For the first time in seven years, annual ridership on state ferries declined in 2019, dropping by 800,000 customers, or about 3.2 percent, to 23.9 million.

Severe winter weather, construction in and around terminals, and “increased transit options” are considered the main reasons for the decrease, according to Washington State Ferry officials.

More than a third of the year-to-year decline came in February 2019, when several snowstorms hit the Puget Sound region, causing many people to cancel or delay travel plans.

During that time, officials said, there were only 10,000 ferry customers on some days, compared to 50,000 to 60,000 average daily winter ridership.

“Following all that snow, we reevaluated our storm plan to provide appropriate service that matches demand,” said WSF Assistant Secretary Amy Scarton. “We recently released new severe weather schedules that align with other reduced transit. We’ll let our customers know if and when we switch over to them through our ferry alerts and social media channels.”

Annually, the largest decrease of 2019 came on the Seattle-Bremerton route, where ridership was down 15 percent, or a drop of more than 400,000 customers from 2018.

The Bainbridge Island-Seattle route remains the busiest, hosting about 26 percent of total system ridership, though customers were down 2.2 percent from 2018, vehicles down 6.9 percent.

The largest jump came on the Southworth-Vashon segment of the “Triangle Route,” where ridership was up 5.2 percent, a gain of more than 10,000 customers over 2018 totals.

According to WSF officials, this is the fourth year in a row that the biggest percentage increase has been on a route serving Southworth.

Customers reportedly took 162,136 trips aboard state ferries in 2019, traveling nearly 1 million miles – or more than 1,600 round trip drives from Seattle to Spokane and back.

Nearly 1.2 million vehicle reservations were made for the Anacortes-San Juan Islands, Anacortes-Sidney, British Columbia and Port Townsend-Coupeville routes last year, a 5.3 percent increase from 2018.

Despite the drop, state ferry ridership is still forecast to grow by 30 percent, to all-time highs, by 2040. Last year, WSF released its 2040 Long Range Plan, which calls for 16 new vessels over the next 20 years to support this projected demand and maintain reliable service.