For the last several months, I have been following the trials and tribulations happening over at Washington State Ferries. There are a number of problems there right now, all with a common theme. Among the issues:

  • The system’s fleet of 80-year-old “Steel-Electric” class ferries were abruptly taken out of service in December after their hulls were found to be in dangerous condition and likely beyond repair.
  • The US Coast Guard insisted that WSF inspect the remainder of their fleet to determine the condition of the other ferries. Several were taken out of service immediately to make repairs. WSF has been given strict deadlines to perform needed repairs, and they have been informed that much of their deferred maintenance will be caught up on a timetable that will inconvenience ferry travellers and commuters for months and years to come.
  • The situation has left at least one ferry route without service — service that was recently resumed with a ferry borrowed from Pierce County. This ferry is generally acknowledged by those in the know to be smaller than what is needed for the route, and more importantly, smaller than might be safe for operating in a part of Puget Sound that is difficult to navigate in due to weather, tide, and water-current issues.

So, unless you are a regular ferry user that depends upon these vessels for transportation, you might be asking just how this all relates to you. The answer is that if the Ferries Division of the WSDOT is skimping on maintenance, safety, and rebuilding programs; why wouldn’t the divisions that maintain our roads and bridges be dealing with the same situation? If it has taken the US Coast Guard to have the guts to do what is right for the road users in our state, who is doing the same inspections for our highways and bridges?

Two months before the state put the Steel-Electric ferries permanently out of service, a consulting firm that WSF had hired produced a report that said that, while ferries were in need of some maintenance, there was no reason why they could not continue running the way they were for a long time. While they produced a several-hundred page report on each ferry outlining some of the deficiencies, that was proven somewhat inaccurate just two months later.

I have to think that this may not only be the only issue going wrong here. A report that WSDOT had done on the SR 520 floating bridge states that the bridge has a useful life of another 13 to 18 years, while on the same site is posted a computer simulation of how the bridge would fall apart and sink in a severe storm. My concern is that the SR 520 report is just as good as the ferries report. The question: Do our bridges need to be taken out of service immediately because they are unsafe due to deferred maintenance? Maybe or maybe not. I am convinced that we need to address these issues sooner rather than later, and that we take care of today’s maintenance today rather than hoping our grandchildren will take care of this for us later.

I do not intend this discussion to apply only to the ferries and SR 520. This is not even solely a Seattle area or Puget Sound area issue. This issue affects transportation options throughout our region. As a group, we and our governments have decided that we should pay fewer road taxes through registration fees and fuel taxes. If that is the decision, so be it. I hasten to point out, though, that if this really is our decision, then we should expect a loss of our freedom to get around efficiently when our roads and bridges fail. As well as our ferries.

We need to do two things. First, we need to find leaders for our agencies who are not afraid to stand up for what is right or to make difficult decisions. We need to get people we can trust into those positions. Why? Because the next step is that we are going to either need to make a decision that our tax money is being spent unwisely within the agencies, or we will need to tax ourselves enough to pay for the services that we want and expect every day.

No, I am not really advocating raising taxes. But I am advocating that we need to step beyond the Democrat vs Republican, the Conservative vs Liberal, and the people who want to give or take away government funding as a method of governance. We need to find someone that most everyone can trust to step back and really look at what we need to do to preserve our safety on the roads and bridges of our region. Then we need to get to work on fixing it all. If this investment requires n increase in the gas tax, then it may have to be.

We are all in this together. Whether we actually drive on our roads or we use public transportation on them, we benefit from well-maintained infrastructure. Even if we only ever leave our home to walk down to the grocery store, the roads are important to us as a means to get food to the market.

Lest you think the WSF issue does not affect you, please look again. By their nature, the ferry system may notice any deferred maintenance issues sooner than other parts of out transportation infrastructure. But like the canary in the mine that was affected by toxic gases before humans were affected, if the WSDOT ferries are in this poor of repair, you can count on the bridge just down the street from you being not too far behind.

Share on TwitterSubmit to redditShare via emailShare via email