The last comment period for the revised ferry schedule is closed, and the final schedule is due out this week. We hope to see further improvements made to the draft that was issued last week — and that hundreds of islanders heard about at the meeting in West Seattle.
In particular, we believe that it is important that ferry officials restore some of the cuts they made to sailings between Vashon and Fauntleroy. Specifically, we would like to see the long gap between the proposed 6:45 p.m. sailing and the next sailing at 8:20 p.m. from Fauntleroy shortened considerably. We hope WSF will take another look at peak rush hour service from Fauntleroy, specifically the 4:10 p.m. sailing that is slated to go first to Southworth and then Vashon. And certainly we hope that the UW Evans School study, released on Monday, will bring about some important changes to operating procedures at the Fauntleroy dock.
As we have watched this scheduling process unfold, we have been mindful of a conversation with longtime Vashon Ferry Advisory Head Greg Beardsley in the summer of 2017. Beardsley said he believed Washington State Ferries intended to reduce service to Vashon when it drafted a new schedule. Ferry officials denied it, as did Sen. Sharon Nelson, who said in an op-ed in The Beachcomber in August of 2017: “Despite claims to the contrary, your elected officials and the Washington State Ferries (WSF) do not plan to cut service to Vashon.”
And yet. There we were at the meeting last week, with Beardsley, seated at the table and speaking so quietly it was nearly impossible to hear, saying that he was disappointed that WSF chose to cut service to a community with no options, giving it to a community that does have them.
And then later, after many people had left and it was time for public comment, islander Nancy O’Connor took to the floor. She had counted up the runs and seen that Vashon lost four sailings throughout the day — something that did not occur on any other leg of the triangle route.
“I am not quite sure how we are supposed to be OK with that,” she said.
Ferry officials were not answering questions or responding to comment at that time. The next schedule will be their response.
We understand this schedule is complicated, with a finite resource and competing needs. And we absolutely do not want to fuel the fire in what sometimes feels like an ugly competition for service with Southworth. But surely there are some better options. An island — with no other connection to the mainland and on the route that makes up two-thirds of the passengers — should not be asked to absorb the service cuts that WSF has indicated it would impose on Vashon.
Regardless of how the final schedule turns out, it is important that islanders remain engaged and communicate with their elected officials. Both Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon and Sen.-Elect Joe Nguyen were at the meeting and say they want to hear from islanders about their needs.
Finally, we extend a sincere thank you to all the people from the island who have been involved in this process along the way, particularly members of the Triangle Improvement Route Task Force, the Vashon Ferry Advisory Committee, and Steve Stockett and Rick Wallace, who have spent countless hours advocating for better service with a pendulum schedule and spearheaded the effort to get islanders to the church last week. We appreciate all their time and effort and are hopeful there will be smoother sailing ahead.
