As Washington State Ferries prepares to sell two passenger-only ferries so that they can focus on their main vehicle ferry fleet (New York Times, Seattle Times), why don’t we consider a new foot ferry program between the University of Washington and Kirkland, allowing foot travel across northern Lake Washington? We’ll be faced with traffic delays and issues as the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge (otherwise known as the 520 Floating Bridge) is replaced in a few years. The idea has been suggested before by King County councilman Dow Constantine, and a similar program exists in the Elliott Bay Water Taxi program offered by King County Metro. It would definitely make it easier for people to get across the lake, considering that transit options into places like Kirkland and Bellevue from the University are decidedly lacking.
Other good reasons for this:
- We don’t have to remove boats from the region that are already here.
- The program would encourage people to leave their cars at home if the route were designed in a sensible manner with good connections to Metro, Sound Transit, or Community Transit on either end of the taxi route.
- The program would be a great link-in to the already proposed and hopefully soon-to-be-implemented Sound Transit light-rail link to the UW.
Some challenges exist, of course:
- Who owns/runs the boats? The University of Washington? King County Metro? A private operation?
- How do we encourage ridership?
- Can this be a year-long program? Currently, the Elliott Bay Water Taxi shuts down for the winter.
Update (11:50PM): here is the link I was originally searching for from Dow Constantine’s research into the subject back in 2005.
The time people would have to wait to travel on these taxis wouldn’t be worth it if they already have driving and bussing options in place. Also, since people have such obvious other easy options the cost of these services would deter people from using them because of the costs involved. At least, I imagine these are true … based on wild-ass scientific guesses on my part.
The time people would have to wait to travel on these taxis wouldn’t be worth it if they already have driving and bussing options in place. Also, since people have such obvious other easy options the cost of these services would deter people from using them because of the costs involved. At least, I imagine these are true … based on wild-ass scientific guesses on my part.
The only reply I can leave to that is to point out the travel times, both by car and by bus – I’ll use Metro’s Trip Planner to illustrate here. Try a trip from 3rd St. and Central Way in Kirkland to the University of Washington HUB transit stop. The origin is fairly reasonable, since it’s in the middle of downtown at one of the more popular parks in the area. Try planning it for 11/19 to arrive at 9AM, also fairly reasonable for an earlier class. Just to cut down on the hassle, I set it for fewest transfers as well. (By the way, if you really want to see stupid travel times, leave it on the default option of "Fastest Way" and watch it take an hour or so to get on campus.)
Note that I set it for the UW HUB simply because that’s the stop I’m most used to. According to that planner, you can get there in about 20 minutes if you don’t mind getting off down near the Medical Center. This assumes no traffic, which isn’t likely to be true at 8AM on any given weekday. So let’s inflate it to 30 minutes, just to allow for problems. That’s still not all that bad. By car, it’d be far worse, since you have to factor in time to find parking anywhere on campus (maybe close to your destination, if you’re abnormally lucky or earlier than anyone else).
The only reply I can leave to that is to point out the travel times, both by car and by bus – I’ll use Metro’s Trip Planner to illustrate here. Try a trip from 3rd St. and Central Way in Kirkland to the University of Washington HUB transit stop. The origin is fairly reasonable, since it’s in the middle of downtown at one of the more popular parks in the area. Try planning it for 11/19 to arrive at 9AM, also fairly reasonable for an earlier class. Just to cut down on the hassle, I set it for fewest transfers as well. (By the way, if you really want to see stupid travel times, leave it on the default option of "Fastest Way" and watch it take an hour or so to get on campus.)
Note that I set it for the UW HUB simply because that’s the stop I’m most used to. According to that planner, you can get there in about 20 minutes if you don’t mind getting off down near the Medical Center. This assumes no traffic, which isn’t likely to be true at 8AM on any given weekday. So let’s inflate it to 30 minutes, just to allow for problems. That’s still not all that bad. By car, it’d be far worse, since you have to factor in time to find parking anywhere on campus (maybe close to your destination, if you’re abnormally lucky or earlier than anyone else).