WSF proposal of six vessel service to San Jauns

[Political Incorrectness]

Well I found the new future plan for WSF and they are thinking about puting in six boats for the San Juans one goes to Sidney one Inter-Island, One going to Friday Harbor One for Lopez and one for Orcas and Shaw, the problem? This is the problem, you get overloads at Orcas and not Lopez so you might as well make Orcas direct and Lopez and Shaw together because they don't overload.

[hergfest]

I was reading about this today too. The problem is that the Shaw dock is five minutes (ferry time mind you) from the Orcas dock. It is right across the channel. So it would make no sense to have a boat go from Lopez to Shaw when the Orcas boat is already there. Plus Shaw has very limited vehicle traffic.
WSF also had some info on some of the other routes. When the new Edmonds and Mukilteo terminals are done they will probably go to a three boat service during the summer. Right now, both terminals have only one berth, making a three boat schedule impossible. But both routes routinely have two-three boat waits on summer weekends.
Looking at their plan for the fleet deployment with the five new Issaquah-ish boats, and with the seven they are retiring, they would have three reserve boats during the summer. With six in the San Juans, one each on the Edmonds-Kingston/Mukilteo-Clinton route, it would leave them with no reserve boats.
Also discussed was using the Sealth as the inter-island boat in the San Juans versus one of the Evergreens (once the Steel Electrics are retired). This is because the Issaquahs are three knots faster than the Evergreens, meaning the Sealth could do one more round-trip a day on the inter-island route. This would elevate the island connection problems with the boats only going to one island.

[SS San Mateo]

The future plan also mentioned expanding passenger capacity on the Jumbo Mark II vessels by expanding the upper passenger cabin area (which, IIRC, would include enclosing the solarium areas).

-- LB

[hergfest]

That is a good plan, that way they don't have to add a third boat just for commuters. They also mentioned putting one of the Supers on the Seattle-Bremerton Route instead of the Kitsap so they would have increased passenger capacity. Not to mention the Supers can do 20 knots versus 16 with the Kitsap.

[Political Incorrectness]

actually they want a 130 full time and then switch super in winter then jumbo in summer