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HomeMy WebLinkAboutKeystone PT letter 05-31-070Washington State Department of Transportation Douglas B. MacDonald Secretary of Transportation May 31, 2007 The Honorable Mark Welch Mayor, City of Port Townsend 250 Madison Street Po —it Townsend, WA 980368 The Honorable Nancy Conard Mayor, Town of Coupeville PO Box 725 4 NE 7th Street, Coupeville, WA 98239 Dear Mayors Welch and Conard, Washington State Ferries 2901 3rd Avenue, Suite 500 Seattle, WA 98121-3014 206-515-3400 TTY:1-800-833-6388 www.wsdot.wa.gov/ferries W. Michael Anderson Assistant Secretary of Marine Operations Executive Director I am pleased to report that Washington State Ferries (WSF) is ready to resume work on the Keystone and Port Townsend Ferry Terminal projects. As you may recall, we suspended work on the Port Townsend terminal improvement project in October of 2006 due to community concerns about elements of the proposed terminal improvements. Since we did not want decisions on the Keystone project to get ahead of the Port Townsend end, we suspended work on the Keystone Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) as well. Since then, we have been working in partnership with elected officials, staff, Ferry Advisory Committee members and leaders from both communities to discuss community concerns, gain a mutual understanding of values and constraints, and gather information in order to determine our path forward. The major issues we have heard include: 1. The environmental review for both projects should be combined, not conducted independently: 2. Vessel size and frequency of service should fit the scale and character of the local communities and provide reliable service. 3. Impacts on local streets from ferry traffic need to be thoroughly analyzed and minimized. 4. The scale and size of the terminals should fit the scale and character of the local communities. 5. There is community interest in testing a reservations program or other operating strategies to analyze the impacts of those strategies on ferry queuing and facility sizing. While we've been engaged in our productive discussions with the partnership group, the Washington State Legislature was also discussing ferry issues. Recently, legislation was passed and signed by the Governor that will fundamentally change the way we plan, operate, fund and deliver the programs that support WSF. Much of this change is in line with the concerns our ferry communities have expressed to us in the last few years. ESHB 2358 (enacting provisions of a Ferry Finance Study) and the 2007-2009 Transportation Budget collectively direct WSF, the Washington State Transportation Commission and/or the Joint Transportation Committee to develop terminal sizing standards, revise ridership projections, study reservations and other operational strategies, and conduct a market survey. The Legislature significantly reduced WSF funding from previously approved levels, demonstrating the Legislature's intent to significantly slow most work on the major preservation and improvement projects to align schedules with the work to respond to the ferry financing bill. Port Townsend and Keystone jointly received $1 million for continued route planning over the next biennium. While the specifics for our work over the next two years are still being shaped, I would like to share the revised assumptions we will be using as we develop the Port Townsend/Keystone work plan. In response to the community's concerns,we have made the following adjustments: 1. A combined route planning process and Environmental Impact Statement for Port Townsend and Keystone will be developed. 2. WSF will remove the 124-144 car vessels from consideration and focus on replacing the 80 year -old Steel Electrics with vessels that carry 100 cars or less and will fit in the existing Keystone Harbor. A vessel study will be conducted to determine options for new vessels that fit this criteria and the final vessel decision will be made by the Legislature. 3. WSF plans to coordinate with ongoing planning efforts (i.e. Upper Sims Way) and work to align traffic models and assumptions as various efforts move forward in order to fully address traffic concerns. 4. The combined EIS will be carefully sequenced with WSF's implementation of many of the provisions of ESHB 2358, which will develop policy about size and scale of terminals, visual impacts of larger docks, and the potential for a reservations system or other operational strategies to manage growth and capacity issues. As we move forward with our project -specific work and all the above -referenced system planning work I am committed to continuing to work with community leaders and your communities at -large. I value the collaborative nature of the partnership group and the discussions we've had to date. We will continue to meet with the partnership group to discuss issues and help us consider community values at every step of our planning VYashingto. State Ferries processes. It is my hope and expectation that all our future work will be conducted in partnership with your communities as well as all the other ferry communities around the Sound. I have only briefly touched on many important and complicated issues in this letter. I or key members of my staff would be happy to attend a future city or town council meeting to have a deeper discussion of these topics. Please let me know of your interest in this regard. Sincerely, W. Michael Anderson Executive Director Washington State Ferries cc: Michelle Sandoval, Deputy Mayor, City of Port Townsend Frank Benskin, Port Townsend City Councilmember Geoff Masci, Port Townsend City Councilmember Catharine Robinson, Port Townsend City Councilmember George Randels, Port Townsend City Councilmember Laurie Medlicott, Port Townsend City Councilmember Marshall Bronson, Coupeville Town Council Bob Clay, Coupeville Town Council Molly Hughes, Coupeville Town Council Dianne Binder, Coupeville Town Council Jim Phay, Coupeville Town Council Senator Mary Margaret Haugen Representative Lynn Kessler Doug MacDonald, Secretary of Transportation Tim Caldwell, Port Townsend FAC Chair Julia Hodson, Island County FAC Chair David Timmons, Port Townsend City Manager Washington State Ferries