(WSB photo from early February)
Water Taxi fares are going up this Saturday (March 1st), the King County Ferry District has just announced. Here’s what the new fares will be:

For the West Seattle route, that’s 75 cents more if you pay cash, 50 cents more pre-paid, 25 cents more for seniors/disabled people and youth 6-18 (prepaid). Kids 5 and under remain free. The Ferry District’s announcement also says West Seattle Water Taxi ridership for last year was up almost 3 percent over the year before.

ADDED: It should be noted that since the Water Taxi doesn’t run on weekends during the winter, the fares technically go up Monday (March 3rd).

Another set of Seahawks Super Bowl victory-related numbers is in – the numbers from the special West Seattle Water Taxi schedule on Wednesday to help people get to and from the historic parade/celebration downtown (more photos in our Wednesday morning coverage).

Today, we asked King County Ferry District administrator AJ McClure for the totals, and he provided this one-sheet. Its introduction:

On Wednesday, February 5, the King County Water Taxi transported a record number of passengers for both its Vashon and West Seattle routes to view the Seahawks Championship Parade. The Vashon route, running its regularly scheduled service, carried 928 passengers. The West Seattle route, aided by an announcement by King County Ferry District Chair Joe McDermott to the West Seattle Blog the previous afternoon that we would provide midday additional service for the event, carried 4,587 passengers for the day. Chair McDermott also proclaimed that the Spirit of Kingston would be known as the M/V Steven Hauschka for the day in honor of the Seahawks placekicker.

Breaking it down – 2,289 passengers total on the West Seattle Water Taxi’s a.m. sailings, 2,298 on the p.m. sailings, adding up to that 4,587 total (with an added boat in the morning, once M/V Melissa Ann finished its a.m. Vashon route sailings).

Last time we remember lines like these was for the famous “Viadoom” Highway 99 closures – but the county also says this BEAT that, big time:

Forgot about Viadoom already? That was the multi-day October 2011 closure for the start of Alaskan Way Viaduct demolition. And remember, whenever the Highway 99 tunnel-digging gets going again, we’re facing a multi-day closure when the machine gets directly beneath what’s left of the elevated Viaduct, so stay tuned.

(UPDATED 1:30 PM: Special sailing, shuttle schedules for Wednesday, added)

(WSB file photo)
11:04 AM: Just got word from King County Councilmember Joe McDermott – the West Seattle Water Taxi WILL have midday runs tomorrow for Seahawks Victory Parade goers. Full schedule will be out shortly (the first and last run times of the day won’t change – what WILL change is that it will run all day, including the period when it’s idle in the winter, 9 am-3:30 pm). And shuttle bus schedules WILL match the runs.

Bonus – remember the WSB commenters who suggested that the Water Taxi be honorarily renamed after kicker Steven Hauschka since he wasn’t included in the Washington State Ferries‘ honorary renames? Councilmember McDermott says that will happen for tomorrow, especially appropriate since Hauschka scored (early) offensive points on Sunday. (Poster image from King County added 5:54 pm)

12:19 PM UPDATE: Here’s the special Wednesday-ONLY sailing schedule as a PDF – this image is from that document:

Shuttle-bus schedule still being finalized, we’re told; we’ll add it when it’s available. (And if you’re thinking about driving to the dock, see our note from last night about free parking at Salty’s on Alki [WSB sponsor].)

1:30 PM UPDATE: Here’s a PDF of the special Wednesday shuttle-bus schedule (with the sailing schedule alongside):

See you at the dock!

One more reminder tonight from King County – the West Seattle Water Taxi starts its winter schedule on Monday, which means the next two days will bring its final weekend runs until spring. The winter schedule runs Mondays-Fridays, morning and afternoon/evening commute time periods only, with the first run from West Seattle to downtown at 6 am, and the last run back from downtown to West Seattle at 7 pm. See the full schedule here.

At its October meeting, the Alki Community Council became the second neighborhood council in two nights to go on the record as officially supporting the West Seattle Transportation Coalition. And one mode of transportation was high on the list of the night’s other hot topics:

WEST SEATTLE WATER TAXI: Michelle Allison from King County Councilmember Joe McDermott‘s office visited by request of ACC leadership. She says the 2014 work plan for the Ferry District Board (which McDermott chairs) includes an analysis of the shuttle routes serving the Water Taxi to see if they can be improved and/or restructured in hopes of boosting WT ridership. “That’s something we’re really going to engage the community on … we need to know if we’re losing people because it’s not operating the way it should. What can we do to change it to have you guys use the Water Taxi?” They’ve done some analysis so far and note that people are using it on weekdays to get home FROM Seacrest, but not necessarily for getting TO Seacrest. 63rd/Alki and Admiral/California are hot spots for where people are getting off the shuttle, she notes.

