West Seattle Blog…

Freeway Fright ’07: Water Taxi, wall-to-wall

August 13, 2007 at 11:59 am | In Elliott Bay Water Taxi, Freeway Fright '07, Transportation | 19 Comments

Photo from the office of KC Councilmember Dow Constantine (who tells WSB he too is telecommuting today, in case you wondered). This is the run that carried almost 200 people.

19 Comments

1. I betcha the 5:20 run going back will have to leave people at the dock…and that’s ok. There are good summertime cocktails to be found all along the waterfront :)

   Comment by T — 12:07 pm August 13, 2007 #

2. I was considering taking the water-taxi but instead took the bus in an hour early this morning (which was wide-open btw). Do you know which taxi this was..7:30am?

   Comment by Shannon — 1:09 pm August 13, 2007 #

3. I took the 7:30 with the 191 passengers…this pic looks like us.

   Comment by T — 1:22 pm August 13, 2007 #

4. I think that’s right – the 7:30 run, which is the third run of the morning from W.S. It left a few minutes late.

   Comment by Dow Constantine — 1:29 pm August 13, 2007 #

5. It was the 7:30 AM run.

   Comment by House — 1:43 pm August 13, 2007 #

6. With the ferry that full, were they allowing bicycles on it?

   Comment by Andy — 2:33 pm August 13, 2007 #

7. does Mr. Constantine live in West Seattle? if so, surprised to hear he’s not riding the Water Taxi in this week…

   Comment by dq — 2:41 pm August 13, 2007 #

8. perhaps seeing this will spur the city on to providing more service, and getting a better departure pier in West Seattle. What a wonderful way to get to downtown. If you build it, they will come….

   Comment by Jan — 3:22 pm August 13, 2007 #

9. There were at least 4 or 5 bikes on that run and there didn’t seem to be a problem. Removing the tables from the first floor really made a lot of sense.

   Comment by T — 3:34 pm August 13, 2007 #

10. Ya, are bicycles allowed on full taxis?

    Comment by Sean — 3:34 pm August 13, 2007 #

11. Bicycles are allowed. It hasn’t been a problem so far today, but extra space for bikes has been made along the walls of the first deck just in case.

    Comment by House — 4:19 pm August 13, 2007 #

12. Jan – the water taxi is actually a county (Metro) service – we posted recently about one proposal in the very early stages for a possible expanded terminal, and in conjunction with the newly created King County Ferry District, Dow Constantine’s office is playing a major role in helping figure out where all this goes next. Think about it this way – we don’t really have room to build more roads, but we have lots of water, so we might as well use it.

    Comment by WSB — 4:40 pm August 13, 2007 #

13. ? how many lifejackets are on board?

    Comment by Jiggers — 4:43 pm August 13, 2007 #

14. 7:30 boat: Lots of bikes, lots of people, but still room for more! Just want to call out the one woman who I recognize as a WS Taxi regular who walked over to her group saying, “who the hell ARE these people?” Then she and her group pushed their way to the front to get on first. The woman at the gate turned them away noting that passengers on the taxi still needed to get off! Folks–it’s a PUBLIC transportation service! Except for this bad behavior, the rest of the experience was lovely.

    Comment by The Velvet Bulldog — 4:48 pm August 13, 2007 #

15. “who the hell ARE these people?”

    I also saw one or two people this morning who seemed to think that they had some kind of right to jump the line.

    One woman just waited up at the front glaring at the ticket-taker and then at her watch–she didn’t ever really get “in line.” Like nobody else had to get to work! She had to wait to the end of the line, though, just like the rest of us.

    Comment by Ftrain — 4:56 pm August 13, 2007 #

16. I took the water taxi this morning but rode the bus back to WS this afternoon.

    Comment by Admiral Janeway — 6:30 pm August 13, 2007 #

17. Ditto…I was on the record breaking boat this AM at 7:30. As a water taxi regular, it was great to see so many people using the service. I opted to take the bus home because the line for the 5:20 was huge by 5pm.

    Comment by Mike — 10:24 pm August 13, 2007 #

18. Don’t worry, Jiggers. There are more than enough PFDs on board for everyone. When the Coast Guard upped the passenger count, they also checked the life jacket count (which I believe has always been more than the capacity of the boat, in both cases).

    Comment by Rebecca — 6:30 am August 14, 2007 #

19. [...] Seattle is surviving its’ I-5 construction and West Seattle Blog tells us how the Water Taxi is doing its’ part to lighten the load of commuters heading to Downtown Seattle and bypassing the construction on I-5.  [...]

    Pingback by Neighborhood Round-up | Rain City Guide | A Seattle Real Estate Blog... — 8:27 pm August 15, 2007 #

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