How’s three-boat Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth ferry service going? That and other topics up for discussion at WSF’s online meetings

| Fauntleroy | Transportation | West Seattle news

Lots of hot topics for Washington State Ferries lately, including the restoration of three-boat service on the Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth route. Got a question? Concern? Comment? That and many other topics are up for discussion at WSF’s fall system-wide community meetings, happening online at 12:30 pm and 6 pm Thursday, October 2. WSF boss Steve Nevey says, “Each meeting will begin with a brief presentation about this summer’s increased service, our new vessel build program and recent changes here at WSF. Most of the time will be dedicated to answering questions.” You can register for one or both (WSF promises duplicate content) right now by going here.

IDC9 September 18, 2025 (9:06 pm)

My questions are: 1. On the WSF website, when you look for the Fauntleroy-Vashon two boat schedule (the schedule they’ll run when the third boat isn’t available), the weekend departure times from Vashon are from the old schedule, the one that was in place from 2021 to this past Spring, that was dumped, while the departures from Fauntleroy are from the new schedule. I’d like to know what the correct weekend departure times from Vashon are supposed to be on this new two boat schedule. It has been like this on the WSF site all summer, and, since this two boat schedule hasn’t been deployed since the third boat officially returned this summer (the “ghost boat” doesn’t count here”), no one seems to have noticed the error. 2. With the announcement this week that the San Juan Islands will now be operating on the Spring and Fall timetable during the Winter sailing period as well (previously, winter service was reduced up there), I wonder if Fauntleroy might see its third boat officially return on weekends as well this upcoming Winter? The “ghost boat” was running on most, if not all, weekends this past Winter, so WSF has set a bit of a precedent for it. Pair this with what is happening in the San Juan Islands, and it would essentially mean that all of the domestic (everything but Sidney, BC) service that WSF cut back in the 2002/2003 timeframe would be fully restored. Bob Ferguson has made WSF a key priority for himself, so this move would further show he is serious about making WSF a better system for everyone.

Derp September 18, 2025 (9:45 pm)

Sounds like you need to call WSF.

IDC9 September 25, 2025 (1:07 am)

Updating my first question: Now that WSF has switched over to its fall schedule, they updated the two boat schedules for the Fauntleroy triangle routes, and they removed the errors I referred to in my previous comment. However, they introduced a bunch of new errors impacting all legs of the route (Fauntleroy-Vashon, Fauntleroy-Southworth, and Southworth-Vashon) between 4:30pm and 10pm. Are they even aware of what they are doing? Should the two boat schedule have to be implemented on a weekend this fall, good luck trying to make sense of it! I’m an avid ferry fan, and have been making my way around WSF schedules for 20 years, and I’m posting here because I can’t even make sense of this one. As an example of the errors I’m talking about, they have the number 1 vessel listed as leaving Vashon at 4:50pm, Southworth at 5:05pm, and Fauntleroy at 5:20pm. Thats not possible. Assuming the 4:50pm departure from Vashon is accurate, a 5:05pm departure from Southworth could be made, but it would almost certainly be late as it takes at least 10 minutes to make the crossing from Vashon to Southworth. Even if the 5:05pm departure from Southworth was actually on time, the 5:20pm departure from Fauntleroy would not be possible since it takes at least 20 minutes to sail directly from Southworth to Fauntleroy. The schedule continues on with errors like this for the rest of the evening, with departure times not lining up, vessels listed as being in places they can’t realistically be, and a glaring gap in sailings leaving Southworth for Fauntleroy between 7:45pm and 11:20pm (something the two boat schedule that was posted online during the summer didn’t have). This matter needs to be brought up during the meetings as these sorts of major errors need to be corrected before the two boat schedule has to actually be implemented and customers and WSF employees end up frustrated trying to sort it out in real time.

Sorry, comment time is over.