Water Taxi Cost

[mojo22565]

Did anyone see this on Kiro last week? It was also in the times

http://www.kirotv.com/video/23689297/index.html

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[JanS]

interesting video. I don’t use the water taxi, nor do I commute to downtown. I live and work in West SEattle. My biggest problem with the water taxi, while it may be quick, and fun, to take to the downtown waterfront, what do I do when I get there? I walk with a can (semi-disabled), cannot walk great distances in a timely manner, and this gets me to a place on the waterfront that makes it unhandy to get to the places I may need to get to, usually not in the downtown area.

I hope that this can be worked out. Sometimes bigger isn’t always better. This service is needed for the commuters, and will be more utilized as more construction on the viaduct starts.

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[metrognome]

JanS — having worked in north Pioneer Square for 20+ years while using a manual wheelchair, I know that that area is a pain for someone with limited mobility. There are a few options:

– Route 16 lays over in front of Colman Dock and leaves every 20-30 mins weekdays. The route runs daily and goes up Yesler and north on Third to the retail district;

– Route 99 (the former George Benson Waterfront Streetcar) has a stop on Yesler at Western, but that really only helps if you are going to the ID (and the sidewalk to get to the stop is awful);

– there is now an elevator at Colman Dock that you can use to get to the crossover to get to First and Marion; there is a fairly steep up and down to get over the old RR tracks;

– Metro has just updated its Accessible Downtown Seattle map that identifies potential routes for persons with mobility impairments: http://metro.kingcounty.gov/tops/accessible/paccessible_map.html

hope that helps.

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[metrognome]

MoJo — tv stations attract viewership and sponsors by creating ‘news’ that doesn’t exist by reporting a fact and blowing it out of proportion and out of context. Here is the Washington Policy Center’s 2 pg ‘policy note’ that generated the story: http://www.washingtonpolicy.org/Centers/transportation/policynote/FerryPN.pdf

In my opinion, it leaves out or misstates key facts and uses inflammatory language to create a controversy:

– prior to the creation of the county Ferry District, the water taxi was a demo project run at Metro by the same 2 people who manage the other contracted service, DART, which runs shuttles in some suburban cities;

– with the Ferry District, a new Marine Division was created in KCDOT, so it is a parallel division to Metro Transit and the Rail Division. The whole purpose of the Ferry District was to bring operations in-house and to identify other potential passenger routes. Right now their other route is the Vashon Passenger Ferry formerly run by WSDOT/State Ferries;

– the sole factual source for this ‘policy note’ was a report issued by … wait for it … the Ferry District. Oh yeah, and a Seattle Times article.

WPC is a supposedly non-partisan research center that “improves lives of Washington citizens by providing accurate, high-quality research for policymakers, the media and the general public.” I would note that the first five supporters quoted on their ‘about us’ page are well-known conservatives, four at a national level (McKenna, Jeb Bush, Huckabee, Jack Kemp, George Will.) The identified Dems are local: State Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles and State Rep. Maralyn Chase.

If you’re interested in the Ferry District: http://www.kingcountyferries.org/

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[Ken]

The WPC’s main complaint seems to be the concept that union labor is used in all King County employment.

They fought the minimum wage every time it came up since WPC’s creation.

All transit is subsidized. All roads are subsidized too but you won’t hear the wingnuts complain about that.

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[KBear]

“All roads are subsidized too but you won’t hear the wingnuts complain about that.”

…until they’re asked to pay tolls, of course.

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[Author]

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