Washington Votes Forum

Introduced in the Senate on January 24, 2008

The vote was 40 in favor, 8 opposed and 1 not voting

(Senate Roll Call 0 at Senate Journal 0)

Click here to view bill details.

You have no right legislating requiring new ferries to be built in house. You are illegally excluding outside vendors the right to bid. This smacks of a union lobby in someone’s back pocket. I will be contacting out of state vendors to see how they feel about this legislation. I see a lawsuit coming.

100 car capasity? All but 4 of the presently operating ferries in the system have a capasity that far exceeds this size. This would only force an increase in traffic. This is one of our more important forms of mass transit. Our elected officials should think more about how to actually improve the system rather than make more problems down the road.

The 100 car limit defies logic. I think the legislature needs to explain this to the tax payers.

I have to wonder, whatever happened to the Ferry's that are mentioned in this article: From "The Seattle Times" Dated: Saturday, February 12, 2005 Local shipyard to build four ferries By Susan Gilmore Seattle Times staff reporter A local shipyard with long ties to Washington State Ferries has been selected to build four state ferries worth up to $223 million. Todd Pacific Shipyards of Seattle was the only one of five interested companies with the technical and financial ability to build the ferries, Mike Anderson, acting director of the state ferry system, announced yesterday. The state will negotiate a design-and-construction contract with Todd, which built the last state ferries, the Jumbo Mark II class, between 1997 and 1999. That contract produced the ferries Tacoma, Puyallup and Wenatchee. Todd also built two Jumbo Class ferries in 1972, the Spokane and the Walla Walla. "This is a big step toward getting the ferries under construction," said Anderson. "These boats are urgently needed. They are replacing boats over 75 years old." The state hopes construction can begin in November 2006 and the first boat could be ready for service in 2008. The new ferries will replace the steel-class boats built in 1927 that operate on the route between Port Townsend and Keystone and the interisland runs in the San Juan Islands. The state ferries also picked Valley Power Systems, a California company, to build the propulsion system for the vessels, a $44 million contract for the four vessels. The new boats, each capable of carrying 130 cars and 1,200 passengers, will be paid for by an existing nickel-per-gallon tax on gasoline and through the ferries' revenue base. "We have the money and we're moving forward," said Anderson. "This is a real project." The boats will be the size of the Issaquah-class ferries built in the late 1970s.

I believe the original 4 new ferries that were supposed to be built never got built because of a dispute over the contract being awarded to Todd Shipyards... That was finally resolved but now with the old small boats being yanked out of service, they've decided to take the money slated for the 4 big boats and use a portion of it to build these smaller boats. Unknown if they'll still build any of the big boats.