UPDATE: King County Water Taxi unveiling ‘rebranding’

8:37 PM SATURDAY: If you’ve noticed the new look for the King County Water Taxi shuttle – we did too, and tried to find out more about it, and whether it’ll be on the boats too, but the KC Department of Transportation would only say that an announcement is likely on Monday (and that they’d posted a hint on Instagram). We looked into the county budget and it does include a $144,000 item for “rebranding” the Water Taxi, saying that the current branding goes back to when it was part of the King County Ferry District in 2009, before the county merged the Water Taxi back into its DOT as the Marine Division. The budget item mentions rebranding for boats, uniforms, “publicly visible materials.” Meantime, if you missed this news, the backup boat Spirit of Kingston is in the shop right now getting new engines. And as we’ve mentioned a few times, the seven-day-a-week Water Taxi schedule returns on April 10th – one week from Monday.

8:40 PM SUNDAY: KCDOT spokesperson Brent Champaco tells us tonight that the announcement has been delayed – no new date yet.

Raye April 1, 2017 (8:41 pm)

I love the water taxi, but $144,000 for “rebranding”? What a waste.

MSW April 1, 2017 (9:21 pm)

I agree with Raye. It’s just for looks. $144K is lot of money.
- West Seattle since 1979 April 1, 2017 (9:39 pm)
  
  Agree! I’d rather see it go for system improvements. It looked ok before!
Swede. April 2, 2017 (4:29 pm)

That’s nothing compared to how much Metro paid to swap to Martin Luther King Jr.’s Face instead of the crown that was the symbol before. Millions for that. Annual royalty fees for the usage of it too.
WsEd April 3, 2017 (11:34 am)

At least they didn’t spend a wad of money on a study of the potential re branding like the library did a few years ago.

nw April 1, 2017 (8:42 pm)

Lived here going on 43 yrs ,my whole life, took the water taxi a handful of times took it was last year, it was cool.

Space Dust April 1, 2017 (9:24 pm)

A $144,000.00 for re-branding….(new stickers) same service.

Another waste of tax payers money…Grant money is tax payer money.

Mike April 2, 2017 (7:31 am)

So they’ll have plenty of money to keep them running all the time and ensure the exhaust issues are resolved, right? They’re running pretty rich lately.

West Seattle Hipster April 2, 2017 (8:31 am)

Another example of wasteful and incompetent local leadership.

ILoveJort April 2, 2017 (9:06 am)

The men who work on the water taxi are trained to save lives. I am in favor of spending this money if it helps show them the respect they deserve. This is all of our’s government, and it’s a reflection of us. I do not oppose spending money to have it look nice and actually show what the department is instead of what it was 8 years ago.

Mike April 2, 2017 (11:03 am)

I’m pretty sure the people who work on the boats would prefer the money go to keeping them running in top shape and maybe towards their salaries rather than $144k on stickers and paper flyers that nobody uses.

DaveB April 2, 2017 (9:09 am)

While they’re at it, they should change the name from “water taxi” to “water bus.” The way it operates is more like a bus than a tax. It’s not hailed nor can you tell it where to take you, instead it has a schedule a fixed route.

CAM April 2, 2017 (11:59 am)

So we’ve just endured a week of commenters complaining that the city looks like a 3rd world country and blaming it on the government’s inaction. So now the government (I’m aware this is county vs city) spends a relatively small amount of money to spruce something up and the only comments are that the government is wasting money and should just let appearances go to hell. I’m beginning to think that a lot of these commenters don’t care what happens but they are going to find a reason to be mad about it no matter what.

Kara April 2, 2017 (1:20 pm)

RIGHT?! I’m thinking it’s time to stop reading the comments like I have for every other news organization. Everyone is an expert on what everyone else should be doing, but thanks WSB for continuing to be awesome despite our angsty ways and keeping us informed.

ltfd April 2, 2017 (12:16 pm)

At least this rebranding will cost less than the county-wide logo rebranding /taxpayer bend-over from several years ago ($600,000 in 2007 dollars). Although I doubt the county’s estimates were accurate.

MomosMom April 3, 2017 (10:05 am)

@Cam… your comment as quoted…“So we’ve just endured a week of commenters complaining that the city looks like a 3rd world country and blaming it on the government’s inaction. So now the government (I’m aware this is county vs city) spends a relatively small amount of money to spruce something up and the only comments are that the government is wasting money and should just let appearances go to hell. I’m beginning to think that a lot of these commenters don’t care what happens but they are going to find a reason to be mad about it no matter what.”

I think the commenters as you stated are not complaining that the City looks like a 3rd World Country by what our vehicles look like because a 3rd World Country can have Tesla’s driven around I think “we” are complaining that the money could be spent on better things like getting the homeless off of the streets and into some kind of housing or getting all the litter and garbage picked-up .

Sorry, comment time is over.