KT ferries carry record 1.22 million riders in ‘24

Kitsap Transit’s passenger-only ferries carried a record 1.22 million riders in 2024, 12% more than the previous year.

Ridership on fast ferries, which operate routes from the Kitsap Peninsula (Kingston, Bremerton and Southworth) to downtown Seattle, grew 11% to 854,529 riders, per a KT news release. Meanwhile, ridership on KT’s foot ferry services, which connect Bremerton to Port Orchard and Annapolis, rose 16% to 374,336 riders.

All five ferry routes carried more riders than they did in 2023. The Southworth Fast Ferry service saw the most growth at 21%.

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KT executive director John Clauson said, “We would expect more growth in 2025 as more employees return to working in downtown Seattle.”

Growth factors

The expansion of the Bremerton fast ferry schedule in December of 2022 to 40 daily sailings on weekdays has been a key factor driving ridership growth, per KT. Washington State Ferries pays KT to operate an extra seven roundtrips on weekdays and, from October to April, seven roundtrips on Saturdays. Kitsap fast ferries typically operate on Saturdays from May through September. The state committed to funding the sailings until WSF can restore its two-boat service cut on the Bremerton/Seattle route during the COVID pandemic. As a result, ridership on the Bremerton fast ferry in 2024 was 68% higher than in 2022.

As the state legislature convenes, outgoing Gov. Jay Inslee’s proposed budget includes about $6 million in state Department of Transportation funding to support the extra fast-ferry sailings on the Bremerton/Seattle route through 2027. “Kitsap Transit cannot continue to operate these sailings without the legislature providing the funding required to maintain them,” the release says.

Another factor in increased ridership was pandemic-era capacity limits on transit were dropped in July 2021, and ridership grew as employers called more workers back to job sites. Kingston fast ferry’s ridership in 2024 was up 46% over 2022. And since 2022, ridership on the Port Orchard and Annapolis foot ferries has grown 22% and 57%, respectively, KT says.

Reliability

Systemwide, KT’s ferry services maintained 99% reliability and 97% on-time performance in 2024. Reliability is the percentage of scheduled sailings that were operated and on-time performance is the percentage of sailings that arrive within five minutes of the expected arrival time, per KT. Unanticipated canceled sailings bring the reliability score down, and late sailings bring the on-time performance score down.

Last August, Kitsap fast ferries hit a rough spot when it had no spare vessels for the Kingston/Seattle and Southworth/Seattle routes because of an unexpected defect in the primary vessels’ jet propulsion systems. The situation resulted in 111 canceled sailings in August on the Kingston/Seattle route, which had the lowest reliability (95%) in 2024 among the five routes.

KT had applied to the Federal Transit Administration passenger ferry grant program to build a new fast ferry to replace M/V Finest, an aging spare vessel assigned to the Kingston/Seattle route that has had multiple mechanical issues.

In September, the FTA announced KT would receive $13.5 million, which will cover 80% of the new ferry’s $17.5 million cost. A new fast ferry will incorporate cleaner diesel engines and could resemble the agency’s bow-loading vessels M/V Enetai and Commander, each of which has capacity for 250 passengers.

This year, KT plans to request qualifications from marine engineering firms interested in helping with these design upgrades and serving as its representative during vessel construction. After that process is completed, the agency plans to request bids from shipyards that would construct the vessel, KT says.

KT is planning to build its own marine maintenance facility to handle some repairs that require hauling a vessel out of the water. The project will reduce the time and cost of taking ferries to private shipyards, shortening the time it takes to return a vessel to service. The agency has completed a siting study and selected a preferred local alternative. The next steps include a federally required environmental impact study and preliminary engineering.