Ferry maintenance, route support and impact study funded in House transportation budget

It’s budget season in Olympia and as Washington State senators and representatives hash out spending plans, a House proposal released this week included several line items of interest to Kitsap County ferry riders. A final transportation budget, after negotiations with a Senate version, could add millions toward vessel improvement and maintenance for Washington State Ferries and a proposed ferry communities work group known as WSF 75.

In addition to money for Washington State Ferries, under the State House of Representatives’ proposed transportation budget, released earlier this week, $5 million would be applied to support Kitsap Transit’s passenger ferry service on the Bremerton-Seattle route, along with other funding to enhance the fast ferry service.

Bremerton residents have been hurting since Washington State Ferries cut service to Bremerton down to one boat in 2021, said Rep. Greg Nance, D-Bainbridge Island, and the budget request reflects the likely continued need for supplemental service.

“That line item is all about better reflecting the real cost of operating this, because Kitsap Transit shouldn't be having to pick up all of the slack – and the bill – when the state is dropping the ball,” Nance said.

The funding would supplement the Bremerton-Seattle route at its current operating level through the next fiscal year, which starts in July.

“It's comforting to know that if approved… we'll, without necessarily any fear of cutting back, be able to operate to provide that additional service to the communities,” Kitsap Transit executive director John Clauson said. “This is beyond what we have developed for a level of service when we developed our business plan and that the voters approved, so this is a service in addition to that. Our voters in Kitsap County did not approve the additional service.”

The House has also proposed $4 million to be allocated to Kitsap Transit for design work and shore power infrastructure that could pave the way for the construction of an electric hydrofoil passenger-only ferry. Kitsap Transit received a grant in 2020 to develop the carbon fiber model and the Bremerton-Seattle route was selected to demonstrate the 150-passenger fast foil ferry. The goal is to see the vessels constructed in Western Washington.

“The $4 million, if approved, will then take us to the next step, which would be to do a complete design,” Clauson said, “as well as the development of a prototype, a scaled down model, so that we can validate some of the systems that we're envisioning this vessel will have.”

The fast foil ferry would travel faster than diesel ferries with a smaller carbon footprint, reported Kitsap Transit. The vessel would be able to complete a round trip of about 30 nautical miles on a single battery charge.

“I was really proud that the State House budget puts a strong investment into really backstopping that Kitsap Transit route,” said 26th District Rep. Spencer Hutchins, R-Gig Harbor, assistant ranking member on the House transportation committee, who helped draft the budget.

The budget also included $368 million for vessel improvements, preservation and maintenance, which would help Washington State Ferries upkeep the vessels already at work in its fleet, Nance said. Several WSF vessels are nearing their life expectancy of 60 years.

“We've got to keep our aging vessels reliably in the fleet as we wait for new boats,” Nance said.

New vessels is only one of the ferry system’s biggest problems, for Hutchins.

“I am extremely upset with the way the ferry system has been managed in recent years, and to be honest, over decades now, and the problem that we have is twofold,” he said. “We do not have enough people – so we have a major staffing problem on the ferry system – and we do not have enough boats.”

Nearly $10 million will go toward supporting vessel maintenance initiatives, with funds being injected into the Eagle Harbor maintenance facility. The money would add a second shift at Eagle Harbor and add six slots to its apprenticeship program, among other measures to equip crew members with better maintenance tools. $93,000 has also been allotted to house training sessions and pay in advance for worker credentials and medical examinations for incoming ferry system employees and trainees.

Terminals in Kingston, Bremerton and Bainbridge would see a total of $45 million invested towards their preservation and improvement that would prepare the structures for seismic activity and future electrification.

The House also made further investments in Kitsap terminals, devoting $1 million for traffic control at the Kingston, Bainbridge, Edmonds, Mukilteo, Seattle and Fauntleroy terminals to relieve building congestion at times of peak ferry travel with a particular focus on Sundays and holiday weekends. A project to widen roadways around Gorst in order to ease ferry-resultant traffic also saw a total of $16 million allocation.

The transportation budget provided a second chance for Nance’s House Bill 2497 to create a ferry system work group, called WSF75, and conduct an economic impact study of ferry cancellations and system failures on all of Washington’s ferry routes. Those items have been attached with a $500,000 budget proviso, Nance said, which gives it the advantage of being non-vetoable.

Related: Commuters and impact at center of plan to rally state's focus around ferries

“We want something that will get done that we as a State House can plant our flag on, and do it in a bipartisan way,” Nance said. “I think we're on track there in a big way.”

“It's worthwhile for us to gather as much data and information as possible in furtherance of effective ferry service,” Hutchins said of the proviso. “I don't believe we need more studies to be able to tell us what we already know, and what we know is we have service demands that aren't being met, we have staffing levels that don't meet the demand as it is, let alone the demand that we can expect, and we do not have vessels coming online to replace and to augment the current ferry fleet that's out there.”

The transportation budget proposal also includes two Bremerton projects, with $1.62 million requested for final design of expanded pedestrian and bike access on the Warren Avenue Bridge and $5.9 million for a Safe Routes to Schools project to create safer walking and biking conditions for children and families on their way to View Ridge Elementary School.

The House Transportation Committee will soon vote on its final version of the budget. The state Senate is working on its own supplemental transportation budget, and the two chambers will negotiate on the two different versions before sending a measure to Gov. Jay Inslee for his signature.

“The Senate budget approaches some of those cost overruns on the big projects a lot differently than the House does,” Hutchins said. The Senate’s transportation budget doesn’t include items like the $4 million for work on Kitsap Transit’s hydrofoil ferry or Nance’s ferry system work group and study. “It'll be interesting to see how we get through that process, but it's a bipartisan, bicameral process.”

“The House really delivered for Kitsap and now I'm trying to work with our Senate partners to make sure that as much of this is greenlit on the Senate side as well,” Nance said. “We're going to be pestering our friends in the Senate to get as many of these (items) over to the Senate as we can.”

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: House budget proposal would add funds for fast ferries, WSF work plan