Ferry fiasco: It never should have happened
Published 1:24 pm Saturday, November 24, 2007
The frustration and anger of ferry riders whose route between Whidbey Island and the Olympic Peninsula was shut down on Tuesday is completely warranted. It never should have come to this.
Warnings that such a day would come weren’t taken seriously enough. In a classic pay-me-now or pay-me-later scenario, state officials took an irresponsible gamble by putting off the inevitable replacement of four 1927-vintage Steel Electric ferries, the only boats small and nimble enough to operate in narrow Keystone Harbor. The payment for a long-term solution has now come due — payable immediately.
Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, who chairs the Transportation Committee and whose district includes Whidbey Island, aptly compared the loss of the route to a bridge going down. Ferry routes are, after all, officially part of the state highway system, providing a transportation lifeline upon which local economies depend.
With concerns mounting over cracks and corrosion in the boats’ aging hulls, state Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond ordered the Steel Electrics out of service until adequate repairs can be made. Service for foot traffic only is planned as a replacement until January at the earliest. The hope is that two Steel Electrics, the Illahee and the Quinault, can be repaired and returned to service by then. Further inspections will determine whether that’s even feasible.
The simplest facts regarding the Steel Electrics, which were crossing San Francisco Bay before the Golden Gate Bridge was built, should have been enough to put their replacement at the top of the ferry system’s priority list: at 80 years old, they’re the oldest ferries operating on saltwater in the United States; they’ve been running since 1981 under a waiver from federal safety standards; ultrasound tests done seven years ago on the Klickitat, the boat that until Tuesday had been working the Port Townsend-Keystone run, revealed that 70 percent of the steel hull’s thickness had worn away in places.
Yet after the Legislature approved funding for four new ferries in 2001, ferry officials decided to build boats that would be too big to service Keystone Harbor. They may have hoped a new terminal capable of handling larger boats would be built on the island’s west side, but after six years and $5.5 million of studies, no new terminal plan emerged.
Meanwhile, denial over the deterioration of the Steel Electrics was widely apparent. As recently as last month, ferry officials told lawmakers that the boats were “generally considered to be in good condition.”
Even if repairs can put two of the boats back into service, the fixes will be temporary. Lawmakers and ferry officials must find and fund a permanent solution when the Legislature convenes in January. The importance of maintaining this run must be acknowledged; letting it die isn’t an option. Money earmarked for new, 144-car ferries will have to be redirected to build at least two smaller ones.
A consultant’s suggestion that new hulls be attached to the existing boats, a cheaper option than building all new vessels, should only be pursued if the result will clearly be as good. Too many corners have been cut already.
That’s just one of many lessons that have emerged from this fiasco. It’s now up to state officials to show they’ve learned from them.