They might ask for opinions on possible alternate routes that could better serve people trying to use the Water Taxi – look for questions like that, “what neighborhood do you live in and would you use the Water Taxi if the shuttle came there?” She also pointed out that the Water Taxi system is not part of Metro. And they also will look at the current “no charge” operation of the shuttle. “The board is really going to wrestle with that,” Allison said (the board is the County Council under another name).

Later, the group discussed formally letting their representatives know that they want Metro and the Water Taxi shuttle to work together.

Speaking of transportation:

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By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

With periodic boat breakdowns continuing to affect King County Water Taxi service, it would seem the two brand-new 250-passenger boats the county plans to build can’t be ready soon enough.

They won’t be ready as soon as hoped for, though – the county has to send the project out to bid a second time, and plans to add to the budget.

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(WSB photo from April 23)
Exactly two months after news that King County would take possession of the Spirit of Kingston and put it on the West Seattle Water Taxi run – the change is about to happen. We just got word from the office of King County Councilmember Joe McDermott that Spirit of Kingston will take over the run starting tomorrow (Saturday), which means that, after three years, 25-year-old Rachel Marie will become a backup boat. Kingston got the 7-year-old SoK through federal grants but scrapped its foot-ferry service and would have had to pay the grants back if this transfer – which brings the boat here almost for free, as explained in our November report – hadn’t happened. More to come.

ADDED 1:39 PM: The county’s official announcement has just arrived via e-mail – read on:

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4:38 PM: Just announced: King County is canceling the West Seattle Water Taxi route for the rest of the night. No formal word yet on the problem, but about 10 minutes before the announcement, Maggie had noted via Twitter that Rachel Marie hadn’t sailed at 4:15 pm and had some mechanical work going on. We’re checking to see if there’s any word yet about the likelihood of service resuming tomorrow morning. After multiple breakdowns, Rachel Marie is to be replaced soon by the newly acquired Spirit of Kingston, but last word from the county was that it wouldn’t happen before mid-May, because they had to finish training, followed by “regulatory inspections.”

6:07 PM: And – Rachel Marie has returned to service, leaving downtown a short time ago, the county has now announced.

This is our closest look yet at Spirit of Kingston, the future West Seattle Water Taxi vessel, since the King County Marine Division took possession last month – it’s been parked behind a fence at the county’s also-new maintenance barge while crews have been in training, but today we happened to be at Seacrest during one of its test runs. We’re checking with the county Department of Transportation to see if there’s an update on when it’ll be put into service to replace the older and breakdown-prone Rachel Marie.

(Tuesday photo by Don Brubeck)
The future West Seattle Water Taxi vessel Spirit of Kingston has been spotted out on at least one test run since arriving at its new home port last week. But while the King County Department of Transportation’s Marine Division was at one point expecting to launch it on the run when the 7-day-a-week schedule takes effect next week, we’re told it won’t happen quite so fast – according to KCDOT and the office of King County Councilmember Joe McDermott, who chairs the county Ferry District Board, they will delay the debut a while, possibly a few weeks, for training. The spring/summer/fall schedule still launches on Monday, though – and you can see it here.

The new West Seattle Water Taxi vessel Spirit of Kingston has arrived on the downtown waterfront and is docked alongside the county’s new maintenance barge. (We noticed it late Friday via MarineTraffic.com, though it’s now listed as “out of range.”) This is the only view we could get today, but you’ll surely see it out and about soon, since it’s scheduled to take over the West Seattle-downtown run by the time the 7-day-a-week schedule kicks in on Monday, April 8th. Spirit of Kingston’s capacity is slightly less than the run’s current vessel, Rachel Marie, but based on ridership averages, that won’t be an issue till the heart of summer, if then. The 8-year-old catamaran was originally purchased for its namesake town with the help of federal grants, and that’s why it could be transferred here basically for free, since Kingston cut its passenger-ferry service and didn’t need it any more. King County, meantime, will use federal grants to pay for two brand-new boats that will start construction soon.

