Senator Haugen fails ferry passengers

As the Whidbey News Times cartoon illustrates, Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen has been head of transportation in the state Senate while the steel electric problems grew into a crisis.

Here's an April Seattle Times editorial:
Ferries we must have, boats we can't afford
The crisis facing Washington State Ferries is potentially even more serious than previously thought.
Case in point: On Thursday, ferry officials opened the only bid they received to build a new50-car ferry and found it exceeded the state's highest cost estimate of $17 million by 52 percent. Officials for the lone bidder, Todd Pacific Shipyards, say they are willing to talk, but they maintain the state's estimate was too low.That's quite a blow for state officials who were trying to act swiftly to build this new boat and two others to replace those suddenly taken out of service for structural problems last fall. They should listen closely to the concerns from Todd as well as Everett Shipyards, which abandoned its efforts to submit a bid when the project was deemed too risky.

They also should reconsider a state policy that requires the boats to be built in Washington state shipyards. The three South Lake Union trolley cars were imported from the Czech Republic. The local transit-agency buses mostly come from the Midwest.

Creating jobs here in Washington is a worthy goal. But state money is tight and the need for new boats urgent. This bid might be beached, but the ferry system must remain afloat.

The Everett Herald reviewed the situation in a December 16, 2007 story:
Why the state didn't replace the Steel Electrics long ago is a complicated and often contentious tale. It brings together some of the most vexing troubles facing the state transportation system, including problems with lack of funding, and an addiction to process.

Ferry officials bend history when they suggest lawsuits and community opposition to terminal expansion plans on Whidbey Island and in Port Townsend are key reasons the state failed to replace its oldest boats before they became dangerous.

State lawmakers approved the Steel Electrics' retirement in 2001, and provided money for replacements two years later. But ferry officials opted to build boats too large to work as replacements. They wanted vessels that could serve routes anywhere in the ferry system. To make that work, however, they needed to replace narrow, shallow Keystone Harbor, a place where only the Steel Electrics could operate safely.

The state spent six years and $5.5 million studying a new Keystone terminal before abandoning the idea this spring. They blamed community opposition. The new terminal was estimated to cost $1 billion over 30 years. It would have served about 3 percent of ferry system passengers.

The ferry system's handling of contracts for new vessels was halted for four months in 2005 while Tacoma's J.M. Martinac Shipbuilding Corp. went to court and convinced a judge the ferry officials had illegally excluded the shipyard from bidding on the project. No other lawsuits came until summer 2006. That's when Martinac went to state court, and lost, challenging the ferry system's authority to build boats too large to fit Keystone Harbor. Martinac also filed a federal lawsuit, alleging the state's handling of the ferry contract constituted civil racketeering. That case is still pending, but inactive.

Former transportation chief MacDonald said the problems facing the ferry system are easy to understand and hard to solve. Costs of building, preserving, repairing and operating are immense and rising fares don't cover the tab, he said.

MacDonald said he understands the desire to blame is "a natural reaction born of frustration that there are no simple answers and no painless answers."

However, lawmakers aren't being honest if they claim to have been surprised by problems, he said.

"I think, at times, the Legislature has tried to help. But for them to wake up today and say they didn't understand there is a problem with the Steel Electrics is really a stretch," MacDonald said.

Haugen, whose district includes Keystone, said pointing fingers at the Legislature would be wrong.

"You've got to understand we're citizen legislators. We're not engineers," Haugen said.

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