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LETTER TO EDITOR |
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EDITORIAL: Public has a right to know; Draft ferry schedule posted | |
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SJ Ferry Advisory Committee Chair explains proposed scheduleTo the Editor: posted 02/10/2007 As chair of the San Juan County Ferry Advisory Committee, I would appreciate the opportunity to respond to your editorial on the process by which ferry schedules are constructed, as well as the public hearings on proposed fare increases to be held Monday on Lopez, San Juan and Orcas islands. Like the other 12 ferry advisory committees, our responsibility is to advise WSF principally on fare and scheduling issues. We talk with ferry users regularly, as well as with terminal agents (who hear from users daily), crew members, WSF managers and we certainly hear often from individuals when things don’t work the way they should. Our goal in these conversations, as well as our gathering and analysis of traffic data, is simple: To insure the best possible service to all islands, at times that service is most useful, within the constraints of a limited number of ferries, a set number of crew hours, the demands of domestic, inter-island and international service and variations in travel patters among the various islands. Before each schedule period, we review relevant traffic data westbound, gather and analyse eastbound traffic data and look for inefficiencies or inequities in use of the vessels, crew hours or service to each island. Sometimes we draft alternative schedules for WSF to review, other times we have extended conversations with WSF to see if they can find better schedule solutions. Given the complexities of the San Juan routes, our experience has been that for every schedule or allocation problem we try to address, a new one arises. While Ed’s latest summer-schedule draft greatly improves morning and afternoon service, it leads to a final westbound sailing for Lopez that is earlier than it has been, and perhaps too early to be acceptable. But it also may lead to a Draft 9 or even 10 that improves morning and afternoon service without creating an insurmountable issue later in the evening. The service improvements WSF has made in the past three years -- including the great improvements last summer resulting from having a super ferry on the domestic route and a smaller one on the international run -- have resulted, at least in part, from the questions and suggestions that the San Juan FAC have raised, as well as data we have gathered and added to the decisionmaking process. The committee’s members -- Patricia McKay and Rob deGavre of San Juan; Ed Sutton and Charlie Glasser of Orcas, and Jim Smith and John Whetten of Lopez -- take representing island ferry users seriously. We’re all in the telephone book and we regularly hear from folks. That’s how it’s been and how it will be in the future. As to your question about dropping the formal FAC piece from the Orcas tariff hearing, it has been my observation from past tariff hearings that WSF folks get tarred simply for being the ones carrying forward the proposed fare changes. When FAC business has been added on, the confusion about roles has been worse. People are free to raise any ferry issue at any of Monday's hearings after everyone has had a chance to comment on the proposed fare increase and other changes, but we'd like to keep it clear to all that WSF folks are not responsible for the fare proposals; they are just the messengers. Alex MacLeod |
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