More on the King County Ferry District plan approved today

Heard back from KC Councilmember Dow Constantine‘s staff on our question about the KCFD plan approved this morning: watertaxisailiconsize.jpgNo significant changes from the original plan posted on the county website. The levy rate to pay for Ferry District operations — including the Elliott Bay Water Taxi, the Seattle-Vashon passenger ferry that the state has to give up, and “demonstration routes” on other county waterways — will be 5.5 cents per $1000 of property value — $22/year ($1.83/month) if your home is worth $400,000. The assessment will start in January. As for Water Taxi operations — Argosy will continue to operate the service next year, for a season that might start slightly earlier and end slightly later than this year, and in summer of 2009; if dock improvements at Seacrest are ready by fall 2009, that’s when “in-house operations” would begin and the Water Taxi would go year-round — if dock improvements aren’t done by then, they say, that work would happen in winter ’09-’10 (it can’t happen any other time of the year) and year-round operations would start no later than spring 2010.

2 Replies to "More on the King County Ferry District plan approved today"

  • marty November 13, 2007 (6:25 pm)

    This is total BS! I pay all year to help carry the ferry system and then get an extra summer and RV charge when I use the system one time in August. People on Vashon should pay what it costs for their ferry expenses. Passenger only ferries are strictly a convenience when they have the option of the regular ferry service.

  • WS Native November 14, 2007 (7:51 am)

    “People on Vashon” would clog up our West Seattle bridge, and the Viaduct, and I-5, if they didn’t have the option of a foot ferry directly to downtown. Same with all the people who commute from West Seattle on the water taxi. People on Vashon pay taxes just like the rest of us. They pay for freeways they don’t use, east King County roads they don’t use, flood control for rivers that aren’t on Vashon Island.

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