Bainbridge Island residents got to voice their frustrations with Washington State Ferries March 9 when state Rep. Greg Nance had a Town Hall meeting with a few dozen people at the BI Senior Community Center.
Late and missed sailings have taken a toll on residents like David Johnson, who has been dealing with cancer and gets his treatments in Seattle.
“It’s a sea change from even from where it was just five years ago,” Johnson said. “I have to make allowance for treatments that start as early as 6 a.m. in Seattle, and I can’t rely on the ferry system at all.”
Johnson said he does have a medical vehicle pass, but “there has to be a ferry to get on in order to use the pass.”
The cancellations and delays are also disrupting jobs, keeping more people on the island.
Jill Russell has commuted into Seattle for 20 years taking the 4:45 a.m. sailing. But ever since the COVID pandemic, she’s mostly working remotely now.
“It’s a blessing because those boats are so unreliable,” she said.
There is also a problem for people coming to BI.
Jessica Perkins with the BI Chamber of Commerce said canceled sailings are killers for business.
“When we were down to one boat the chamber had a lot of local owners come to us and ask, ‘will Washington State Ferries help us pay for the lack of money coming in?’ They know when we’re down to one boat, the tourists won’t come over.”
Nance added that he heard from people at Clearwater Casino in Suquamish that a single canceled summer sailing could cost them up to $100,000.
Nance is a first-term state lawmaker for Bainbridge’s 23rd District. His message was, by his own admission, “not sexy” but it’s about securing the right funding, performing critical maintenance, and being patient for new boats, which he doesn’t see happening until 2029.
“There will be no ribbon cutting ceremony as we chip rust from off the hulls, but that’s what needs to be done, and it costs millions of dollars,” Nance said.
Boats years away
The Washington Newspaper Publishers Association New Service report March 11 says that officials say it may be three to four years before any new ferry can go into service. Currently, 19 ferries serve the state, but it needs 26.
While some are blaming a switch to electric boats for the delay, the problems go back nearly 25 years.
In 1999, voters approved Initiative 695, which repealed the state’s motor vehicle excise tax. As a result, from 2000-2010, no new boats were built when the state should have been making a boat a year, said Ian Sterling, WSF director of Communications. Seven boats have been added since then, but replacement ferries aren’t happening fast enough to keep up with demand.
In 2018, the state approved construction of five new ferries, one every year, but Gov. Jay Inslee insisted electric hybrid ferries be built, and now the state is having difficulty finding builders.
Rep. Andrew Barkis, R-Olympia, urged Inslee to declare a state of emergency for WSF and build two diesel ferries now. Barkis said the state already has a diesel boat builder, so that would provide faster relief.
Sterling disagreed, “We are well down the road of electrification at this point, so to stop and just go back to diesel doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
Converting the fleet to hybrid diesel-electric boats, however, is challenging. Vigor, the builder originally selected to build the hybrid ferries, proposed a price of $200 million, much higher than DOT estimates, and the state and Vigor could not settle on a price.
Price is the big issue. The builder selected wants $200 million for each, much higher than Department of Transportation estimates.
In the long run, electric ferries will be a great for taxpayers, Sterling said, as they will last 30 years longer than a diesel boat.
The WNPA News Service contributed to this story.
