||| FROM BOB DISTLER |||
For those of us looking forward to the rest of the summer, an alarming situation has come to my attention:
The WSF reservation system indicates that the 90-car Sealth will replace the 144-car Yakima in the San Juans beginning on Monday, 16 August and running through the end of the current season on Saturday, 25 September. That will remove 162 car spaces each day from Orcas Island to Anacortes during the peak summer season. (The daily loss from Friday Harbor to Anacortes will be only 28 car spaces as the Yakima moves into the Chelan’s position.)
In June’s online webinar, WSF stated that option had been considered but would not be implemented and that the San Juans mainline route would continue to be operated with two 144-car Super/Olympic ferries plus one 124-car Issaquah class boat.
Is the reservation system wrong or has WSF not been up front with us about its plans for the balance of the summer?
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Where is our State representative on this and the continuing problems with ferry services?
I hear from a friend on the Ferry Advisory Committee that our state representatives are paying attention.
This crisis has been a long time coming.
It started when we citizens voted to support the Tim Eyman initiative to reduce car tab payments, I-776 in 2002.
Ferries require maintenance. Maintenance requires funding.
Our interisland ferry, the Tillicum, is a very old ferry.
from Wikipedia:
The MV Tillikum is the sole remaining Evergreen State-class ferry operated by Washington State Ferries and one of the oldest ferries operating in the WSF system.
The Tillikum was built in 1959 for service between Seattle and Bainbridge Island. Upon the delivery of the Super-class ferries in 1968, the Tillikum was moved to the Edmonds-Kingston run where it remained until approximately 1980. After being displaced by the Issaquah-class ferry Chelan in the early 1980s, the Tillikum spent roughly a decade as a relief boat before settling on the Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth run in the early 1990s. The Tillikum became been a reserve vessel since the delivery of the Samish in 2015. Since the retirement of her sister Klahowya in 2017, she has been serving primarily as the San Juan Inter-island vessel.
This… will keep the edge sharp with our local businesses… which are strained with lack already. It seems that challenge is the operative word for 2021.
Actually, I was not registered to vote in San Juan County until 2005.
I definitely would have voted NO on the 2002 Eyman initiative.
The WSF administration told us for YEARS that we couldn’t have reservation system, with lots of handwaving and blathering about how that can never happen. When we finally got one, guess what? It worked. It’s not perfect, but it is a whole heck of a lot better than what was happening before. Now they say we can’t have preferential loading for islanders, despite random reductions in service. There are plenty of roads that get “local traffic only” signs when the road is under repair. Why not the ferry system? It IS our road to the mainland and especially when a boat breaks down or the WSF randomly reassigns smaller boats or fails to keep sufficient trained personnel to safely staff existing vessels, islanders still need to get home! I propose that 50% of the reservations available at each of the three reservation stages be set aside for island residents. And by resident I mean your driver’s license says SJC on it. Any unused local reservations roll into standby spaces. What say you?
Ken, Your idea of ferry loading preference for vehicles driven by people with a driver’s license that has a San Juan County address is appealing. But the staging lanes at the ferry landings would need to be reconfigured so that there were twice as many lanes. I can’t visualize how that would be possible with the limited land area. Also, most of our supplies come from the mainland. I don’t know how many of the drivers of these delivery trucks have San Juan County driver’s licenses. Then there are all the service vehicles that come from the mainland…
Planning for population growth seems to be ignored.
I am baffled by the redesignation of Forest Resource Lands to designations that allow more dwelling units in rural areas. This increases our islands’ build-out potential -which is already an insane multiple of our current population.
After going to a community meeting in Olga on Saturday, I tried to stop in Eastsound to buy groceries. There was no place to park in Eastsound -so I headed home to Deer Harbor.
I just wish that whoever is actively promoting tourism would just stop. Enough is enough.
Dysfunctional administration as in most bureaucracies somebody should take a close look at it
I support Ken Wood’s comment for preferential reservations (and standby loading) for island residents.
Janet Alderton, you make a good point regarding service and supply vehicles but that is not a difficult problem to solve. The tourists who are turning this place into a Seattle bedroom community are not driving 18 wheelers and concrete trucks.
My main concern is with islanders who have to get to the mainland and back to make appointments with specialist medical providers, of which we have very few in these islands. These islanders should not have to postpone or cancel appointments because they cannot make ferry reservations. They should be given preference over tourists, by whatever means possible to make that distinction.
I agree with Ken Wood: local resident preference, by whatever means. WSF tells us that that would be unconstitutional on the basis of equal (state) transportation taxes for equal services; but, for us, the ferries are a lifeline. No alternatives. So I’d like to see that principle challenged and tested in the courts if need be. But the only way to begin to get some action on this is to petition our state representatives.
Ms. Alderton,
In this and another recent post you’ve made reference to “redesignation of Forest Resource Lands to designations that allow more dwelling units in rural areas.” Perhaps Lin will provide space for you to elaborate on this topic since it cuts across many current issues.
From what you’ve said it’s something we should all be concerned about. Please consider, Thanks!