I recently began studying the ridership and appropriations of the Washington State ferries, and that was a little bit interesting. However, I soon realized that the big picture simply crushes the nuanced analysis.
One part of the big picture is that there will always be strong lobbying for more and larger car ferries. These people don’t need any help from me and they probably don’t need any help from you.
Another part of the big picture is that, for reasons I may elaborate in a future post, passenger ferries in Puget Sound will always be big money-losers. If you’re a casino and can make up the loss in some other way, or if you’re wealthy and can join other wealthy commuters in hiring a private boat, fine and dandy. Public authorities, however, will always struggle and frequently fail in dealing with the financial bleeding.
For the reader, it’s a happy ending- there’s not much you can do, and not much you should do, about the ferries. It’s an island of calm in a busy world.
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