||| FROM TOM OWENS |||
Governor Inslee,
It is high time that you took action to get the WSF operating again at a reasonable standard of service. As things stand now, WSF is an embarrassment to the State. Just compare WSF to BC Ferries. From a citizen point of view, WSF is not taking
their role of service to the public seriously. Changes have to be made. This problem is now your responsibility as governor.
The fleet is in fact aging. However, if well maintained and proper preventive maintenance is done, age should not be a big factor. Ferries are out of service all the time. The excuse of they are “too old” should no longer be tolerated. The problem must be managed. Improve service by REPLACING the person you have in charge of maintenance.
Most ferries are currently without fresh water or sewage disposal due to pipes freezing. Some sailings are being cancelled to make repairs. How in the world can WSF let this happen? This is not the first time we have had long cold spells. Competent operations management would have taken the appropriate precautions to prevent damage to the fleet and facilities. Improve service by REPLACING the person you have in charge of WSF operations.
Sailings are being cancelled due to lack of “Coast Guard documented crew.” This is a flimsy excuse and an attempt to put the blame somewhere else. There would seem to be lots of CG documented seamen that would prefer to be home every night instead of spending months at sea. Human resources are not being managed in a competent manner. Improve service by REPLACING the person you have in charge of human resources.
Today, January 1, I tried to determine which schedule and what cancellations were expected. The “Alternate Schedule” for the San Juans shows a 9:00 departure from Orcas to Anacortes. Searching the website to reach “current operating schedule” got to a “not found” message. Calling WSF to get the latest information starts a 7AM, 15 minutes after the departure on the 6:45 ferry. There were no ferry alerts on the website. Looking at the website for the Orcas or Anacortes terminals gave no sailing times. Lots of confusion and no information. Improve service by REPLACING the person you have in charge of IT.
Since all this mess is ultimately the responsibility of the person you have running WSF, you can improve service by REPLACING the head of the WSF. By taking these serious actions, you will be sending a message to all of WSF that they must deliver quality service to the citizen of the State or someone else will have their jobs.
As governor, you would be sending a message to all Washington citizens that you take the WSF problem very seriously and you are taking actual steps to get things back on track.
Best opinion piece I have heard this year ! The truth speaks loudly.
I have said many times this past year or two, “We need a new director of ferries from Switzerland.” I guess anywhere in Europe might suffice – ever noticed how efficient their railroad system is? This detailed opinion spells it out more thoroughly and points to the levels of shared responsibility for this ferry system being in shambles. On the positive side I want to acknowledge that there are some new ferry employees who are very efficient, are actually visible during sailings, and interactive with passengers. I appreciate what they are doing and the positive attitude they bring.
A great opinion piece. Ferry operations accountability is not currently to the ridership, nor the taxpayers. The leadership bows to the whims of the governor and his team. They spin problems that their mismanagement has created to blame problems on others. They recently decided that indicating that sailings were cancelled due to breakdowns was not good PR so if you watch their alerts and press releases, you will note that they now refer to those as “unscheduled maintenance” cancellations.
Governor Inslee would rather focus on launching an electric ferry than the operational reliability of his current fleet. I expect that most travelers are way less concerned about the power plant of the vessel than whether the sailing will actually occur and perhaps be somewhat on time. Where did they come up with the theory that stopping reservations would somehow improve the system reliability? It’s deja vu to once again be sitting in a ferry line for hours hoping to get a sailing because you could not make a reservation
The ferry system is our highway to and from the mainland. Try shutting down other highway arterials in the Seattle area for similar lame excuses and maybe there would be a recall at the very top of the state government???
Tom. Excellent analysis of the ferry system, it’s continuous problems and the incompetence of the people in charge.
You just needed to continue one step further and add the “ultimate” incompetent – the Governor.
I am a licensed unlimited Chief Engineer who lives on Orcas and, after recently quitting my last venture overseas, am in the process of trying to help the WSF system. That being said, the WSF has a contract with the MEBA union (Marine Engineers Beneficial Association), which means that any engineer that is part of the union can hire on and be home every night, but there are many problems with this. For one, sailors can live anywhere, and with the rising costs of living in the PNW and rise of corporate greed, sailors are living in locations that are not as expensive and attend the union halls from further away to take at-sea contracts that pay better. Where the WSF hires their deck crew and mates, I cannot say, but I do know about the engineering side.
There is also a group WSF has contracted that is corporate based in Virginia (nope, not WA based company), which has been trying to hire a senior engineer to support the fleet with RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance) and coordinate the maintenance schedules & routines with the Chief & Captain. I talked to a recruiter regarding this role to see if I could help and found that they want a full time employee, not an outside contractor/ small WA business, to live in Seattle for less than half of what I would make if I worked six months at sea. I can tell you that this company is going to have a hard time finding an SME (Subject Matter Expert) to live in Seattle and support the WSF for the salary they offer unless that person has a paid off mortgage or family money and little going on.
