You can now learn about and provide comment on Washington State Ferries’ plan to update the Triangle Route’s two-boat schedule.

The WSF online open house is available from April 7-18, ahead of the busy summer travel season.

To participate and give feedback, visit tinyurl.com/TriangleRouteTwoBoatRewrite.

Ferry service on Vashon and across the Puget Sound was disrupted in 2020 by a wave of retirements and some COVID-related separations. That loss of staff compounded WSF’s problems dealing with its existing shortage of vessels.

Governor Bob Ferguson announced last month that he’d put some of the boat electrification projects on hold — facilitating full restoration of domestic ferry service this summer, including the return of Triangle route to three-boat service.

However, WSF sobered the announcement for Vashon by clarifying that the service relies on having three Issaquah-class boats available, circumstances which won’t always be possible. When that third Issaquah-class boat is out of service or otherwise unavailable, the route will likely need to return to two-boat service, WSF staff said.

That service will be on a rewritten schedule based on the work of a consultant hired last year by WSF, and it will include the third unscheduled “ghost” boat, according to WSF. The current two-boat schedule, which serves more than 2 million customers each year, has not been updated in a decade, according to WSF.

“Since we moved to the two-boat Triangle route schedule in 2020, we’ve heard extensively from customers and crews on the route,” Jason Rogers, WSF planning manager, said in a prepared statement. “Our customers want more reliable and consistent service that they can count on, and crews need a more realistic schedule to better support that reliability”.

Open house details

In its open house, WSF lays out these challenges:

• Under the existing two-boat schedule, both ferries struggle to meet departure times, and by midday they’re often late.

• That unreliability is difficult for commuters, who — while appreciative of the unscheduled and unpredictable “bonus boat” service — want more realistic, reliable sailings.

• Customers also prioritize reducing wait times and schedule gaps.

WSF says it plans to operate a three-boat schedule on weekdays and weekends. When that’s not possible, its proposed two-boat weekday schedule makes the following changes on weekdays, among other changes:

• Change the 8:35 a.m. Southworth departure to 8:30 a.m. by reducing dwell time (time spent at the terminal) to 13 minutes. (This increases the gap between the WSF ferry and Kitsap Fast Ferry, scheduled to arrive at Southworth at 8:36 a.m.)

• Remove the 10:55 a.m. Vashon to Southworth trip.

• Change the 5:50 a.m. Fauntleroy departure to 5:45 a.m., reducing dwell time to 10 minutes.

• Change the 7:25 a.m. Fauntleroy to Vashon trip to 7:20 a.m., increasing time before the 7:40 a.m. Fauntleroy departure.

• Increase dwell time on the 9:10 a.m. Fauntleroy departure to 15 minutes to allow for sewage pumping.

• Adjust the pattern of both vessels to add more time between mid-morning sailings.

On weekends, meanwhile, the two-boat schedule makes the following changes, among others:

• Increase time between sailings from noon to 6 p.m. where sailings are often delayed by 10 minutes or more.

• Slightly adjust the sailing pattern and sailing times.

For a full breakdown of the changes, check out the open house online. Questions and comments about the schedule rewrite can be sent to trianglescheduleupdate@wsdot.wa.gov.