PORT TOWNSEND — An unwavering $10 million state mitigation plan for when the Hood Canal Bridge is out for two months for an east-half replacement shuns foot-ferry service between Port Townsend and Seattle.
That has left Tim Caldwell, Port Townsend Chamber of Commerce general manager, calling the situation as “a disappointing turn of events.”
A longtime supporter of passenger ferry service between Port Townsend and Seattle, Caldwell had hoped to establish at least a temporary foot-ferry run between the Key and Emerald cities during the bridge closure, now tentatively scheduled by the state Department of Transportation for 2009.
His ultimate hope is to bring in a regular run that would take visitors from downtown Seattle to Port Townsend and back.
He worked extensively to raise private business dollars to establish temporary runs from Port Townsend to Seattle and Port Ludlow to Kingston last summer, using Aqua Express, the foot ferry that normally ran between Kingston and Seattle before it went out of business for lack of ridership and public funding.
South Point service
Federal funding is planned to establish a temporary South Point-to-Port Gamble foot-ferry run near the Hood Canal Bridge construction site during the closure.
At that time, the widened eastern half will be installed on massive concrete pontoons that had been constructed in Tacoma and floated to the bridge site.
What that amounts to, Caldwell writes in the a column in the chamber’s August newsletter, is a “temporary detour with nothing to show for the public investment once the bridge reopened.”
Lisa Murdock, Transportation’s Olympic Region communications manager, said the state agency would stick with the 2002 plan to run a foot ferry from South Point to Port Gamble.
That plan would require building park-and-ride lots at both terminals, special bus services for commuters, and adding special runs for car ferries to make commuting during the bridge work as seamless as possible, she said.
“We’d like to do many different things around the state,” Murdock said.
“Unfortunately, we only have so much money.”
Lobbying support
Caldwell on Thursday said he has received the backing of the chamber board, city, Jefferson County and Port of Port Townsend leaders to lobby state lawmakers and Congress to amend the law that prohibits funding for permanent transportation improvements.
“The biggest issue we’ve talked about is why do we spend $10 million for a temporary detour,” he said.
For example, he said, the Olympic Gateway Visitors Center on state Highway 19 near state Highway 104 could be greatly improved with such funding to provide a park-and-ride for motorists, who then would be shuttled to a passenger ferry at Port Ludlow.
As it is now, he said, the South Point park-and-ride “goes away — and if something happens to the bridge, it won’t be there.”
