After a difficult summer of ferry travel, people in and outside of the ferry system are seeking improvements to the triangle route, including state Sen. Sharon Nelson and members of the Vashon Ferry Advisory Committee.

Washington State Ferries (WSF) officials say a new schedule is needed, while Nelson is requesting changes from WSF and the City of Seattle, and the ferry advisory committee is seeking improvements in how vehicle traffic at the Fauntleroy dock is handled.

On Monday, Greg Beardsley, who heads the advisory committee, was blunt in his description of ferry service on the triangle route — and on the Fauntleroy dock in particular.

“You cannot say anything but that it is a screwed up mess,” he said.

For her part, Nelson said she planned to meet with WSF officials on Tuesday, after press time, to find out if the dock’s exit lane might be used more often as a bypass lane to increase efficiency. Additionally, she said she has requested a meeting with the City of Seattle to discuss street parking by Lincoln Park. Historically, she noted, the city has not wanted to cede parking there before 3 p.m., but Nelson said she believes parked cars there create a dangerous situation for islanders and residents of West Seattle, and clearing them earlier in the day would be helpful.

“I call it dodge car,” she added.

Additionally, she noted that it was the Washington State Legislature that put the on-time performance condition on the ferry system, and she would like that revisited, at least for the triangle route.

Meanwhile, on Aug. 15, members of the Vashon Ferry Advisory Committee submitted a proposal to WSF to make changes at the Fauntleroy dock to improve service. Beardsley is slated to meet with two WSF officials about it this week.

He noted the proposal calls for WSF to enact the plan that one of its own employees had come up with and was supposed to be enacted last spring, but an alternate form was put forth instead and then abandoned because it did not work well. Central to the proposal, he said, is for WSF to put an employee in the exit lanes and take pre-ticketed vehicles when the needed lanes are free. The proposal also calls for a traffic director on the street so that drivers with tickets know where to go. Additionally, Beardsley said, when the police officer at the end of dock is not directing traffic, he or she would go up the line and pull out cars with tickets and direct them onto the dock.

Beardsley noted that the Fauntleroy dock is a complicated place to work in part because it is too small.

“We are pushing between 5 and 10 times what the dock can handle through it,” he said. “Ferries can do it, but they have to do it perfectly and know what they are doing and make decisions and change things when the situation warrants,” he said.

The break down in service this summer, he said, has come at the tollbooths and because of mismanagement of the dock and has led to excessive waits and boats that are leaving with room remaining, including last week, when some departed only half filled. One of those days was Thursday, when accidents on I-5 brought more vehicle traffic to the triangle route.

He noted that for years pre-ticketed cars went around the tollbooths at peak travel times to load boats more quickly — a practice that is no longer standard procedure, and which Beardsley said worsened in May, when WSF terminated its attempt at quicker loading procedures.

“The only way that dock at Fauntleroy works is when they take those people who have paid their money and put them past the toll booth,” he added.

For its part, WSF says it is well aware of problems at Fauntleroy and is trying to fix them. That fix, according to Director of Operations Greg Faust, is a schedule change.

“I believe that is our only answer,” he said on Monday.

He noted that WSF is gathering necessary information this summer for such a change and will be working with the community in the coming months on the details.

Ferry officials have repeatedly noted the challenges of the triangle route, including an aging fleet, ongoing construction on Vashon, increased vehicle traffic and insufficient funding from the legislature. However, Faust said an additional problem with the current triangle route schedule, which has not been changed substantially in decades, is insufficient “dwell time” at the docks.

This time, which is the time vessels spend at the dock unloading and loading, needs to be increased, he said, to account for larger ferries on the route and increased traffic over the years. Change of this magnitude takes a long time, he noted, but he hopes to institute such a change fairly soon.

“It is a long, drawn out process,” he said, “but my hope is that we will not have to sit through this next summer.”

He noted that WSF will seek community input on a new schedule. Some trips, he noted, are “golden” and need to be retained, such as for students who commute to Vashon, shift workers and people concerned about childcare.

“We need to know what those things are,” he said. “The last thing we want to do is create hardship when we are trying to help.”

This summer, with a high amount of ferry traffic, WSF is evaluating what the needed amount of dwell time is, Faust said. He noted that the current average dwell time means ferries leave “not as full as we would like them to be.”

This practice — of leaving before boats are fully loaded, even when lines are long — has drawn the ire of many islanders, and Faust says he is well aware of the anger. He noted that WSF, with a mission of moving people safely and efficiently, does not want to sail with boats partially filled either. He noted that on social media, people might post photos of empty spaces on boats, but they are not posting how late the boat was leaving and how many boats were stacking up, waiting to dock.

“We need to have some semblance of a schedule,” he added.

He also noted that when ridership was less, if the ferries got behind on the morning run, they could catch up during quiet mid-day hours. Now, ridership throughout the day has increased to such a level that is not possible, which makes the evening commute more difficult.

Beardsley, who has often cited the challenges the ferry system faces, cautioned that now changes are essential.

“They have got to fix it and put it back where it was,” he said. “If they don’t, they are going to have a lot of angry people, and it is going to get hot at Ferries.”