Get Together on Ferry Service

by: Julia Patterson

Seattle PI - January 24, 2006

Op-Ed Page

(Julia Patterson is on the Metropolitan King County Council)

This week, leaders from all sectors of the passenger ferry industry are in Seattle for the 2006 Passenger Vessel Association Annual Convention. They will convene meetings, panels and Q&A sessions in a region struggling to cobble together a vision for operating passenger ferry service.

A patchwork of funding and uncoordinated plans currently support ferry operations across Puget Sound. And each year we face more uncertainty and diverging opinions on how to stabilize service and manage funding shortfalls.

The state task force on passenger ferry service issued a report earlier this month that leaves many questions unanswered regarding how the central Puget Sound and the state will work together to maintain existing routes and establish new crossings. Bickering and disagreement marked the group's report to the Legislature over its findings.

As the rhetoric swirls in Olympia about how to coordinate varied transit and road entities -- including how to consolidate planning, operating and funding responsibilities of Sound Transit, the Regional Transportation Investment District and local transit providers -- we continue to tolerate a drastically different approach in dealing with our ferry system.

Recent efforts to sustain and expand service have been scattered and independent. In 2003, Kitsap County voters turned down a sales tax measure aimed at supporting passenger ferry service from the peninsula. Last year, King County completed a waterborne transit study that examined the county assuming operation of the Vashon passenger ferry and establishing additional routes across Lake Washington. Private operators have made a go at running boats on limited routes, only to cruise into the red and disband the service. And most recently, King County Executive Ron Sims proposed using $2.2 million in federal grant funding to support capital needs on the Vashon/Southworth route.

Those efforts, while important, are not coordinated and do not approach the challenge of moving people across the Sound in a comprehensive manner. Providing reliable and frequent passenger ferry service and expanding upon current routes will take a coordinated effort of the four-county region (Pierce, King, Snohomish, Kitsap).

The fact that a population the size of the Portland metro area (1.2 million people) will move to the region in the next 20 years demands we take a bold approach to explore how to maintain and expand passenger ferry service across Puget Sound and Lake Washington.

Such communities as Des Moines, Gig Harbor, Kirkland and Renton dotted along local waterways will absorb much of the growth and must be served by reliable and frequent transit service, including passenger ferry routes.

Each study, task force and proposal has left the larger questions on the table.

Could a regionwide taxing district bring stability to existing service and permit additional routes?

What new routes will our region need in the next 20 to 30 years to serve the increased population?

How could the private sector and jurisdictions outside our region partner with us to expand service up and down the Sound?

What regional tax sources are appropriate to support ferry service?

We cannot expect to achieve a world-class passenger ferry network with a hodgepodge of funding consisting of one time federal grants from one county, local taxes from another and undependable private dollars.

It is long past time for the four-county region to take on a serious analysis of the merits of a regional ferry district.

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