Commentary: San Juan County interisland ferry had 110 cancellations out of 502 scheduled sailings in the first 20 days last month
||| FROM ALEX MCLEOD for SALISH CURRENT |||
It’s been almost a year since The Seattle Times offered the stark (and, to many of us, belated) view that Gov. Jay Inslee “has one year to right (Washington State Ferries) before cementing a legacy as the governor who sailed the system into decrepitude.”
It’s safe to say that ignominious legacy now is well cemented.
It’s now likely that the first new ferry won’t sail until at least 2028, the result of Inslee’s insistence that any new ferries be hybrid electric, so WSF’s ever-shrinking, aging fleet will be with us for many years.
On top of that, the system’s staffing shortage, caused by management’s inattention to its most obvious issue — the graying of key engine room and upper-deck crew — has regularly left WSF with too few crew to meet Coast Guard requirements.
There are few signs of improvement over the past five years and now WSF is facing the expected retirements of about half of its chief engineers in the next three years. These are jobs that take years for licensing.
The shortage of ferries and crew has affected all parts of the system, but nowhere has the effect been greater than on the routes that serve San Juan County, the only county in the state entirely dependent on ferry service as its state highways.
Nowhere is the problem worse than the county’s vital interisland ferry.
In a press release explaining the situation, WSF reported the interisland ferry had 110 cancellations out of 502 scheduled sailings in the first 20 days last month — and that included a four-day period that WSF over-scheduled crew and rented Friday Harbor motel rooms to make sure the boat sailed during the 100th anniversary of the county fair.
And yes, that worked. The interisland ferry made every sailing. The county’s residents were reliably connected. Then the fair ended and canceled sailings returned as the norm.
All too true, unfortunately!
As a detail, I am curious how “sailings” are calculated when we are told, “San Juan County interisland ferry had 110 cancellations out of 502 scheduled sailings in the first 20 days last month.” ?
According to the ferry schedule (https://wsdot.com/ferries/schedule/scheduledetailbyroute.aspx?route=ana-sj-sid) it looks like the interisland boat runs 10 times per day, back and forth between FH and Lopez, stopping at Orcas and Shaw each way. That’s 3 departures per trip, times 10 trips, times 20 days, which equals 600 “sailings” by my count, not 502…