That old saying…

About “chickens coming home to roost.” Yeah, we’ve reached that point, as WSF is rightly pointing out. While transportation systems are very similar, boats are NOT buses, and our ferries spend nearly twenty four hours a day running, every day of every year, making multiple landings each day, an action which is essentially as one captain put it many years back, a “controlled crash.”

It takes 19 ferries to maintain the summer schedule in normal circumstances. This year is a bit different because of covid-19, the border with Canada is closed, so there’s no Sidney run. That brings it down to 18. WSF usually has a fleet ranging from 22 on the low end to 24 on the higher, ideal end. Currently, we’ve got 21. Of those boats, only 16 are currently available for service, which means Vashon is still down a boat, and Keystone isn’t getting its normal two-boat service, and all but two runs are making due with smaller boats than they’d normally have for summer traffic. The ferries are out for necessary maintenance, drydocking, or, in the case of the Wentachee, an unforeseen engine failure that is knocking it out of service for months. If any one boat goes out of service, there is nothing to replace, as Bremerton is seeing this week.

So, how’d we end up here?

Twenty years ago, I-695 punched a hole in the budget of Washington State Ferries, and that money has never been replaced. It’s been year after year of cobbling together a budget, raising fares, and not addressing any of issues backlogged maintenance. There has been lots and lots of maintenance that has been put off. The “we’ll do that when the economy is better and we’ll have the money then” would have worked–had the money ever materialized when times were good. It didn’t. The Super Class is an excellent example of that–both the Hyak and Elwha were forced to retired due to a maintenance backlog of over twenty million dollars each. (The remaining two Supers still have that backlog price tag each as well, but being in slightly better condition from having been refurbished a quarter century ago, they’re still in service. Don’t expect that to last.) Adding to that, a decade when new boats should have been under construction, nothing was underway.

So now, we’ve reached–or heck, even gone over the tipping point WSF has been warning about for years. You can only kick the can down the road so far. You can’t place the demands on a fleet the age of Washington State Ferries and expect it to keep running. (For the record, the ages of those boats are as follows: Tillikum, 62, Yakima and Kaleetan, 54, Spokane, and Walla Walla, 49, Issaquah, Kittitas, Kitsap, Cathlamet, Chelan and Sealth between 43 and 39 years old–that’s half the fleet with an average age of about 43 years. Tacoma, Wentachee and Puyallup all between 24-22 years old. Even the Kwi-de-Tabil Class, Chetzemoka, Salish and Kennewick are now a decade old.)

Ferries are highways, and as such, should be treated as such. You’re never going to build bridges or tunnel under Puget Sound, as been suggested for the Mukilteo run. Recent research on the fact that there is a giant faultline right where that tunnel would be built points out to that not being such a hot idea.

The larger transportation plan being worked on the legislature calls for five new boats to be built in the coming years. It’s good start, and it needs to be implemented. It’s already well past time.

Meanwhile in Canada…

Like everywhere else in the world, is looking forward to things getting back to normal after covid. B.C. Ferries has had some pretty tough restrictions lately, which hopefully can be lifted once covid begins to wane. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for this happening everywhere soon.

And in Alaska…

…the senate approved a new board for the Alaska Marine Highway. Whether this will help or hinder things, only time will tell.

And in San Francisco…

As things slowly get back to normal, passenger capacity will grow, and people will be back to annoying you before you know it.