Port Townsend: State puts ferry terminal project on hold for at least a year

PORT TOWNSEND — The four-year terminal improvement project for the Port Townsend-Keystone ferry run has been put on hold for at least one year, a Washington State Ferries spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday.

“Very clear directions” from the state Legislature have shifted improvement work on the Port Townsend-Keystone run to studying how to keep the Keystone terminal where it is.

Studies in the past two years have favored moving the terminal out of the narrow inlet on Whidbey Island.

“Everything we were doing before is on hold,” spokeswoman Celia Schorr said Tuesday in a telephone interview.