From Whidbey Island’s perspective, there is no greater charge to our 10th District legislators as Olympia prepares to open for business next week than to defend our ferry service.
Ominous signals are emanating from the Capitol, as study groups and appointed and elected officials declare major changes are in the works. The number of planned new ferry boats will be slashed, service could be reduced, fares increased even further, and more disconcerting, there is talk of special taxing districts to help finance ferry service.
It’s doubtful that ferry service has been under such severe financial pressure since the state took over the enterprise in the early 1950s.
What Whidbey Islanders don’t want to hear from Olympia is that ferry service at Mukilteo and Keystone will be slashed unless we approve a special taxing district. For one thing, it’s doubtful islanders would give in to such state-sponsored blackmail. Any such threat would almost certainly lead to failure at the polls and reduced ferry service, adversely affecting the lives of thousands of Whidbey Island residents who depend on the ferry system for their livelihoods. Nevertheless, that’s what we could be facing.
Of course, many other communities, from the San Juan Islands to Bremerton and Vashon Island, face similar problems. It’s vital that legislators from these communities join with their Whidbey Island counterparts and make a joint stand against local taxes to fund ferry service, and against more fare increases or major service cuts.
Islanders throughout Puget Sound are already paying their fair share for supporting Washington State Ferries, which is legally part of the state highway system. We’re paying far higher tolls than any bridge users, and those fares have approximately doubled over the last few years.
We need affordable ferries not only for ourselves, but for the tourism that is a vital part of our economy. When it costs a family $40 or more for roundtrip tickets to Whidbey Island, they start looking elsewhere for amusement.
There is no doubt Washington State Ferries is in a financial crisis. It’s understandable to cut back on boat building, delay major terminal improvement projects, trim at the edges of schedules, and lay off some bureaucrats, but don’t gut the system.
The only real solution is finding a better way to fund state ferries, which are needed by thousands of workers, businesses and the U.S. Navy, and which generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually for our economy. The obvious place to look is car license fees, which were slashed to $30 annually by a popular initiative. When times are tough, legislators have to make tough choices to save our way of life.
