Can we get a mulligan on that?
Posted by Scott "The Piper" St. Clair - December 05, 2008Most recently reported in the Peninsula Daily News are the travails of Washington State Ferries attempts to cover the Port Townsend - Keystone auto-ferry run when the Steilacoom II goes into dry-dock for US Coast Guard-mandated inspections just after New Year's Day.
Jeff Chew over there has done some good reporting on this issue as well as on WSF generally.
One thing he mentions is how the run has been covered in the recent past during similar situations: "P.S. Express (a Port Townsend-based private company) and the former state-owned Snohomish passenger ferry provided service last year. " (emphasis added).
Well, shoot and golly-bob...wouldn't ya think the state would use a boat it already owns rather than pay through the nose to lease one?
Oops...can't do that...WSF sold the Snohomish along with its sister ship, the Chinook, to a publicly owned ferry operator in the Bay Area. Details here and here.
Seller's remorse anyone?
It's crazy - WSF knows it will have need of passenger-only ferries for situations such as this, yet it sells the ones it has at rock-bottom prices to an out-of-state entity who then makes out like a bandit.
In the meantime, it accepts a sky-high bid from Todd Shipyards to build what my sources within both WSF HQ and the fleet tell me is, at best, a mediocre vessel design in the Island Home, or, at worst, an absolute dog (Arf, Arf, Arf) of a boat.
Gross...
And ferry patrons and taxpayers, who will take it in the shorts, have Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, to blame for the latter mess. She's behind the push, push, push for the Island Home and all the costly add-ons associated with that project.
To borrow Casey Stengel's classic line when he managed the start-up New York Mets, "Can't anybody here play this game?"
I need to go lie down...
The Piper
Thoughts? Add Comment -
Ashley Gerrald said on Feb 17 2009 at 3:34am
Good post
Cheers
____
ferry
ferry said on May 07 2009 at 6:21am
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Ferry said on Aug 10 2009 at 1:11am
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