The Washington State Ferry (WSF) system is iconic but it is also an enigma. Long the source of romantic whimsy, it holds a special place in the hearts of Puget Sounders (this author included). Yet, from the beginning, ferry travel was locked into a fiscal struggle to sustain itself and to survive frequent episodes of public scorn.
The fundamental operational problem with the WSF is rooted in the challenging seasonal and hourly surges of ferry travel. Broadly speaking, the world’s ferries overcame maritime distances until a bridge or a tunnel was feasible. Despite requiring greater initial capital outlay, bridges and tunnels have proved to be a much more efficient and cost-effective long term solution.
The fundamental fiscal flaw in Puget Sound Ferry Service lies not in oft-blamed labor and construction costs but rather in the nature of ferry travel itself. To be sure family-wage unionized jobs and well-engineered infrastructure can be considered an aggravating factor (if one finds little value in decent middle-class jobs and well-built boats), but the fundamental issue in the long term is simple: ferries are less cost effective than bridges and tunnels.
The usual technical objection to bridges is that they are not feasible in the deep waters of Puget Sound. But what about these examples from the Japanese Inland Sea? The Great Seto Bridge was built over the period 1978–88 as one of the three routes of the Honshū–Shikoku Bridge Project connecting Honshū and Shikoku islands (two of the five principal Japanese “Home Islands”). The total length is 13.1 kilometers (8.1 miles). Similarly, the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge is one of the world’s longest suspension bridges, located in Akashi Strait between Kobe and Awaji Island. The total and central span lengths are 3.9km and 2km respectively (2.4 and 1.2 miles).
These projects were constructed over waterways with significant depth, high currents, and regular deep-sea marine traffic. By comparison the distance between Seattle’s West Point and Skiff Point on Bainbridge Island (the State Transportation Department’s once-planned mid-Sound bridge crossing) is about three miles. Are there geological and vessel traffic issues? State transportation engineers solved this decades ago with bridge and tunnel/tube technology, which has improved since the initial studies in the 1950s.
Purely from a technical and cost efficiency perspective, we could replace almost every Puget Sound ferry route with a bridge or tunnel. The reasons we do not are political and social. For example, “livability” concerns primarily stopped Vashon Island from becoming “the next Mercer Island.” Breathless objections to the suburbanization of the bucolic environment on Vashon, similar to the pre-bridge Mercer Island, helped defeat a fully fleshed out Vashon bridge project waiting only for Legislative funding.
It was a repudiation of Republican Gov. Art Langlie’s pledge to modernize Puget Sound transportation by replacing, over time, all lower Sound ferries with bridges (after forcing the foundering private-sector boats out of the business in 1951). Two bridges in that plan were constructed to replace the Suquamish/Seattle and Lofall/South Point ferry routes. The Agate Pass bridge opened in 1952, connecting Bainbridge Island with Kitsap, and the Hood Canal Bridge was completed in 1961.
The Hood Canal Bridge linked North Kitsap with the Olympic Peninsula, and it showcased how committed State Transportation planners were to flexing their technological muscles by building the first floating bridge in the world built over tidal salt water. And even though both the Hood Canal Bridge and the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (which also replaced a ferry route) suffered spectacular failures there was no serious though to going back to ferry connections.
A third set of bridges from Seattle to Vashon Island and then on to Kitsap was the natural progression of Gov. Langlie’s vision before the region said stop. Despite plans to complete a proposed Bremerton to Bainbridge bridge (which would have replaced the Bremerton-Seattle ferry route), no serious bridge/tunnel proposal has surfaced since. Despite historic frustration with the drawbacks of ferry travel, we decided that we loved the disease (ferries) more than the cure (bridges). Similar to the now-discredited decision of Seattle Transit planners to choose rubber over steel wheels, we have since tried to make it work.
What the region did not do (and has yet to do) is find a way to reliably fund the monumental cost that choice of ferries would represent. Transportation planners quantify the cost differential between ferry and bridge connections by using two key metrics — volume per day, and cost per mile. This is appropriate, as by statute the ferry system is an extension of the highway system, not a mass transit system. A medium to high volume road and bridge system is much, much cheaper than ferry links both regarding construction and operation costs when amortized over, say, a 25-50-year time frame. Capital costs from bonds are retired through user fees, while operating and maintenance costs fit comfortably within the overall cost per mile highway system metric.
