Mar 25 2009
A Groundswell of support for Kenmore Ferry
Tuesday night about a hundred people turned out to learn more about potential ferry service from Kenmore to Seattle. The Kenmore Ferry Town Hall meeting was hosted by King County Councilmember Bob Ferguson and Kenmore Mayor David Baker. Councilmember Ferguson spoke of having “different transit options for different parts of the region” and that a ferry could still operate if the roads were snowy or if a bridge went down. Mayor Baker joked that he promised Councilmember Ferguson that he would stop bothering him about the blackberries on the Burke-Gillman trail if he kept the ferry demonstration route on track for Kenmore. Kenmore- Seattle is one of two demonstration ferry routes slated to begin around 2010.
While most citizens expressed support for the new ferry or water taxi, a few raised concerns about the the cost and questioned if there was enough benefit to justify the cost. Councilmember Ferguson said the King County Ferry System costs about $22 in property taxes for a house valued at $400,000. He also related the ferry subsidy to metro bus service and pointed out that the West Seattle to Downtown Water taxi has about a 40% fare box recovery and the average for a Metro bus is about 20%. Staff talked about being “cost-conscious” in their planning for the new ferry routes.
When asked by a citizen if the ferry was a “done deal”, Councilmember Ferguson answered, “that it is never a done deal until the first ferry leaves Kenmore, but he has every reason to believe that a demonstration route can come to Kenmore in the next few years”.
More details about the Kenmore Ferry:
- Demonstration Route would be from Kenmore to either the University District or Leshi
- Estimated dock to dock travel time of 28 minutes at 22 knots
- 150 passenger, two deck boats, leased to begin with
- Boats 75-80 feet long and 26 feet wide
- Shuttle Service on both ends of route
- Likely to begin with 3 boat trips each am and pm
- Special event ferry runs possible this summer
2 Responses to “A Groundswell of support for Kenmore Ferry”
[...] of the meeting, please check out the excellent post by Laurie Sperry at http://www.kenmoreblog.net: http://kenmoreblog.net/?p=894 This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 at 10:10 am and is filed under [...]
What a great way to ease traffic on Bothell Way. I believe there was a ferry route years ago. Looking forward to the first run.