January 2019

Washington State Ferries

2040 Long Range Plan

Reliable serviceCustomer experienceSustainability and resilienceManage growth

 

 

January 2, 2019 Secretary of the Senate PO Box 40482 Olympia, WA 98504-0482 Chief Clerk of the House PO Box 40600 Olympia, WA 98504-0600 Dear Members of the Washington State Senate and House of Representatives: On behalf of the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), I am pleased to  present to you the Washington State Ferries 2040 Long Range Plan. Updated once a decade,

WSF’s lon

g-

range plan provides a blueprint to guide WSF’s investments and service for the next

20 years while considering the changing needs of ferry system users and associated funding opportunities and challenges.

WSF’s Long Range Plan exemplifies WSDOT’s Strate

gic Plan goals of Inclusion, Practical Solutions, and Workforce Development. First and foremost, it is the reflection of an extensive, robust engagement of ferry riders, community members, government agencies and officials, Ferry Advisory Committees, businesses, transit partners, and others

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more than 7,000 participants weighed in at open houses, online forums, and on multiple advisory groups to help shape the plan. In addition, where Practical Solutions allows us to leverage our limited resources to get the most capacity and safety out of the ferry system, WSF proposes several recommendations for improving reliability, enhancing multimodal connections, and making modest increases to capacity on the

system’s most congested routes. It also recommends strategi

es for bolstering its workforce at a time when the agency faces unprecedented retirement rates of highly skilled employees. The Plan is organized around four themes that emerged from the community engagement process: reliable service, the customer experience, managing growth, and sustainability and resilience. While a sizable focus of the Plan is centered on stabilizing an aging ferry fleet and needed investments in new, greener vessels through electrification, it also suggests several ways to modernize and enhance the customer experience through technology, transportation demand management solutions, and increased multimodal connections. WSF is committed to using the plan as a roadmap for the future and will be continually reviewing its progress and evaluating its goals and objectives. I look forward to your feedback on the Plan

and working with you to make the Plan’s vision a reality for the 25 million users who ride the state’s ferry system each year.

 Sincerely, Roger Millar, PE, AICP Secretary of Transportation