— from Washington State Ferries —
If your holiday weekend travel plans include a drive aboard one of our ferries, plan and prepare for extended waits. Several routes are operating on reduced schedules dependent on our COVID Response Service Plan. Our current schedules are based on four pillars of service – ridership, crew availability, vessel availability and funding. With more than 100 high-risk employees unavailable due to the pandemic, crewing, has been a challenge. Due to a lack of crewmembers needed to meet U.S. Coast Guard safety requirements, there have been further schedule reductions over the past few weekends.
In an effort to give our customers as much advance notice as possible on future temporary schedule adjustments, the Executive Team and I have mapped out our crewing situation over the next month. In order to maintain some service on all routes, we have decided to reduce our Edmonds/Kingston and Mukilteo/Clinton routes to one-boat weekend service throughout the month of July, including this holiday weekend.
Customers are asked to comply with the governor’s statewide mask mandate on our ferries and in terminals when unable to physically distance from others.
Because of the coronavirus, customers who board a state ferry in a vehicle are strongly encouraged to remain in the vehicle throughout the sailing if possible. To maintain physical-distancing standards, if necessary, we will enforce reduced occupancy on sailings for walk-on passengers. This week, the Washington State Department of Health started encouraging people to limit summer travel plans to help slow the spread of COVID-19.
As a reminder, it is against the law to set off or carry fireworks aboard a ferry.
Why is anyone taking a ferry this weekend….except to get to a doctor’s appt….