At any rate, I am continuing to try to support the WA state ferries, and hope that I find the right contacts to do so. If not, it’s back to sea I go, which is good too.
Interesting piece for sure. With this problem ongoing, there is an opportunity to see how fewer people coming and gong affects the island’s economy. I know there are at least some and perhaps many who would be happy to have fewer outsiders visit. This is a chance to collect data to use in the vacation rental war. I hope someone will do that.
So, it’s Sunday night–let’s review where we are. . . .
Two boats serving the entire route, one an hour and 15 minutes late.
No inter-island service on weekdays, no explanation. Is the Tillikum broken? Is this a crew problem–for more than a week now?
Weekend schedule does serve interisland travelers but with substantially reduced mainline capacity to and from Anacortes.
No terminal status online, so no way to see how many spaces are left on any given sailing. Oh, and the website says to check the ferry cameras, except that the cameras–both views–are not working.
No reservations permitted for the foreseeable future, with no reason given, after we were promised bookings would be available starting today.
What next?
Months ago I urged Governor Inslee, through Rep. Lekanoff, to keep our highways open with an emergency declaration and the National Guard.
I’m not smart enough to know what’s wrong with that idea.
In addition to our island, I watch the Fauntleroy/Vashon ferry and the Vashon School District messes (my grandchildren commute to school). I’ve heard many anecdotes.
Where is our voice?
I have been waiting so long to read a cogent take on the problems with WSF. Thank you for getting to the point, which is, the upper management is incompetent and unable to manage this company/business/government entity. Whatever WSF is, it is being run by people who cannot make good and accurate decisions about how to run the organization. Having talked to some of the ferry workers themselves, many of them are extremely unhappy with the way things are run, particularly on the San Juan routes. For 25 years I have been hearing the same arguments citing lack of qualified employees, or maintenance requirements. Wake up WSF. ALL organizations have these problems at one point or another. Here’s the bottom line for me, if you have a problem and you keep going to the same people for answers and you get dumb responses, YOU are crazy if you expect a different result. The governor needs to take this seriously and fire or move them to other positions the men at the top. And get some creative people and put them in charge. It is not rocket science.
We have been hearing for 30 years that the Ana-SJC run is a money loser for the state. I have no doubt that that is true. I also have no doubt that it is due to poor management and an utter lack of long term planning from elected officials. The era of everything getting bigger and bigger, more and more consolidated, more and more centralized, is clearly over. We need MORE, SMALLER, and LESS EXPENSIVE ferries. And we MUST get rid of the blatantly corrupt rule requiring ferries be built in WA. There is exactly ONE company that that benefits. Federal tax dollars (OUR tax dollars handed back to us!) cannot be used for ferry boats because of this protectionist rule. Notice that terminals get rebuilt and remodeled with no problem? But the boats are over-sized, over-built and over-priced.
It is long past time for a fresh approach to water transportation in the Salish Sea.
If the WSF cannot or will not provide adequately staffed, reliable service, then the state should release the government monopoly on the ferry routes and open the terminals up to the use of private companies, just like airports operate. Prior to the WSF the Salish Sea enjoyed the services of the famous ‘mosquito fleet’. I propose that that is the solution now, just as it was then. Resilience and reliability come from simplicity and redundancy. MANY small, creative, flexible, ferry companies, operating a wide variety of small, fast, flexible vessels is the future. We can embrace it now or we can continue to struggle with the overly regulated, overly expensive bureaucratic mess that is the Washington State Ferry system.
I blame the Legislature. They have chronically underfunded WSF for decades. Yes, decades. No money for new boats, no money for adequate maintenance, no money for appropriate salaries. How can they hire anyone when the pay is lower than other at-sea occupations. And I won’t get into the absolutely stupid way that ferry positions are staffed. The whole enterprise is a house of cards, as we have seen this past fall and winter. Blaming WSF leadership misses the main culprit – the legislature.
Managers are hired to get things done that would not have otherwise happened on their own. Good management is the process of solving problems and making things better. Inadequate management focuses on constantly explaining why things are going wrong. Sometimes the most senior leader has to take stock of the management team and confess: “I can’t put my finger on what they are doing wrong, but I shouldn’t have to point that out for them. I need to get leaders in here who, on their own, can figure out how to make things happen.” It’s the same logic that says: “I don’t know why we don’t have a winning team, but I need to find a coach who can produce one.”