{"id":3136,"date":"2024-01-30T15:51:11","date_gmt":"2024-01-30T22:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/senatedemocrats.wa.gov\/hansen\/?p=3136"},"modified":"2024-01-30T16:35:41","modified_gmt":"2024-01-30T23:35:41","slug":"what-were-doing-about-our-states-ferry-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/senatedemocrats.wa.gov\/hansen\/2024\/01\/30\/what-were-doing-about-our-states-ferry-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Working to improve ferry service in Kitsap County"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear friends and neighbors,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re over a third of the way through the 2024 legislative session! We\u2019ve got our first deadline this week \u2013 Jan. 31. That\u2019s when policy bills will need to make it through their committee of origin. After that, much of the action will happen in the fiscal committees and on the House and Senate floors.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My bill (<\/span>SB 5999<\/span><\/a>) to make college and apprenticeships more affordable for working families made it out of committee with bipartisan support. We heard testimony from so many students about what it would mean for them if this legislation passed. We had <\/span>367 people sign in to support the bill; no one signed in opposed. As the ranking Republican member on the committee \u2013 who voted for the bill out of committee \u2013 noted, \u201cThe message is pretty clear on this bill.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Recently, my Senate colleagues voted to confirm me as the new vice chair of the Higher Education and Workforce Development Committee. I’m grateful for their trust, and I look forward to working alongside the new chair, my friend Sen. <\/span>T’wina <\/span>Nobles!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What we’re doing to improve ferry service in Kitsap County<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Like all of us, I am frustrated and disappointed by the current state of our ferry system. This is the product of many years of neglect. Many of us have tried for years to get our legislative colleagues to pay closer attention \u2013 I voted against a major gas tax increase shortly after I entered the Legislature because not enough of the money went to ferries \u2013 but it took the crisis we are now experiencing to get more people to take it seriously. We have a lot of work to do to get our ferries back to full service, but I want to give you a brief overview of some of the things we\u2019ve done so far and what we\u2019re working on now in the Legislature.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We need 26 boats system wide to provide reliable service. That gives us enough boats to run full service on all routes, with\u00a0 backups for when one goes down or when others are out for regular maintenance. Right now, we have 21; largely because we (incorrectly) did not prioritize boatbuilding<\/span> \u2013 but also because of accidents and because boats have failed when we\u2019ve delayed maintenance for too long.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We also have a slowly-building staffing shortage. There\u2019s a global shortage of skilled maritime workers to start with \u2014 BC Ferries has had hiring problems too. And then, even before COVID, about 50% of our skilled ferry personnel were at retirement age. Then COVID hit, and we saw a wave of retirements. It was tough and dangerous work to be in-person on ferries during COVID; it would rip through an entire engine room at once. And the vaccine mandate wasn\u2019t something a lot of people liked; so we lost something like 7% of our ferry workforce \u2013 approximately 130 of 1900 people \u2013 almost all of whom worked on the vessels.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what we\u2019ve put in place to address all this.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On the vessel side, we\u2019ve totally redone our procurement process to get vessels cheaper and faster (<\/span>HB 1846<\/span><\/a>). Specifically, we\u2019re expanding our pool of potential out-of-state builders so we have more options. It still takes time to get a boat built, but preliminary indications from Washington State Ferries are that we\u2019re likely to get attractive bids from both a cost and speed perspective.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the staffing side, we\u2019ve significantly expanded recruiting and retention efforts: partnerships with the Seattle Maritime Academy to hire new personnel, retention bonuses for working through COVID, a 17% pay increase for the most skilled vessel crew members, payment for certification for people who we\u2019re trying to hire from other systems to get certified to be captains \u2014 but they\u2019re taking time to work; it takes something like 550 days to get a captain certified, and that\u2019s a Coast Guard requirement so we don\u2019t control it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re also looking at various measures to bridge the gap while the new vessels come online. Specifically, we\u2019re trying to bridge the gap to the new vessels with maintenance on the existing vessels; and we\u2019re also looking at supplementing service with the Kitsap Transit passenger-only ferry and (potentially) the King County Water Taxi. We\u2019ll keep working on the staffing side as well: <\/span>we\u2019re looking at increasing funding for th<\/span>e Seaman <\/span>to Mate program, hiring additional crew for each shift, and broadening out-of-state recruitment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re going to keep focused on this. It\u2019s an embarrassment for our state, and it\u2019s a huge problem for people in Kitsap County. Like all of you, I\u2019ve been stuck on one side of the water or another when routes are on one-boat service or a sailing suddenly gets canceled. I\u2019m on the Transportation Committee in the Senate and ferries are of course my #1 transportation priority.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How you can get involved this session<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Amazing visit with local school district personnel and (best of all) students from Bremerton High School\u2014I learn SO MUCH from these meetings, there\u2019s no substitute for the on-the-ground perspective!<\/p><\/div>\n