03/23/2005: "Press Release From The WA State Ferries"

(SEATTLE) The Washington State Transportation Commission hosted a public hearing in Seattle (Wednesday, March 23) and determined the Washington State Ferries should amend their tariff proposal and open public comment for 30 more days. Another Transportation Commission public hearing is slated for Tuesday, April 26, 2005 from 10 to noon in the PSRC Board Room, 5th floor, at 1011 Western Avenue in Seattle.

The new aspects of the proposal call for a 6% general ferry fare increase while maintaining a 90 days expiration date on multi-ride fare cards, with a 20% discount. The original proposal called for a 5% general fare increase but included more restrictive expiration dates on the multi-ride cards and significant revisions to the discount policies. Also, the original proposal was amended to allow the passenger multi-ride fare media to be used for all passengers traveling together so a family would not have to have a multi-ride card for each family member.

The ferry system hosted 13 public open houses and meetings and received over 3700 comments on the original fare proposal, which called for the 5% general fare increase and changing the expiration dates on the multi-ride media from 90 to 30 days. The ferry system is implementing a new electronic fare collection system this fall, replacing ticket books with bar-coded cards.
The proposal had also suggested that only one person would be able to use the multi-ride fare media, so that a family would have to have a separate card for each family member. The Tariff Policy Committee met after the public outreach and amended their proposal, changing the expiration date and passenger multi-ride card sharing and suggesting a 6% fare increase, but maintaining the usual fare rounding to a dime for passenger fares and a quarter for car and driver. This "rounding" would have made the fare increase closer to a 7.1% fare increase.

"This concerned everyone," says Mike Anderson, Executive Director of the ferry system. "The staff was concerned that, with a quarter rounding for car and driver fares, a 6% increase really became a 7.1% increase and so were members of the Tariff Policy Committee. So the staff countered proposed at the Commission meeting for a 6% increase, but with dime rounding for both passengers and auto/driver."

For example:
Cross Sound full fare fares
Current Old Proposal New Proposal
with 10¢ rounding
Car and driver $10.00 $10.50 $10.60
Passenger $5.70 $6.00 $6.10

May 1, 2005, Washington State Ferries will implement its usual summer surcharge, raising full fare rates 25% (35% on vehicles and 20% for passengers in the San Juan Islands). However, the extended public comment period required by the change in the original tariff proposal means the fare increase, if approved by the Transportation Commission on April 26, would not be implemented until June 1, 2005.
Other aspects of the proposal, that remain unchanged, include:
• Changing the age of youth from 5 to 18 years of age to 6 to 18 years of age, allowing five year olds to ride free to coordinate with other transit systems.
• Changing the fare increase implementation date from the first Sunday in May to May 1, to coordinate with other regional transit systems.
• Charging a 5% surcharge to people purchasing multi-ride cards at the tollbooths instead of online or via kiosk located at the terminal beginning May 2006. A change from the original proposal is to exempt the elderly, disabled or youth from the surcharge.
• Allowing the pre-purchase of single fare tickets up to seven days in advance of use.
• Applying a new promotional fare for the oversized recreational vehicles and buses utilizing the International route.
• Continuing the 10% discount on commercial accounts that use the ferry system 12 or more times per week until the implementation, in the fall, of the new electronic fare collection system. At that time, WSF would phase in a more flexible commercial account program.
Customers can comment by e-mail at tariff@wsdot.wa.gov. Ferry staff is quickly preparing new tariff materials, and four public meeting locations and dates are still being determined.