A slew of ferry service interruptions that have seriously impacted residents led to a special meeting between the San Juan County Council and the Ferry Advisory Committee on Oct. 6 at 9 a.m. The room was packed with island students who listened to the proceedings.
“It will get better,” said FAC chair Jim Corenman. “But it will take from one to three years to fully resolve the [staff] problem, and from five to ten years before the boat problem is solved.”
Corenman and FAC member Ken Burtness both told the council they believed the Washington State Ferries have made great strides in addressing a decrease in staffing.
“It’s a long process that does not happen overnight,” Burtness said. “But WSF is on a very good path to correct the problem through things like funding for training.”
Burtness noted that he worked for the ferries in the 1970s and into the 90s during what he called “the golden age.” There was a surplus of trained employees in that era. In 1999, the passage of Tim Eyman’s Initiative 695 repealed the state’s motor vehicle excise tax, which had provided billions of dollars for Washington’s transportation system, including ferries. According to Burtness, although a fix was put in place, the ferry system never recovered from the loss of funding.
“This year was the first time in decades that congress has adequately funded ferries,” Corenman said, adding that Senators Alex Ramel and Liz Lovelett have been “incredibly supportive” and were instrumental in getting that funding passed.
The bigger looming issue is the lack of vessels.In 2019, WSF wrote a long-range plan that projected the need for 26 more boats by 2040. Currently, the state is in a slow process of looking at contracts. The process was delayed after Vigor, who was contracted to design the new fleet, gave its lowest bid which was significantly higher than what WSF had estimated. WSF is mandated to find a contractor in the state to build the ferries unless none of the offers come below five percent of the estimated cost.
“The good news is that they will probably find a better price. The bad news is the money will not go back into Washington,” Corenman explained.
If things stay on track, the first of five new boats should arrive in 2027, but the project is already five years behind schedule. However, factoring in the age of today’s fleet, the first five boats will go toward replacing aging vessels.
“The Tillicum is 63 years old,” Corenman said. “She was only expected to last until she was 60. They want to retire the Issaquah class at 50 years old, and that is coming up in just a few years. We will be stuck with a boat shortage for the foreseeable future.”
The long-range plan calls for 26 boats by 2040, and even if there was a boat built every year, there would only be 23 boats by 2040.
“We are going to be short on boats essentially forever,” Burtness said.
Meanwhile, students are left trying to get to school and home and participate in sporting events.
“It has been a big problem,” Ava Dahl, who lives on Orcas Island and is in her fourth year at Spring Street School International on San Juan Island, told the Journal. “Somedays I ask myself ‘should I even go today?’”
Julia van Dongen, also an Orcas resident who has attended Spring Street for the last four years, echoed Dahl’s sentiments.
“If the boats don’t leave on time we miss the first half hour of class or more depending on how late it is,” she said.
van Dongen also said occasionally students have hitched a ride with a commercial whale watch boat or private vessel. Gas is expensive, she pointed out, and that expense should not come out of the student’s pocket. As winter weather approaches, smaller boats are not an option either.
“Once we were riding a whale watch boat over to San Juan and there was a private boat in front of us. We all watched as huge waves crashed over its bow. It isn’t safe for us during the winter,” van Dongen explained.
Rudi Roush lives on Lopez Island and also commutes to Spring Street School. Like van Dongen and Dahl, ferry service disruptions have left him unable to get to school. Roush plays soccer, meaning he also struggles to get to practice and games. Roush uses the Washington State Ferry app on his phone, but it does not help.
“It’s kind of a mess. Once it showed the boat was on Lopez when it was on San Juan, it doesn’t always show the correct schedule,” said Roush, who is encouraging WSF to improve it.
van Dongen is also into sports and says “Either we have to forfeit by not being able to get there, or we go and then can’t get home.” In addition, she has medical issues that require her to go to the mainland.
By not wanting to risk taking later ferries, these commuting students also miss out on extra study time.
“Spring Street has an after-school study program called Flex, which gives students one on one time with their teachers. We generally don’t feel like we can attend them because we may not get home,” Dahl said.“I want to learn, I want to get to school, have basic transportation resources, a reliable ferry system. Right now we aren’t able to depend on it, and that breaks down trust.”
Council member Cindy Wolf also called for reliability from WSF.
“The killer is the unpredictability,” Wolf said. “Workers don’t even know where the next ferry is going. They didn’t even know what sign to put it. I watched them change the sign four times.”
Corenman understood but also pointed out that if, for example, WSF shut down the Mukilteo run, and moved those resources to the San Juans, people who live in Mukilteo would have a lot to say.
“I’m not asking for more,” Wolf said. “You heard me right? I’m not asking for more. I am asking for accountability and reliability. If the county can do something, like create a ferry district … I would like to know what resources WSF is able to provide, and what gaps need to be filled.”
The Ferry Advisory Committee is holding two outreach meetings via Zoom. The first is Oct. 15 at 9 a.m. and the second is Oct. 18 at 6 p.m. Visit https://www.sanjuanco.com/civicalerts.aspx?AID=1257 for more information.
