PORT TOWNSEND — Thursday sailed by with wind gusts and choppy seas, taking the 50-car Steilacoom II ferry out of commission for two hours and serving as a subtle reminder:
It had been one year since Paula Hammond, state Department of Transportation secretary, pulled the popular, 80-year-old Steel Electric ferries from service on the Port Townsend-Keystone route because they were unsafe.
The sinking feeling that many merchants felt on that day, Nov. 20 2007, as they lost car ferry service just days before the holiday season began, appears to have faded for many.
“It’s not as if it didn’t hurt a lot of businesses in different ways,” said Mark Cole, owner of The Upstage Theatre & Restaurant, a popular Port Townsend live music venue on Washington Street.
“My particular business has grown significantly each year, and it hasn’t grown this year,” he said.
But, for many, the slowdown in car ferry traffic — now provided by alone ferry instead of two — is overshadowed by the national economy’s decline and Hood Canal Bridge’s construction closure looming in May and June.
Marilyn Staples, who has owned The Green Eyeshade household gifts store for 18 years, said last holiday season was saved when the state ferries system brought in passenger-only ferry service between Port Townsend and Seattle.
That was highly publicized and drew hundreds of shoppers.
Since then, she said, “I think the economic situation has affected us more than the Steel Electrics.
“Now I’m more worried about the bridge,” she added. “The closure in May-June [to replace the eastern half of the bridge] is going to be very bad. So we’re anticipating it.”
With the smaller 50-car Steilacoom II ferry the state leased from Pierce County, at least there is some car traffic come from Whidbey, the north I-5 corridor, even Canada, Staples said.
“We normally get about 50 percent of our business from locals, but we do need the visitors very much,” she said.
More skeptical
C.J. Colbert, owner of Mud Cat & Weathered Friends By the Ferry Dock off Water Street for nine years, was more skeptical.
“It’s 50 percent of my total sales,” Colbert said of the dollars coming from ferry travelers while looking out at the Steilacoom II on Thursday.
Wind gusts had blown it into a recently repaired wingwall, scraping metal against wood as it drifted at an awkward angle into the Port Townsend dock.
The ferry was docked until the winds blew over, a delay of about two hours.
“Over the year, business was down by 30 percent because of the reservation system and the small ferry,” Colbert said, adding she heard the reservation system was not working for most people, despite the fact that city officials and ferries officials said it was successful.
Mari Mullen, Port Townsend Main Street director who works to promote downtown business, said 2008 has seen some “ups and downs” in retailing.
The “up” side has been more innovation.
“It’s made people here more inventive and they have been reaching out to their [North Olympic] Peninsula neighbors,” Mullen said, adding that the merchants she frequents express “guarded optimism” for holiday sales.
Today, she said, the “softening economy” will require businesses to work together.
More aware of PT
“I feel that a lot of people now, because of the ferry, have become even more aware of Port Townsend,” said Cole, a city Lodging Tax Advisory Committee member.
“I’m seeing a lot of people coming over from the I-5 corridor. People are taking shorter vacations closer to home.”
Cole said that marketing has helped convinced Seattle-area blues and jazz lovers that his club is just a two-hour drive via the Edmond-Kingston ferry.
This holiday season, merchants will be spared the agony of last year’s.
The Steilacoom II will run through Jan. 4, an extension beyond the Coast Guard Dec. 31 deadline to have the ferry in dry dock for maintenance.
That was a result of city officials, including Mayor Michelle Sandoval, successfully lobbying David Moseley, deputy Transportation secretary for ferries, to request the extension.
Teresa Verraes, owner of Artists on Taylor across Taylor Street from the Rose Theatre, was one of two business owners who pleaded with Gov. Chris Gregoire, on a campaign stop in April, for better ferry service.
“We really need that reliable transportation,” Verraes then told the governor, urging the construction of three new Island Home-style ferries.
The governor told Verraes it would take patience to replace the Steel Electrics.
Today, Verraes is much more upbeat about the future, saying that the state ferries system is “doing a lot. I think they are doing what they can.”
A a launch of a 64-car Island Home-model ferry, considered more seaworthy than the Steilacoom II, is tentatively scheduled for spring 2010.
Ferries officials are now examining a single bid from Todd Pacific Shipyards of Seattle, which is $40 million over the state’s $84.5 million budget to build two 64-car Island Homes models, fast-tracking the first one in 18 months.
A contract could be awarded on the first ferry in a few weeks, ferries officials say.
Glenn Lyons, who owns Summer House Design shop with his wife, Cris, said, “We were frustrated with the ferry system when they neglected the ferries to the point that they pulled them out suddenly.”
Lyons said he and other merchants have come to realize that it won’t get better until a new ferry is launched.
“Everybody realizes now that with this ferry, what you see is what you get,” he said of the Steilacoom II.
“We have to just put up with the ferry service we have right now.”
________
Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
