December 12, 2007
State Government Fumbles on Ferries
The Washington Policy Center's blog lays out the case that the state dropped the ball with the current ferry snafu. The Everett Herald says blame lies with "the state's own mismanagement and lack of basic planning."
Sounds like a recurring theme.
UPDATE: typo fixed.
Posted by Eric Earling at December 12, 2007
07:43 PM | Email This
1. From the HeraldNet link:
"Ferry routes are part of the state highway system. This closure should be treated with as much urgency as a collapsed bridge on a major highway. Businesses were established and communities expanded on the implicit promise that the state would maintain the Port Townsend-Keystone run, and that promise must be kept. The state appears to have options, such as borrowing a reserve ferry from Pierce County until new vessels are ready."
Heads at the DOT should roll over this one. Start at the top.
2. I am a regular ferry rider, mostly between Bremerton & Seattle, but other routes as well. Although the ferry system is trying to appear more "rider friendly", you always end up scratching your head and asking why they do some things the way they do. I think that it's just being part of an overall broken state government.
But with all the negative publicity lately, I'd like to say something positive about the WSF: I really like their online schedules that show which boats are used on which sailing. That way I know when to avoid those horrible Issaquah Class dump boats!
3. There is no planning period.
They PLAN on dumping ferry traffic at rush hour on to a surface street.
They just have not told us yet.
What a disaster.
Seattle gets its retail sales,and sales taxes taxes,the developers get to charge more for the square foot,The region gets gridlocke.
Thanks WSDOT....
4. WSDOT has its nose so far up Seattle's A$$ it isnt funny.
They are willing to bring the region's traffic to a complete halt so Seattle can get revenue off the roads,and pretend that they are saving a whale Salmon and frog.
Every small town with a bypass will try and do the same thing.
Man what Idiots.
5. I wonder why there has been no mention of any Coast Guard findings on the seaworthiness of these vessels.
6. At least one paper has the gots to tell it like it is. http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20070722/NEWS01/707220364
Here is an article that was written in July 2007. The interesting thing is within this article several things are mentioned. These vessels never met any coast guard safety standards. Many standards dating from 1950.
Coast Guard request for records the documentation of these ferries has been lost. Maybe something fishy going on in the Coast Guard and the Ferry Senior Management. Could this have caused them to be removed from service because The Herald has been demanding to see the records of these reports.
But our State Auditor was probing the ferry safety issue in 2004. Politics again with the State attorney telling Sonntag that he can not inspect the ferry system over safety issues. Again Politics at the highest level over safety concerns.
It makes one wonder about our bridges in the area. If the ferries are in such poor shape and I wonder how safe our bridges are. With the DOT secretary saying though 400 of our bridges are considered Structurally deficient thats not really necessary resons for concern. The 520 bridge with thousands of vehicles using it every day. has a rating of 52.5 Percent. The bridge in Minnesota had a score of 50 percent. And no replacement in sight. Because they can not get a concesses.
Lack of leadership. Lack of safety concerns. The present DOT and regional authorities only make the problems worse. To many fingers in the pie. Lets spend millions studying the issue. Are these people more interested in a pay check than safety of our infrastructure. Every year of delay on maintenance costs more money to do the repairs. Repairs are being done but not at a level necessary to have everything fixed in my lifetime. Rather spend tens billions to replace instead of the hundreds of millions to fix. The cost to do repairs is even higher in this state because a majority of the money is spent on Enviromental studies and inspections that have to be renewed every few years. The vicious cycle of you have to start a project by a certain date or you have to redo your enviromental study. Who is making the money. those groups doing enviromental studies on the situation. and Never does the work get done. Sorry no funding for the repairs this year. Oops we will have to take the money for repair of the project to do an enviromental study. I wonder if that is the reason for the delay in using the funding to buy new ferries. Maybe they have to do an enviromental study for each type of ferry being considered. It make take a decade of studies before they start building at the rate our state leadership loves getting concesses over actually doing work to keep us safe.
At least the ferries are no longer in service but the problems are only going to get worse. Because of the lack of accountability and leadership in DOT and Espicially the ferry system management or should we say mismanagement.
7. I have to laugh. The people in Port Townsend are way to the left and very ECO-friendly. So I fail to understand why they are screaming about the lost of the car ferry. You would thing they would ONLY want passengers.
I guess they should be careful for what you wish for.
8. Army medic/vet,
The left's don't really want to save a whale salmon or frog,They want revenue from a traffic count.
9. # 6
Very well put.