Weekly Washington State Ferry report

||| FROM NICOLE MCINTOSH for WASHINGTON STATE FERRIES |||

Virtual community meetings: one down, one to go

More than 225 people joined us yesterday for the first of two virtual community meetings. Following a brief presentation, our staff answered questions from attendees. The second meeting is at 6 tonight, Jan. 18, and it will cover the same material. Advanced registration is required. An online recording of both meetings will be available online tomorrow, Jan. 19, on our community participation webpage.

Members of our executive team joined me in answering questions from attendees during yesterday’s virtual community meeting

Annual ridership increases by 1.3 million in 2023

A surge in walk-on passengers drove our annual ridership up to 18.7 million customers in 2023. That’s 1.3 million more than 2022! Last year’s total is roughly 78% of pre-COVID-19 levels, with vehicles at 86% and walk-ons at 56% of 2019 numbers. Ridership is expected to steadily grow in the years ahead as travel demands increase and additional service is brought back temporarily to unrestored routes. Read more about 2023’s ridership numbers and see route-by-route data in our recent news release.

We welcomed nearly 487,000 more walk-on passengers last year than we did in 2022.

BC Ferries tour

We welcomed members from BC Ferries on a tour of several of our facilities last week. The group visited the terminals at Fauntleroy, Vashon, Southworth and Seattle, as well as our Eagle Harbor Maintenance Facility, Kittitas and Tacoma. We shared information with each other on best practices, future planning and many other topics, while employees at the terminals and Eagle Harbor provided details on their roles and how they help to make our system function on a day-to-day basis.

On a tour of our Eagle Harbor Maintenance Facility with representatives from BC Ferries.

2024 legislative session begins

This year’s 60-day state legislative session kicked off with Secretary of Transportation Roger Millar giving “State of Transportation” addresses to the House and Senate Transportation Committees. Gov. Jay Inslee’s proposed 2024 supplemental budget (PDF 9.5MB) includes strong support for workforce development, improving service reliability, vessel and terminal maintenance and preservation, as well as system electrification. We look forward to supporting the governor’s budget plan and answering legislative questions as they work on the transportation budget.

Secretary of Transportation Roger Millar delivers his “State of Transportation” address to the House Transportation Committee last week.

Release of spring season vehicle reservations delayed

We are delaying our two-month release of vehicle reservations for our spring season (March 24 to June 15) on our Anacortes/San Juan Islands or Port Townsend/Coupeville routes. They were scheduled to be available at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 24, but we are still working to finalize minor schedule adjustments. We’ll provide an update through rider alerts when we’re ready for the release.

Sailings in and out of Southworth terminal canceled late tonight, Jan. 18-19

The following five sailings are canceled late tonight, Jan. 18, through early tomorrow morning, Jan. 19, for overnight maintenance work at our Southworth terminal:

• 11:50 p.m. and 1:05 a.m. Fauntleroy to Southworth
• 12:15 and 1:30 a.m. Vashon to Southworth
• 12:35 a.m. Southworth to Fauntleroy

For travelers heading to Southworth, the scheduled 10:35 p.m. out of Fauntleroy and 11 p.m. Vashon departure will be the last for the night. The final sailing out of Southworth will be at 11:20 p.m. to Fauntleroy then Vashon. To complete the terminal maintenance work, the same sailings may need to be canceled again on one more upcoming weeknights.

Bainbridge terminal overhead pedestrian walkway closed Jan. 23-24

Plan for possible boarding and offloading delays at our Bainbridge terminal for two days next week as all walk-on passengers load and unload via the car deck. After the 8:45 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 23 departure, through Wednesday afternoon, Jan. 24, the overhead walkway will be closed so crews can replace mechanical systems in preparation for the opening of the new overhead walkway next month.