In their failure to internalize the systemic, long-term costs of preserving ferry travel, lawmakers wrongly focused on a very visible element that contributed to their overall costs — labor. Ferries are labor intensive compared to roads and bridges (again on a cost per mile basis). But focusing on labor costs, making the workforce the problem, helped drive these workers to aggressively protect themselves. As a local ferry labor leader once quipped, “If they treat us like the problem we will act like the problem.”
And while labor-related service disruptions are long remembered by the public, actual disruptions are quite rare. Ferry workers found that dangling campaign donations in front of lawmakers was much more effective than battling neighbors and commuters by disrupting ferry travel. The ferry lobby thus became a significant political force aligning with user groups and political leaders from both sides of the aisle.
But while labor gets a lion’s share of the attention, other elements also sidetracked political leaders. Ferryboats cost serious coinage. This resulted in a notable, sleazy, insider effort to build less expensive boats in the late 1970s. The resulting Issaquah Class ferries (commonly referred to then as “Lemon Class by their crews) were terribly underbuilt units that sucked considerable resources out of the system in a struggle to make them reliable.
The constant harping on “management problems” brought wrong-headed proposals to “privatize” management. This “solution” was finally embraced by the B.C. Ferry system, with decidedly mixed results. One outcome from the B.C. Ferries experiment and private-sector management is that management costs increased significantly.
Another solution championed by the right is to privatize the entire system. Free marketeers seem to think that there is some “entrepreneurial environment” in public transportation and that “the market” could operate it more efficiently. This was tried earlier and failed. It didn’t fail because it was “regulated to death.” True, the State did eventually step in to regulate the monopolized system that the unregulated free market had produced when Blackball Transport bought out its only serious competitor, Kitsap Transport, in 1935.
When the State finally decided to stop the profiteering, management looked to the costs of labor to wring a margin out of a system. Labor pushed back, forming the powerful labor organizations that are with us today. World War II helped ease the economics, but when the war subsidies ended the struggles the cost-capped system had with labor escalated and ferry travel became very unreliable. At that point, the State had no choice but to take over.
Once the “replace them with a bridge” strategy failed, and the system was firmly in the public domain, the issue of cost efficiency remained. The aggressive goal of maintaining a 70- 80 percent fare-box return rate on operating costs (capital costs were 100 percent subsidized), had limited effect as “elasticity” discourages travel and fare collections. In addition, regressive user fees affected lower-income users of the ferry. Politically some on the east side of the state insisted that if residents choose to reside on our western peninsulas and islands and choose to oppose bridge construction then such residents can bloody well pay for the privilege, regressive pricing be damned.
The ferry system once seemed to have found a way out of the dilemma with the rise of the progressive Motor Vehicle Excise Tax (the more expensive your car the more you pay for your car tabs), but political leaders and policy makers rode that horse into the ground. Aggressively leveraging the MVET helped fuel Tim Eyman’s taxpayer revolt in the 1990s, thus negating that funding method from the mix. It was back to fighting the road builders for gas-tax money.
Which is where the system remains today, and where it will remain in the future.
To be clear, I am not advocating replacing ferries with bridges. As a third generation native of the western peninsulas (and former ferry worker), I cherish my earliest childhood memories of ferry travel. Ferries are as much a part of my family’s cultural history as the dank, grey February weather. The stark reality, though, is our communities made decisions years ago that we now struggle to live with. With user fees maxed out and subsidy sources static, there is no practical remedy to the current situation. Unless some magical political leader devises a way to infuse the system with some sort of dedicated funding, the system will continue to try gamely to punch above its weight. Measured by that dismal metric, the system actually does a pretty good job of providing safe and reliable service.
I find it surprising, David, that after spending much of this article touting the efficiency and efficacy of bridges, you neglected to mention the three-word reason why there will never be a bridge from the Seattle side to Vashon, and/or points west. Those three words are “Port of Tacoma.” The Port of Tacoma, in concert with the U.S. Coast Guard, has placed an absolute veto on any bridge, on the grounds that it would be a hazard to marine commercial traffic, which is well documented, and pretty obvious when we think of it.
