UPDATED: 2nd Day Straight – Full Collapse of WSF Inter-island Service – #3 Chelan Returned to Service Mid-afternoon
DEVELOPING STORY — CNL2 IS INVESTIGATING
For the second day in a row, Washington State Ferry inter-island service has been canceled.
Additionally, the 43-year-old #3 Chelan vessel (Issaquah Class, 1981) was out of service all morning and into mid-afternoon due to necessary unscheduled vessel maintenance.
The current two day period of canceled inter-island service is more complete than July 3-4 failure because WSF managed to run inter-island service for a few hours in the middle of the day of July 3.
July 4 is widely considered to be the #1 day for local celebrations of the entire year. Now the #1 week for inter-island service — the San Juan County Fair — may be caught-up in the dysfunction.
Canceled inter-island service is now a fact of life in the San Juans.
Private water taxi and small barge operator Tom Bridge has been the primary human being picking up after WSF. Yesterday alone, Bridge served 29 trips between the San Juan Islands. That was 29 crises averted — or at least minimized, but doubtless a drop in the bucket of the trips needed by the hundreds of people a day who need to move their vehicles between islands. Tom Bridge runs a passenger-only ferry service, and his boat holds just six passengers at a time. Furthermore, when WSF ties-up the #4 Tillikum, most of Bridge’s passengers pay $40 for the ride.
Bridge began providing taxi service 11-1/2 months ago, when inter-island service collapsed after the 2023 County Fair. He performed approximately 300 passenger-trips through the Autumn and Winter. In late April, Governor Jay Inslee came to San Juan Island to announce the worst for WSF was behind us, and we were entering recovery mode. However, by late May, canceled trip frequency began to increase. In the past 10 weeks, Tom Bridge has more than doubled the number of passenger trips over the previous six months. And there’s no end in sight.
Damage to commerce and indeed daily life is piling up here. Some local businesses are willing to openly talk about questioning their ability to survive the disruptions in supply chain, and the difficulties their employees and customers are having in getting to those businesses.
Increasingly, when islanders have a medical appointment on the mainland, they fork over the cost of a hotel room on the mainland the night before, just to be sure they can make their long-awaited medical appointment.
San Juan County Council Chair Jane Fuller recently termed conditions here due to unreliable ferry service “an emergency.” She is believed to be in talks with the Governor’s office, asking for an executive order that might divert an amount of money that would be equal to a fraction of the dollars pumped into supplemental service for Vashon Island and Bremerton in the recent legislative session.
So far, the 40th legislative delegation has largely been silent, publicly, regarding the mounting challenges to commerce and life due to WSF mounting dysfunction. State Representative Alex Ramel has made himself available to CNL2, but said he is waiting to hear ideas and proposals for solutions here.
CNL2 has learned of several community leaders calling for the County to consider spearheading a class action lawsuit naming the State of Washington, WSDOT, WSF, and some of the dozen unions whose members operate the ferries. In the past decade, the State of Washington has lost class action lawsuits filed by teachers over pay, and tribes over culverts. Lawsuits against the State filed by workers fired from refusing to take Covid vaccines are still alive in the courts. The State of Washington has been forced to pay many billions of dollars in those judgments. The heart of a lawsuit against the state over ferry service, some business people here say, would be what they claim is the State’s failure to maintain “The Marine Highway.”
This is a developing story. CNL2 will seek an explanation from WSF, as last night’s public-facing alert offered no insight as to the cause of today’s failure.
