does  not publish the crucial per-island quotas on its website; one has to  get a slip of paper listing the quotas from ferry dock personnel. The  highly variable time intervals between ferry sailings and, of course,  seasonal traffic variations also figure in. Local motorists are used to  calculating the time one has to get in line at the dock to be sure of a  place on the boat. Still, the arithmetic can be tricky, even when  weather or mechanical problems aren't playing havoc with the system.

The disruptions this month demonstrated, in Jonasson's view, “how close to the edge WSF is operating.”

Not everyone in the San Juans shared Jonasson's  favorable view of WSF's response to the incident. Before October 11 —  the day the Hiyu failed — was through, the San Juan County Council had  fired off a letter to David Moseley, assistant Washington State  Department of Transportation secretary for the Ferries Division,  complaining that “commuters were not made aware of the problem at their  respective islands until the ferry docked.” This led, the council wrote,  to a lot of wasted time on the travelers' part. The council requested  “immediate” action to improve communication and create a “Plan B”  inter-island schedule for emergencies.  Responding on October 20,  Moseley conceded that higher-ups did not keep dock personnel and the  public properly informed, and that the events highlighted the need to  update WSF emergency service plan.

Asked what would have happened if the Hiyu's difficulties had arisen  during the summer, when the Chetzemoka had yet to complete its  peak-season service on the Port Townsend route, WSF spokeswoman Coursey  said, “I don't know — probably nobody would speculate on that. We're  just fortunate that that didn't happen.”

Howie Rosenfeld, a member of the San Juan County Council and co-chair  of the county's Ferry Advisory Committee, pointed out that the  Chetzemoka's availability saved the islands from a complete loss of the  inter-island ferry, which locals rely on for routine commuting. A look  at WSF's “vessel breakdown response matrix” — the emergency service  plan — confirms that only one vessel, the Hiyu, is routinely available  to pinch-hit in lanes that would otherwise be minus a boat.

“That's system-wide,” Rosenfeld underscored.

Meanwhile, amid the dislocations, WSF's newest  ferry, the 64-car Kennewick, was undergoing its first sea trials. WSF is  tentatively scheduled to accept the vessel's delivery from the  shipbuilder, Seattle's Vigor Shipyards, by month's end. The group hopes  to put the craft in service on the Port Townsend-Coupeville route next  January, according to Coursey. Under a mandate from this year's  legislature, WSF has meanwhile begun collecting a 25-cent surcharge to  help fund construction of a new 144-car ferry. That craft, as yet  unnamed, is expected to enter service early in 2014, allowing the  provider to retire the Evergreen State. The new boat's impact on route  assignments in the WSF system is still under discussion, Coursey stated.

More broadly, the future of ferry service will depend, in at least  some measure, on the recommendations of the Connecting Washington Task  Force, established this summer and chaired by Gov. Chris Gregoire. The  governor charged the group with “reviewing statewide transportation  needs, [and] recommending the most promising investment options and  revenue sources to address top priorities.” However, if one excludes  Kitsap County commissioner Charlotte Garrido, the 31-member task force  includes no one from a “ferry constituency” or WSF — a point not lost on  islanders.

“We're not completely bereft of representation,” Rosenfeld said,  alluding to Garrido, “but it would be nice if it would be stronger. It's  a really good group of people. I think it's more important there isn't  anyone representing tourism, and tourism is the number-four economic  driver in the state.”

For the San Juans, of course, tourism is the sine qua non of prosperity.

Gubernatorial spokesman Scott Whiteaker commented that the task  force's make-up, “represents all the different types of transportation  in Washington state — legislative leaders,  the governor — all of whom  have in one way or another expressed a desire to make sure the ferries  remain stable and running. I don't think that you necessarily have to be  from a specific location to represent what the interests of that group  are."

“Ferries have been listed as one of the needs in the state for  investment," Whiteaker explained. "Right now [the task force's members]  haven't started talking about specific solutions to problems, [but] the  next two meetings are going to start getting into much more  specificity.”

The group is charged with completing its work by late November.

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