PORT TOWNSEND — A passenger ferry could be shuttling holiday shoppers between downtown Seattle and Port Townsend within days.
The Snohomish, the only ferry linking the Olympic Peninsula to Whidbey Island, may be moved to the new Seattle run to bring shoppers to Port Townsend businesses desperate for customers, Washington Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond told community leaders this morning in Port Townsend.
She said she is talking with the Coast Guard and a private ferry operator to see if a private ferry could provide service from Port Townsend to Keystone until a better interim solution to what she called a ferry “crisis” is found.
Hammond also told members of the Port Townsend-Keystone Ferry Route Partnership Group that she is leaning toward replacing the state’s four 80-year-old Steel Electric Class ferries with 54-car ferries modeled after the Steilacoom IIs used by Pierce County and built by Whidbey Island’s Nichols Bros. Boat Builders.
The Steilacoom-class boats are smaller and slower than the Steel Electrics, but they likely could be built faster than other ferries the state is considering, according to Washington State Ferries officials.
“I’m definitely leaning there,” Hammond said. “They’re the best option I see.”
Hammond yanked the Steel Electric ferries from service on Nov. 20, after crews found extensive corrosion in the vessels’ steel hulls.
Hammond told the crowd in Port Townsend it is highly unlikely the Steel Electrics will ever return to service.
Gov. Chris Gregoire is expected to announce a decision, perhaps as early as Thursday, on which style ferry should replace the Steel Electrics.
Hammond and ferry executives assured angry Port Townsend residents that they are working to bring car-ferry service back to the community on an interim-basis until new boats are built, a process that could last for a year or more.
“We have zero intention of leaving the Port Townsend community and the surrounding communities on Whidbey Island without service until we get a vessel built,” said Traci Brewer-Rogstad, deputy director of the ferry system.
Ferry officials are looking into the plausibility of borrowing one of Pierce County’s car ferries to run between Keystone and Port Townsend. However, that vessel would probably not be ready for service until sometime in January, Brewer-Rogstad said.
Also on the table are the creation of new ferry routes from Port Townsend to Edmonds, from Clinton to Kingston and from Port Townsend to Clinton.
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