It also causes me to wonder: Where exactly would the approaches to such a bridge be situated? The NIMBYs in the Fauntleroy neighborhood pitch hissy fits when expansion of the present Fauntleroy dock is suggested, even when expansion would take more vehicles off the streets, and solve some pretty obvious safety issues. They call for the dock to be removed altogether, even though the dock was there before they were born. Can you imagine what their reaction would be to a bridge and its approach infrastructure?
The answer to the funding-source problem is obvious: Restore the MVET to its pre-695 levels and graduate it steeply. Let the Tesla drivers holler. They “chose” to drive an overpriced luxury vehicle just like we “chose” to live on an island. We all use the same highways, and we all want them well maintained. Let Tim Eyman holler. He can go to hell anyway.
Lastly, the former Governor’s name is Langlie, not Langley. Thank you for this article.
Hi Ivan, good to hear from you. Hope you’re well. Apologies for the poor editing on my part. The point of my article was not to get into all the technical issues with bridging. While it’s true that the initial design for the Vashon bridge had marine opposition if the project had been funded those issues would have been addressed. Again, there are projects around the world that faced similar obstacles that were overcome. Your second point is spot on and is the reason why technical objections aren’t resolved … we hate bridges. Restore the MVET? Good luck with that.
You said it well you hate bridges because you hate trying to bridge differences between anyone this is why there is wars in the world this is why there are people that run in to grocery stores and steal from the workers and try to murder the workers it’s people like you and people like you that are in places of power namely any government in all the world that makes me sick to my stomach
Good article. Much appreciated. As a sometimes ferry user, I have wondered about why the bridge or tunnel options are not more seriously considered.
Silly me, I should have guessed: Follow the money.
Indeed. All roads lead to the State Legislature when it comes to this debate (pun intended).
Thanks, David, for a succinct, insightful explanation of a chronic source of cross-state tensions. This is a classic case of what Post Alley can do to help us understand how economics, geography and history shape regional politics. And thanks to Ivan for his spell-checking. The world still needs copy editors.
Thanks Ross.
David: I appreciate your thoughtful reframing of the choices involved in transportation around Puget Sound. And you’re right – as in so many things, the issue is less technical or scientific capability as it is cultural choice. But then we sabotage that choice by making policy decisions that don’t adequately support it. It’s important to be clear about why we made the cultural choice in the first place.
Thanks Doug. History always fascinated me because it tells us so much about the present. This is a case in point.
I’m interested in knowing more about how bridge construction would impact the ecosystem of Puget Sound.Everyone reading here knows about the continued decline of the critically endangered Southern Resident orca whales, which are headed for extinction. While Washington State Ferries plan create a “greener” ferry fleet, eventually replacing diesel ferries with electrification of the Central Puget Sound Terminal, which will charge the vessels., I haven’t heard proponents of bridge and tunnels over Puget Sound speak much about impact how they would impact the fragile orca populations….an essential element of the Pacific NW. Any discussion about building bridges and tunnels should speak to the health of Puget Sound, and its marine life.
Totally legitimate concern but the fact is there are really no “bridge proponents” to take the discussion to the level you outline (and I certainly am not one). If folks did get serious there would of course be a very involved sausage making process to address marine life issue (amongst others). The point of my article is that concerns like this have solutions. These are not the sort of issues that are stopping serious concerns about replacing ferries with bridges. Such concerns are, in fact and with respect, red herrings. The core issue is our preference for ferries over bridges and our inability to internalize the costs associated with that preference.
I don’t agree with you that it is a red herring to raise concerns about the ecological consequences of building more bridges and tunnels. You state the preference of many for ferries over bridges, but dismiss the reason WHY so many are reluctant to build mega bridges and tunnels. Or frame it in terms of “Ferry workers found that dangling campaign donations in front of lawmakers…” You have also framed the process in terms of profiteering. But if you are going to write an article exploring bridges vs. ferries, be prepared that it is a complex issue and yes, it is appropriate to raise issues of marine life, early in the process of undertaking serious consideration of bridge and tunnel construction. Dismissive concerns about “red herrings” aren’t really constructive.
