By Aidan Courtney, Reporter
Recently, many island residents have harbored complaints with the Washington State Ferries (WSF). Some residents and commuter students have struggled to catch ferries due to an unreliable schedule and misleading alerts, with some boats leaving hours behind schedule and filled far below their maximum vehicle capacity.
Residents are now voicing their concerns toward the island’s ferry system and WSF as a whole.
WSF has had various difficulties with keeping the ferries running in a timely manner. One day this past September, the Fauntleroy/Vashon/Southworth route was observed to be running three hours late and still leaving under capacity — an occurrence most commonly viewed this past summer.
WSF had a meeting on Oct. 3 to try and address these issues, but as of now there is still no official plan of action. This has caused many residents to lose trust in the current ferry system and believe that WSF is failing to respond to criticism.
“[The] presentation was completely tone deaf,” said a community member who attended the last WSF meeting. “[It] makes it seem like this is a meaningless exercise, and the people in charge of this ‘improvement’ process are not actually interested in making changes.”
Though email alerts are sent out to riders, they can be misleading. A boat that is running 15 minutes behind schedule can imply a two-hour wait for commuters, because when ferries are running behind schedule they will leave without being filled in an effort to save time.
Some residents have taken to social media to voice their concerns.
“Never seen this before,” posted Kevin Ross on Oct. 6. “Upper deck of the Cathlamet blocked off with red caution tape after about ten vehicles were loaded up there. They put the tape up before the boat left. This is the 2:45 p.m. boat that left about three minutes late with 20 cars on the dock.”
His complaint brings to light that even when it is running only a few minutes behind schedule, the ferry system will fail to fully load the ferries.
Residents have also found the ferry alert system to be unreliable.
“4:45 leaving at 4:51 not full — maybe room for 10 or 12 more cars,” posted Leslie Patterson on Oct. 13.
As recently as mid October, the ferry line has extended past the 76 gas station in Fauntleroy, a phenomenon usually witnessed only during the summer season when the island’s population expands due to part-time residents.
Long waits, which waste valuable time for anyone trying to get on an off the island, have lead to some off-island businesses no longer offering services on the island.
“Off-island businesses that used to come out to Vashon no longer do, such as our roofing company and the business that always cleaned our carpets,” said another resident at the meeting. “They no longer come because the ferries are unreliable. They cannot afford to wait while empty boats pull away and the lines get too long.”
Additionally, WSF’s spending has some taxpayers worried; in recent years, the system has failed to keep costs under control.
In 2015, WSF bought 6 million dollars worth of generators that turned out to be unable to function on the ferries. On Oct. 8, 2015, those generators sold at auction for only 300 thousand dollars, costing taxpayers millions of dollars.
In the time period from 2012-15, WSF also saw labor costs go from 95 million dollars a year to 113 million dollars a year, according to a King 5 article from May 2017, “Waste on the Water.”
Residents and non-residents alike are upset with their experience when commuting.
Many commuter students are annoyed by recently introduced policies that only allow commuter students to sit in designated areas. The policy is intended to keep students and passengers safe, but many people believe that there wasn’t actually a need for the policy in the first place, and that any problems arising from students could be solved with simple communication (see Oct. 7 issue of The Riptide for more details).
The issue of WSF’s time management has a number of people searching ways to make the entire process more efficient, though ultimately that falls in the hands of the WSF management.
“Logic says the system, not the infrastructure, is broken and has to be fixed. WSF needs to think hard about leveraging available technology,” said another community member attending the last WSF meeting.