Ridership, service update from WSF

— from Amy Scarton for Washington State Ferries —

We welcomed seven new crewmembers on Sunday upon completion of training. Hats off to our Training Department for adapting training to be COVID compliant, per stricter L&I standards. We will continue to train in small classes using masks and physical distancing in order to graduate more new crew.

COVID-19 service and ridership update

I’d like to remind everyone that our current service levels are dependent on the ongoing pandemic. We will continue to operate reduced schedules on most routes until further notice. Any changes to our current COVID Response Service Plan on any route outlined below will be based on our four pillars of service – ridership, crew availability, vessel availability and funding:

Seattle/Bainbridge: One-boat service
Seattle/Bremerton: One-boat service
Edmonds/Kingston: One-boat service (weekends only)
Mukilteo/Clinton: One-boat service (weekends only)
Fauntleroy/Vashon/Southworth: Two-boat schedule
Anacortes/San Juan Islands: Winter schedule
Port Townsend/Coupeville: No second boat added

We’re now at what’s normally our busiest time of the year. But as we all know, nothing is normal right now. Our system’s total passenger ridership is just half the level of this time in 2019 with the number of vehicles we’re carrying a little higher at two-thirds (68%). The Anacortes/San Juan Islands route is closest to last year, carrying 67% of August 2019’s total loads and 79% of vehicles.

Our total system ridership has more than tripled since dropping to 1950s levels in late March. Growth has leveled off at around 45,000 daily riders since mid-July.

This increase in ridership comes despite requests to travel for essential purposes only. This is causing many of our routes to fall behind schedule, especially our Anacortes/San Juan Islands route, where we remain on winter timetables that are not designed to handle the loading and unloading times of higher ridership levels. Our planners are working on making operational adjustments on our San Juan Islands route to reduce delays. We hope to have those changes in place in the next week or two.

Anyone who has to catch a ferry right now should review our COVID-19 travel updates.