Will new ferries help island car traffic?

Published 11:00 am Saturday, August 5, 2006

The boats may shift vehicle traffic toward Bremerton, ferry

officials believe.

Twenty cars.

There’s no telling where they might be headed following their exit from the Bremerton ferry.

Perhaps to points north, past Bainbridge, or maybe someday, to a race track near the Bremerton Airport.

Still, beginning in 2009 – when the ferry system hopes to introduce a new vessel on its Seattle-Bremerton route – there will be room for 20 more cars aboard that might otherwise have been passing through Winslow.

While a 14 percent increase in vehicle capacity wouldn’t likely fill even one level of, say, a downtown parking garage, Washington State Ferries says it might have a small effect on the amount traffic filtering through Bainbridge.

“This will provide a minor capacity increase on the Bremerton run,” said WSF Planning Director Ray Deardorf, of the agency’s plans to build new vessels, none of which would directly impact Bainbridge. “But this was mostly stimulated by the need to replace the oldest vessels in the fleet, which are almost 80 years old.”

WSF is seeking proposals to build four new ferries – at an estimated cost of $321 million – that would be integrated into the ferry system’s fleet in 2009.

Deardorf said the 144-car, 1,500-passenger ferries would not serve Bainbridge, which got two new ferries – the largest in the fleet – in the late 1990s.

It could, however, have minor residual impacts by rerouting a small number of passengers through Bremerton, according to WSF.

Ferry CEO Mike Anderson last week said ridership habits are difficult to predict, pointing to previous efforts by the ferry system to include passenger-only ferry service from the peninsula to Seattle that weren’t as popular as WSF had anticipated.

He said crossing time, as much as anything else, contributes to which routes people choose.

Deardorf said the ferry system will in the future build medium-sized vessels that are more flexible and cost efficient than the 202 car, 2,500 passenger behemoths that traverse Puget Sound between Seattle and Bainbridge.

The vessels have a 60 year life-span that includes an overhaul after 30 years.

The shift to smaller boats, say members of an ad hoc committee of the Bainbridge Island City Council, is something the city hopes will continue.

“We urge the Legislature to make greater subsidies available for passenger-only service and to adopt a policy of putting more capital into smaller, more efficient boats and less capital into expensive terminals and maintenance facilities,” said a July 31 letter from the committee to WSF.

The committee – which consists of councilmembers Nezam Tooloee, Chris Snow and Debbie Vancil – was convened this past spring to comment on WSF’s long-range plan, the document that will drive the future actions of the agency.

WSF sought comments about the plan because it is updating the document.

While smaller vessels may be part of WSF’s future, passenger-only service will not be, according to the plan:

“WSF will no longer be in the passenger-only business as early as 2007 and no later than 2009,” the agency’s website said.

In addition to urging passenger-only service, the committee’s five-page letter questioned the credibility of WSF’s growth projections and said a “comprehensive” review of financing should be completed before the ferry system settles on a long-rang plan.

It also expressed concerns about traffic management and the intensity of service to the Bainbridge, Bremerton and Kingston routes.

“WSF should consider making increased service to Bremerton its number one priority in the next several years,” it said.

The committee cited Bremerton’s new terminal and its access to major transportation connections along with the city’s position as the “designated urban center of Kitsap County” as reasons to increase service there.

Tooloee said he hopes the committee’s suggestions are incorporated.

“I hope these points will be part of the ongoing discussion between the city and Washington State Ferries,” he said. “Their plans have a huge impact on us.”