Ferry ridership slowly increasing, still down 55% from 2019

— from Washington State Ferries —

Now that we’re into what’s normally our busy travel season and business is reopening following the COVID-19 shutdown, it’s no surprise our ridership is increasing after bottoming off at historic lows in late March. But it’s going up slowly, and we’re still 55% below this time last year and even 37% down from February. Many returning customers are choosing to ride in vehicles, which are just 37% lower from June 2019, while walk-ons remain way down at 84%.

Ridership on most of our routes remains below February numbers, with the Seattle/Bainbridge and Seattle/Bremerton routes lagging the most behind.

As we welcome more and more people in the summer months, our customers should keep the following in mind: All riders are highly encouraged to come aboard in a vehicle and remain in the vehicle throughout the sailing. We may enforce reduced walk-on occupancy on sailings if necessary in order to maintain physical-distancing standards.

No changeover to summer schedule

As a reminder, we will remain on our current reduced schedules until further notice. Any changes to this COVID Response Service Plan will be based on our four pillars of service – ridership, crew availability, vessel availability and funding. Therefore, there will be no switchover to a summer season schedule, which usually begins this weekend.