PORT TOWNSEND — Residents and city leaders urged state ferries officials Monday to preserve the Port Townsend-Keystone “highway” across Admiralty Inlet when they take their long-range plan to state lawmakers in February, especially with many retail businesses at stake.
Comments came during the first of nine public hearings on the plans, known as “Plan A,” to maintain robust car ferry service on all routes with some very clear improvements, and “Plan B” to keep existing ferry routes with some service cuts and county-augmented passenger ferry service to “fill in the gaps.”
David Moseley, assistant transportation secretary for ferries, said public comments will be integrated into the plan, which will be completed Jan. 31 and taken to the state Legislature for consideration in the session that starts Monday.
Plan A could produce a $3.5 billion funding gap, while Plan B would produce less — but is still difficult to fund at $1.4 billion, said Ray Deardorf, state ferries planning director.
Plan A budgets two 64-car ferries for the Port Townsend-Keystone route, while Plan B calls for just one ferry.
“Plan B shrinks the size of the system and has a low cost,” Deardorf said, adding that it still would exceed $1 billion.
‘Ferry bill’
The plan is the result of 2007 legislation known as the “ferry bill,” which requires state ferries to better connect with its customers, improve their forecasting approach to plan for future needs, develop strategies and minimize costs, implement adaptive management practices to keep costs low, consider operational and pricing strategies and re-establish the vehicle level of service standard to fit with policies and funding realities.
Three main elements in the plan are creating a fee-free reservation system — one that city and state officials say was successfully tested in a Port Townsend-Keystone ferry pilot project last summer — plus transit enhancements to better connect buses with ferries — and pricing strategies.
Public comments made before Moseley and other ferries officials at a public meeting Monday evening:
•âÇPort Townsend Mayor Michelle Sandoval said the city wants to speak with other Port Townsend-Keystone Ferry Partnership Group members on Whidbey Island before responding to the plan.
She likened the partnership to a “three-legged stool” with Port Townsend, Whidbey Island representatives and the state ferry agency as the legs.
She praised the reservation pilot project, which the city has supported all along.
•âÇDavid Sullivan, Jefferson County commissioner, urged two ferries on the Port Townsend route because having only one would reduce service flexibility.
He said that if Plan B supports additional ground transit, “you’re going to have to increase transit funding.”
•âÇTom Thiersch, a member of the Jefferson County Ferry Advisory Committee speaking for himself, questioned whether two ferries would be adequate for between 90 and 100 percent increases in ferry use.
“That really doesn’t make sense to me,” he said.
He also said a state survey of ferry users was “slanted” in its language methodology and therefore flawed.
•âÇPort Townsend attorney Paul Richmond called Plan A “an aspiration” that should be a baseline.
“Plan B is a disaster,” he said. “That’s just going to kill the economy here.”
He urged ferries officials “to be stronger advocates” for the public and to discuss issues with federal officials.
•âÇPort Townsend businessman Harry Dudley said it is important that ferries are weighed with other facts of the Department of Transportation.
“This is the highway system,” he said, adding that ferries were in effect “bridges within the system” and just as important as highways.
•âÇRobert Altman, who said he lives in Port Townsend and works in both the city and on Whidbey Island, was critical of the ferry reservation system, saying it didn’t work and the ferry rarely runs full.
“This town is basically dying because of it, because people are afraid to use the ferries here,” he said.
•âÇJames Fritz, a Jefferson County resident, also urged abandoning the reservation system.
He urged ferries to round off fares so state workers would not have to handle change, which he believes would increase efficiency by about 5 percent.
“Without ferries, Port Townsend will die,” he said. “I guarantee that.”
•âÇPort Townsend resident Andrew Karagas said, “What I am seeing now is the town’s businesses being decimated,” and he expects the May-June closure of the Hood Canal Bridge to replace its eastern half will cause further devastation.
•âÇThe long-range plan document “gives us bad choices,” said Tim Snider, a Ferry Advisory Committee member speaking for himself.
He said he saw no justification for fare increases.
“You and I as taxpayers are paying an enormous price for a stupid boat,” he said of the 64-car vessel loosely designed after Massachusetts’ Island Home ferry.
•âÇPort Townsend resident David Michael asked if the state is asking for its share of the Obama administration’s economic stimulus package proposed for “shovel ready projects.”
Moseley said the state has registered its interest in becoming a part of the Obama plan.
Under construction
The 64-car, 750-passenger Island Home-class vessel now being designed and to be built by Todd Pacific Shipyards of Seattle would replace the lighter-weight, 50-car Steilacoom II, which the state has leased from Pierce County to operate on the Port Townsend-Keystone route during the ferry’s construction.
A project contract for the vessel was recently signed.
The ferry could be plying the waters between Port Townsend and Keystone in mid-2010.
The Pierce County-owned and state-leased Steilacoom II has been running the Admiralty Inlet route since January, after Moseley’s boss, Paula Hammond, pulled the 80-year-old Steel Electric ferries from service on Nov. 20, 2007, saying they were unsafe, with seriously damaged hulls.
The state plans to scrap the vessels in Mexico once a contract is signed.
Moseley last week addressed a Port Townsend Chamber of Commerce luncheon, blaming the 1999 Initiative 695 for the ferry system’s financial woes.
He said the initiative, which repealed the state’s motor vehicle excise tax and set a $30 flat rate for auto license tabs statewide, led to a 22 percent reduction in the ferry system’s operating budget and a 75 percent cut in capital funding for ferries.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
