PORT TOWNSEND — The state ferry agency has agreed to provide Port Townsend-to-Edmonds ferry service for commercial trucking operations during the scheduled six-week Hood Canal Bridge closure that will start on May 1.
“Christmas came early,” said Tim Caldwell, Jefferson County Ferry Advisory Committee chairman.
The service is intended to help major North Olympic Peninsula commercial trucking operations, such as the Port Townsend Paper Corp. mill and the Nippon Paper Industries USA mill in Port Angeles, which otherwise would have to send trucks on a more than 100 mile detour toward Olympia.
The bridge will close while its eastern half is replaced in a $471 million project.
In a letter to Jefferson County commissioners dated Tuesday, David Moseley, state assistant transportation secretary for the ferries division, said the state Department of Transportation has agreed to provide evening car-ferry service between Port Townsend and Edmonds during the closure.
A 124-car Issaquah-class ferry will be used after it is pulled from normal service on the Kingston-Edmonds route, state ferries system officials said.
The service will run Sunday through Thursday, leaving Edmonds at 8:40 p.m. and departing Port Townsend at 10:40 p.m.
The crossing time is about an hour and 45 minutes.
Room for six 82-foot tractor-trailers and 86 passenger vehicles will be provided during the closure.
The ferry also carries about 1,200 foot passengers.
The cost of the service will be $137,000. The money will come from the state bridge closure mitigation fund.
“After a thorough review, all parties agree that operating this service will benefit the freight community and other customers by providing an additional option for travel between Jefferson County and the east side of Puget Sound,” Moseley wrote to the county commissioners.
Details are being finalized, Moseley said.
Requested in August
The county commissioners in August sent a letter to Gov. Chris Gregoire and the Peninsula’s 24th District state lawmakers, whose district includes the North Olympic Peninsula, asking for the service.
Chuck Madison, Port Townsend Paper’s vice president for human resources, said state ferries was “very cooperative in looking at the number of options to provide tractor trailer transportation across the Sound.
“Through that cooperative effort, we now have a vital link for tractor trailer traffic for the mill, as well as the region, during the bridge closure.”
He added that it was “great to have the tractor-trailer uncertainty behind us.”
Madison said the company’s trucks, carrying loads of kraft paper to its box-making plant in Richmond, British Columbia, will use the ferry to Edmonds and return carrying loads of cardboard for recycling at the Port Townsend mill.
He said the mill will coordinate with other Peninsula commercial trucking operations to share spots on the ferry.
The big rigs will park in the center lanes, or “tunnel” of the vessel while noncommercial vehicles ride in the wings of the ferry.
State ferries system spokeswoman Hadley Greene said that ferries officials, in discussions with Peninsula trucking operators, including Port Townsend Paper, determined that the Sunday-Thursday schedule would be best.
The state ferries system could not provide service seven nights a week because the ferries need one night for maintenance, and another night for refueling each week.
Caldwell credited Roger Loney, Port Townsend Paper mill manager, and Steve Reynolds, Puget Sound Energy chief executive officer, with promoting the service to state leaders.
Caldwell, former Port Townsend Chamber of Commerce manager and a longtime advocate for passenger ferry service, early last year broached the subject of a Port Townsend-Edmonds ferry during the bridge closure.
The service was provided after the bridge’s west end sank during a 1979 storm, leaving the Peninsula without a link for about three years.
Caldwell also saw the service as a cheap way to walk on to the ferry at Edmonds, visit Port Townsend, then take public transit and the bridge ferry shuttle to Kitsap County and ride the Bainbridge ferry back for free to Seattle during the bridge closure.
“This gives Port Townsend some time to do some promotions,” he said.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
