Commuting by sea



Seattle from the stern of my water taxi



New York's Mayor Bill de Blasio has electrified commuters by proposing ferry services to help his city's workers make their way around the city's five boroughs.  Initial ferry routes from Brooklyn and Queens would begin service by the end of next year.  The mayor may be dissatisfied with the progress of the Second Avenue subway -- first proposed in 1919, and under sporadic construction since 1972. 

If you can't travel under the streets, he may be thinking, maybe you can head out to sea and travel around them.

New York compares its plans to develop ferry service with commuter ferries already operating in San Francisco and Sydney.  Interestingly enough, the article made no mention of the many routes operated by Washington State Ferries on Puget Sound, which include routes heavily used by commuters to Seattle from Bremerton, Vashon Island, and Bainbridge Island.

New York officials may feel that Washington's ferry system isn't sufficiently similar to that which they contemplate for the Big Apple.  Our ferries are part of the state highway system, and are designed primarily to carry automobile and truck traffic.  Nevertheless, the auto ferries have been carrying increasingly large numbers of pedestrians -- especially on the commuter routes mentioned above.

New York ferries would be exclusively pedestrian. 

But we do have the King County Water Taxi system, which operates exclusively pedestrian ferries. In 2007, King County (Seattle) took over operation of two small pedestrian ferry routes -- between Seattle and West Seattle near Alki Point, and between Seattle and Vashon Island.  They appear to have been operated quite successfully.

All of which leads up to my mentioning that I had my first experience today riding one of those water taxis, an adventure precipitated by my reading earlier today about Mayor de Blasio's big New York plans.  Checking the water taxi website, I was encouraged to discover that the "Orca" card one uses to pay the fare on light rail and buses is also valid on the water taxis.  Therefore, casting hesitation aside, I took light rail downtown to the University Street station, and walked a few blocks to the waterfront. 

The waterfront is badly torn up at present, as rotting wooden piers are being replaced, but a pedestrian walkway leads one safely through the chaos.  I had ascertained that the water taxis departed from Pier 50 -- it was merely a matter of figuring out where Pier 50 might be.  When I reached the ferry terminal -- for Washington State Ferries -- I discovered I was at Pier 52.  I continued south for maybe another quarter mile, and reached my destination -- a rather long pier sticking into the Sound, unmanned but with a vending machine for those needing single tickets.

The ship itself is a catamaran with two passenger decks -- comfortable seats inside, and deck chairs on a small aft deck outside.  The taxis run every half hour during rush hours, and about every hour at other times.  The ride from Seattle to West Seattle ran about 15 minutes going over, and a faster ten minutes coming back.  The views of the Seattle waterfront and skyline were spectacular. 

I had no plans to entertain myself whilst in West Seattle.  I returned immediately to downtown on the same ferry.

The fare, using an Orca card, was $4.50 one way.  Because my light rail and ferry passages were all completed within two hours, under Orca rules regarding transfers the entire expedition cost me just that single $4.50 fare.  Not the most amazing adventure of my life, but certainly one of the most economical.

But I suspect Seattle has little to offer New York by way of its ferry experiences.  These two routes, to West Seattle and  to Vashon Island, as useful as they are for those commuters who depend on them, don't quite compare with the scale of operations being proposed by and for our eastern Big Brother.

Alki Point, near where the water taxi lands in West Seattle, derives its name from the words supposedly spoken by the first Seattle settlers -- "New York alki" -- Chinook jargon meaning "New York, by and by." 

Yes, but not quite yet.