(Photo courtesy King County Ferry Board chair Joe McDermott’s office)
One week ago, we reported on the King County Ferry Board’s Executive Committee agreeing to accept the Spirit of Kingston and the recommendation that it take over the West Seattle Water Taxi run once it arrives. This afternoon, the county announced the Ferry Board has finalized the deal, and the move should happen when 7-day-a-week service resumes in a few weeks:

The Spirit of Kingston, the 65-foot catamaran that once ferried passengers between Kingston and Seattle, is about to become part of the King County Ferry District’s fleet of water taxis. The District unanimously voted today to acquire the eight year-old vessel at no purchase cost through an agreement with the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) – the agency that originally provided grant funding to the Port of Kingston to purchase the vessel.

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More news from the King County Ferry District, including a followup on part of this morning’s report:

The Ferry District board chair, West Seattle’s County Councilmember Joe McDermott, shared the view from his office as the county’s new maintenance and moorage barge arrived from Tacoma – that’s it on the center-left side of the photo. It’s 40′ by 120′ and was built mostly in Portland, then towed to Tacoma for the final phase of work. It has a few more weeks of work to go, hooking up utilities and so on, before it’s ready for use.

This afternoon, the Ferry Board’s executive committee approved the letter we mentioned this morning, officially accepting the transfer of the Spirit of Kingston, no longer needed after a passenger run ended between Seattle and Kingston. It’s an 8-year-old, 65-foot catamaran that was at first proposed to be used as a Water Taxi backup, though, checking Ferry District meeting records, we note Marine Division staff recommended that it become the primary West Seattle vessel. (We’ll check on where that stands.)

The two older boats on the West Seattle and Vashon Water Taxi runs don’t have to hang on too much longer; the executive committee also was briefed this afternoon on the county’s plan to put out RFPs (requests for proposals) by month’s end for two new aluminum catamarans with capacity up to 250 passengers. An earlier step in the process drew qualified responses from Bellingham’s All American Marine and a team led by Seattle’s Kvichak Marine, according to the newest Water Taxi newsletter. If the process proceeds as planned, the first boat may be delivered in the third quarter of next year, with the second one a few months later. The current boats are leased, not owned.

(August 2011 photo of Spirit of Kingston at Seattle dock, by Oran Viriyincy, via Flickr)
Two notes this morning about the King County Ferry District, the agency responsible for the Water Taxi. First, its board’s Executive Committee meets this afternoon, and will consider a resolution to formalize and finalize bringing the Spirit of Kingston (backstory here and here) into the fleet as a virtually free backup.

Second – the Legislature is considering a bill, co-sponsored by local State Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon, that would kill the Ferry District (as well as the county Flood Control District) and consolidate operations into the rest of county government. But that’s a good thing, local County Councilmember Joe McDermott tells WSB:

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For the second time in less than a month, the West Seattle Water Taxi run’s regular vessel Rachel Marie is out for repairs, so the county has just announced that Melissa Ann will handle the run tomorrow. It in turn will be replaced on the Vashon run by the Victoria Clipper. You might recall that the county’s been working on getting a new backup boat, the Spirit of Kingston, which was built with a federal grant that would enable it to be transferred here since its original owners don’t need it any more. It may be just a few weeks away – Kingston Community News reports that it’s about to leave that community for a week-long “pre-transfer survey” in Port Townsend; last time we checked with King County Councilmember and Ferry Board chair Joe McDermott‘s office, that was one of the last steps before delivering the boat here.

If you are thinking about taking the West Seattle Water Taxi tomorrow morning just in case the I-5/Beacon Hill ramp closures bring extra bridge backup – just a reminder, you can’t; both Water Taxi runs are out of service on Presidents Day.

P.S. 7-day-a-week WT service resumes April 8th.

Just in from King County:

Due to a mechanical issue on the Rachel Marie Tuesday night, there will be no water taxi service on the West Seattle route for Wednesday morning, February 13. Normal service will resume beginning with the 3:45 pm departure on Wednesday afternoon from Pier 50.

(WSB file photo of the West Seattle Water Taxi, May 2011)
There’s scheduling news from today’s meeting of the King County Ferry District Board – county councilmembers wearing their marine hats, overseeing West Seattle and Vashon Water Taxi operations. First, one small tweak that local families say will make a big difference; second, a big-picture commitment that should be a relief to local professional sports fans. Details on both, ahead:

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