Water Taxi’s future: Ferry District hearing over as fast as it began

| Elliott Bay Water Taxi | Transportation | West Seattle news

We’re at the County Courthouse downtown (again), where the King County Ferry District public hearing drew … zero testimony from West Seattle. Spectators in the gallery, but nobody who wanted to speak. (Not exactly a convenient time, we know.) King County Councilmember Dow Constantine‘s office does report more than 30 e-mails have come in, supporting the Elliott Bay Water Taxi and the Ferry District (which runs the EBWT and the Vashon passenger ferry), and you still have time to send yours, before a vote expected later this month on whether to reauthorize the Ferry District — not a slam-dunk deal — send e-mail to info@kingcountyferries.org.

ellenater November 3, 2008 (5:58 pm)

Is it in danger of being discontinued? That would be BAAAD.

Molly November 3, 2008 (6:23 pm)

I just sent my email. Please send yours. The water taxi is so wonderful and I’m sure everyone out there can appreciate less cars on the bridge.

WSB November 3, 2008 (6:35 pm)

Ell, as we noted in one of the previous reports, we are told that there are some in county leadership who would like to scale back the Ferry District, which not only operates the Water Taxi and the Seattle-Vashon foot ferry (the state got out of the passenger ferry business), but is also exploring the possibility of other water-transit routes, like maybe Magnolia to Seattle, or across Lake Washington. The concept would seem to make sense, given that we only have so much land on which to build or expand roads, but we have big stretches of water surface, technically empty. According to Councilmember Constantine’s staff, the Ferry District levy costs all of $22/year if you have a house worth $400K.