Ferries with fewer riders generate less farebox revenue

than ferries with full seats.

That was the less-than-startling finding of an audit of Washington State Ferries, released this week by the state Auditor’s Office. As financial tonic, the report recommended trimming service on the Bainbridge and Bremerton routes – late-night service on weekdays, and early morning and late-night runs on weekends – to save on fuel, labor and other costs. No midday service cuts were recommended for Bainbridge, although Bremerton and other routes could see reductions. The audit suggested that these and other moves toward service “compaction” could save as much as $10 million per year in operating costs.

While it’s hard not to appreciate anything that promotes transportation “efficiencies” – the buzzword underpinning any auditor’s review – the recommendations imply that cutting costs should be Washington State Ferries’ primary mission.

It’s not. Serving riders is, and that’s by its nature an inefficient proposition.

The state of Washington said as much when it socialized ferry service around 1960, to bring predictability to a system long subject to the whims of the many private players in the market. In so doing, the state effectively made a compact with citizens on both sides of Puget Sound that the ferry system would be more concerned with moving people and freight – keeping the cross-sound economy humming – than respecting the financial imperative to run “in the black.” Whether you look at the ferries as floating buses or marine highways, neither historically survive without hefty subsidies.

The problem with simply cutting ferry runs at each end of the day is that people lead irregular lives, at work and at play. Thousands of islanders and their West Sound neighbors count on ferry service to reach the workplace, for jobs that don’t necessarily fall within “9-to-5” commuter hours. Recall back in 2002 when planned cutbacks to an early-morning Sunday Bainbridge-Seattle run would have kept nurses, firefighters and other workers from reaching their jobs on time; commuters’ petitions saved the run. Meanwhile, demand for late-evening ferry service is directly dependent on what’s going on in the bright lights of the big city; a late run may see sparse ridership one week, then be crowded during a Mariners homestand. That demand doesn’t just shift to other times of day because, in the abstract, it makes more sense to run fuller boats.

The state Auditor’s Office is supposed to conduct a hearing on the audit’s findings within the next 30 days, and we trust the auditor’s critique of practices at the Eagle Harbor maintenance yard will get some attention. We also hope ferry riders and West Sound legislators will put a quick kibosh on notions of service cuts that would further punish commuters and communities already hit hard by recent fares hikes.

Or maybe we could take the recommendations for Washington State Ferries to their logical conclusion, and look for efficiencies elsewhere in the transportation system. Perhaps the state should put a gate across the 520 bridge to Bellevue and the I-90 bridge to Mercer Island, then close the gates every night at midnight during hours of off-peak demand.

Good for one part of the highway system, good for another, right?