Editor,

I read with great interest the article in the Dec. 27 News Times titled “Longtime State Ferry Commuters: This is the worst it’s been.” The article bemoans the crushingly long waits for ferries due to too few boats and staff. The problem put forth is that there aren’t enough sailings for the amount of traffic. Then the article goes on at length to explore all the aspects of increasing the number of sailings. But this is looking only at one side of the problem and therefore one possible solution.

If the problem is that there aren’t enough sailings for the traffic, another, perhaps easier and certainly quicker, solution is to decrease traffic. If a bus or other public transit was always waiting for you on the other side of the ferry and took you to your destination with little delay and reasonable cost, the number of cars in line could drop dramatically. So maybe the problem isn’t that we have too few sailings, but that the public transit options on either side of the ferry aren’t up to the demand.

Of course not everyone would switch to public transit even if it’s reliable, low-cost (it’s free on Whidbey Island) and runs often enough that you never have to wait more than 10 or 15 minutes. But given a two-hour wait in a car versus a 15-minute wait and lower cost to ride a bus, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that many people would switch to transit. And every switch takes a car out of the ferry lane.

I hear people grumble about supporting public transit with tax dollars, but everyone who rides a ferry would benefit from better transit leading to fewer cars in line. And everyone who struggles to find a parking spot anywhere would benefit. And everyone who benefits from having workers or students who can get to work without having to buy a car. And everyone who has to drive someone who’s too young, too old, or too sick to drive themselves to appointments, jobs or school.

Let’s look into improving our transit options at ferries. This could probably be done in months instead of years, and likely at lower cost than buying new boats and training new ferry employees. And if you’re stuck in a ferry line, you might have time to look up transit schedules and decide if driving your own vehicle is really worth the wait.

Nancy Hepp

Clinton