||| FROM SENATE & HOUSE 40TH DISTRICT LEGISLATORS |||
Dear Neighbors and Friends,
Washington State Ferries (WSF), being our state’s marine highway system, and only transportation option available for most San Juan County residents, is in dire straits. The unprecedented frequency of service disruptions passengers has endured, either through severely delayed sailings or cancellations, has been, and continues to be unacceptable. While these problems have been particularly bad this summer, Island residents know all too well that these issues have existed way before the pandemic. COVID-19 has only exacerbated the problems of an already stressed system.
As your representatives, we have been sounding the alarm bells with our legislative colleagues, many of whom do not represent ferry-served districts. Our message to them has been simple and direct: This is not a matter of inconvenience—this is a matter of livelihoods and whether or not people can get to doctor’s appointments, commute to work, get food for their families, and access other essential travel.
Vessel Availability
The passage of I-695 in 1999 resulted in a WSF loss of approximately 25% of its dedicated operating budget and 75% of its dedicated capital. Consequently, no new vessels were built for an entire decade, 2000-2010. This building drought has saddled WSF with an aging fleet. The 2040 Long Range Plan strategy calls for robust vessel replacement over the next 19 years to maintain current service levels. Additionally, WSF has consistently been underfunded for vital vessel maintenance and preservation work. With a fleet including five boats over 40-years old, two over 50, and one vessel 62-years old, the importance of routine and funded preservation work cannot be overstated.
The fleet needs 18 vessels to operate at current service levels (due to the border closure, taking a boat from the San Juan Islands this summer), but had been reduced to 15. This resulted in downsizings – fewer vessels or smaller vessels on six routes.
Crewing
First, we thank our frontline and essential WSF workers who have continued to show up every day during this pandemic and work overtime to ensure our ferry system functions to the best of its ability. We recognize workforce shortages has remained a significant challenge for WSF and has strained the entire system and put workers in difficult situations. Due to increased retirements, physical distancing requirements initially limiting WSF’s training capacity of new hires, quarantines due to COVID cases and contacts, meeting U.S. Coast Guard-mandated crewing levels has been an additional challenge.
Due to the nature of this specialized work, WSF must tap into a more limited applicant pool compared to most other state agencies, as WSF vessel crews are maritime professionals credentialed by the U.S. Coast Guard. And again, because WSF is only funded at the minimum crewing levels, if a single crewmember, for example, was stuck in traffic on their way to work, was ill, or delayed for any other reason, the vessel would not be able to sail.
Our ferry system would not be able to function without the hard work and dedication of its employees.
Moving Forward
Ferries are our top priority in the transportation budget. We established a formal Ferry Caucus within the legislature to better organize and advocate for desperately needed funding to replace our aging fleet, minimize service disruptions, and improve overall service. We will also work toward ending WSF’s seasonal hiring practices of ramping up in the summer just to ramp down a few months later and instead advocate for more sustainable, living wage employment opportunities for our working families. We believe that this will lead to greater retention and savings overall if we keep staffing year-round.
We remain steadfast in our goal of adequately funding hybrid-electric vessel construction. Current transportation funding proposals in the legislature include the construction of an additional four Hybrid-electric Olympic Class vessels over the next 16 years, with a first having already been funded. Although this is a promising start, it is nowhere near the need: WSF’s Long Range Plan calls for 16 vessels to be built within the next 19 years.
Our commitment to this end is unwavering as we look to right the ship and provide the support that our constituents rightfully deserve, and that the ferry system urgently needs.
As always, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach back out to our offices.
Sincerely,
Sen. Liz Lovelett Rep. Debra Lekanoff Rep. Alex Ramel
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https://www.permanentdefense.org/research/ballotmeasures/i695/
“Initiative 695 is one of Tim Eyman‘s earliest and most destructive initiatives. It attempted to repeal the state’s motor vehicle excise tax (MVET) which provided billions of dollars for Washington’s transportation system, including ferries, road maintenance, and local bus service. I-695 also tried to force public votes on all future revenue increases.”
Tim Eyman has caused so much damage to so many people and communities.
Sorry toi say this, but while these are nice words, what does this accomplish?
This situation is becoming steadily worse–just today (Tuesday the 5th) and tomorrow (Wednesday the 6th), one vessel’s entire sailing day has been cancelled. Reservations have been frozen. “Terminal Status” information indicating how many vehicle spaces are available, has been down. Even the Vessel Watch system of real-time maps and data has been incomplete, with boats showing “out of service” while in fact they are in operation for part of the day. There is no practical way to tell which boats are in service operating which sailings–and still WSF maintains its 30-minute “cut-off” for redeeming reservations based on scheduled, rather than actual planned departure times.
The reservations system is simply incapable of reacting to schedule changes of any kind.–WSF’s only option is to shut out any new bookings or (as it did this past summer) cancel all existing reservations, suggesting that users start over based on a newly implemented schedule.
Like I’ve said here before, “We deserve better!”
Thank you, Liz, Debra and Alex, for your unstinting efforts on our behalf. We realize that adequate state funding of ferry service, repair and construction is a crucial part — but not the only part — of this problem. Our livelihood depends on your success.
This is just a “we feel your pain” message from people whose lives and livelihoods don’t depend on ferry service. As Bob Distler rightly observes, what does it accomplish? Most troubling, it seems to accept that today’s problems were the inevitable result of crew retirements, difficulty recruiting and training due to covid and an initiative approved by voters 26 years ago (which was subsequently held unconstitutional by the state supreme court before being adopted by the legislature itself). That isn’t the case. It mostly represents terrible WSF management beginning when a rancher from eastern Oregon was made head of WSF, then followed by a string of leaders with no experience or knowledge running a ferry system. Also in this chain of failure is our own county council, which has maintained a low-key, go-along-to-get-along approach — don’t rock the boat — despite overwhelming evidence that it has accomplished nothing.
WSF in the early 2000s had a plan to replace small steel-electric ferries on the Port Townsend-Keystone route with larger ferries, ones that could also be used on other routes. The political leadership of Port Townsend and Jefferson County objected loudly and consistently and WSF ultimately gave up its plan. It was a lesson then, as it is today, that expecting change with a stumbling state agency doesn’t come with that approach. It is past time for all our elected representatives to camp outside the governor’s office until something actually does change.
I meant that last reference to dealing with WSF to say “with the polite approach,” not “that approach.” I obviously need an editor.
San Juan County is facing an emergency situation. The inability for WSF to provide regular, reliable and adequate service to us places our resident’s health and welfare at risk. It is past time for our County leaders to declare this situation what it is, an emergency, and demand that the Governor’s office do the same, allowing normal rules of operation to be suspended.
We need immediate action taken to shift policies that will soon be necessary in order to maintain even basic levels of services to our county. The situation at WSF is degrading on an almost daily basis. The time for words is over. We need WSF to immediately begin developing an emergency action plan that addresses critical service requirements such as food and freight transport, priority loading requirements for basic and enhanced healthcare for residents and addresses the reservation system which is functionally useless in the face of zero-reliability service levels.
In the next 2 weeks we will step over the edge of simple “inconvenience” and into emergency and we are simply not prepared.
The stories I’m hearing suggest a need for the National Guard to ‘keep the highways open’.