Apologies if my reply seemed to imply a lack of empathy for the issue raised regarding the marine environment. The first sentence of my reply was intended to validate your concern. Keep in mind, though, that ferries and ferry travel negatively impacts the marine environment as well. Ferryboat noise contribute to the issue we have with underwater marine noise. And ferry dock infrastructure wreak havoc on shoreline environments where they are located. Without a detailed analysis I doubt we can conclude that ferries are better for the marine environment than bridges (and properly constructed tunnels might be best of all at mitigating your concern). My point is that those valid concerns can be addressed and do not constitute the primary reason we continue to rely on ferry links in our highway transportation system.
NPI’s research found earlier this year that a majority of likely Washington voters would support increasing the fees they pay annually to renew their vehicles’ car tabs by ten dollars to provide Washington State Ferries with stable, dedicated funding. Read the poll finding and our analysis.
Thanks, David for the information. And Andrew — I know I don’t mind more for my car tabs if it means better WSF funding. I drive an older car and the cost isn’t much. I’d also love, though, for stepped up pressure on transplants who don’t bother to register their vehicles in Washington state, or who buy their cars in Oregon to evade the sales tax.
The challenge with defeating the voter mandated cap on the MVET is a “loop hole” that exempts local governments from the cap. It is primarily State services that were affected by the Eyeman initiatives. Therefore should public discussions get serious regarding raising the State’s portion such a move will have to contend with MVET rates that are already leveraged to pay, for example, for Sound Transit. In my years of dealing with lawmakers and community activists on this sensitive issue, I am very doubtful that any effort to free up MVET dollars for the Ferry System would be successful now that local governments have, essentially, used up the tax payer tolerance to further increases. The backlash to such a move would be predictable.
I tend to think that a coming need to overhaul of State transportation funding in general would be the time to identify dedicated ferry funding. Electric vehicles, for obvious reasons, do not fund the primary source of revenue generated (gas tax) to support the infrastructure they rely on. As electric vehicle usage grows gas tax funding diminish and will need to be augmenting with some sort of a progressive usage tax. This may present the opportunity to carve out stable ferry funding. That path will not be without high political drama but it is a potential path.
Just found this article and find it quite interesting. As in everything involving government all you need to do is “follow the money” and you’ll know why things are as they are. I say we still build a bridge across Vashon, but to placate the nimbys on the island that don’t want to become another Mercer Island, we make an exit only from the island. You can leave, but never come back.
Bridges across the Puget Sound would (obviously) increase vehicular traffic to the west side. I’m not sure that’s a good thing. I don’t own a house anywhere, and I’m not speaking from a NIMBY perspective. Rather, I love the Puget Sound region and I don’t want to see it decimated by the same destructive pattern of suburban sprawl that has so thoroughly transformed the east side, from the Cascades to the beaches.
I don’t think it takes a genius to predict that cross-Sound bridges would create audio/chemical pollution, rendering the environment even less healthy than it already is. It would look awful. It would create above-water noise. It would intensify carbon pollution. And for what exactly? So people it’d become convenient to knock down another quarter acre of forest (destroying habitat) to build yet another car-dependent single family home and the box stores to supply it? Who does that help, other than the shareholders that invest in retail and fast food outlets?
It’s time to rethink “growth” and recognize it as the ponzi scheme it is. If you require tax from newly-minted sprawl to pay to update aging infrastructure, where does it end? Maybe we could build a dam from Edmons to Kingston and just drain the Puget Sound. Imagine the real estate opportunities! No. Densify the cities. More people in less space = the tax revenue to keep a city solvent AND space for the flora and fauna that we share it with.
I say we keep the expensive bottleneck in place. Not to keep people out of my backyard, but to keep Western Washington from becoming one gigantic parking lot. It SHOULD cost a bundle in time and money to visit the relatively pristine west side.
bridge is the solution. It is more convenient for the islander and people who crosses to the other side of the sound. It is cheaper than ferry over time.