Five days a week for more than three decades, Greg Nance‘s dad commuted by ferry from Bainbridge Island to Seattle where he worked as a public defender.
“That’s how he put food on the table. That’s how he was able to send three kids to college,” Nance said. “With all of the delays and cancellations we’re now seeing, that story is not possible anymore.”
Washington’s ferry service has become notoriously unreliable in recent years as aged vessels carrying vehicles and passengers break down and sailings are nixed due to crew shortages. Nance, a Democratic state representative from Kitsap, wants to quickly reboot the region’s maritime transportation system with less expensive passenger-only ferries.
Nance is the sponsor of House Bill 1923, a measure dubbed the “Mosquito Fleet Act” in homage to the fleet of steamships that more than a century ago plied Washington state’s inland sea, carrying goods and passengers across Puget Sound.
While the Washington State Department of Transportation plans to replace its aging fleet with hybrid-electric vessels, the transition has been mired in delays and faces massive funding gaps.
Bill supporters argue that a fast-tracked, passenger-only ferry service would help workers commute, connect residents to medical care, and boost tourism in harder-to-reach areas — while injecting energy into the region’s storied shipbuilding and maritime maintenance industries.
Nance sees the bill as a first step in creating new policies establishing the state as an advanced manufacturing hub in the maritime space.
“For 15 years, policymakers across the country, we’ve been asleep at the wheel,” he said. “China builds about 100 ships for every one American ship. That’s completely unsustainable in this environment. We need to get our edge back.”
A framework for ferry service
HB 1923 targets state laws that restrict new passenger ferry services. Kitsap Transit is authorized to run high-speed, passenger-only ferries between Seattle and three cities — Bremerton, Kingston and Southworth — along with smaller vessels connecting Bremerton to nearby towns. King County offers water taxis from Seattle to West Seattle and Vashon Island.
The new legislation does two main things:
- Allow port districts as well as city, county, municipal, regional and unincorporated transit systems to create passenger ferry districts and routes throughout Puget Sound and on the Washington coast.
- With some restrictions, the new ferry system could levy a sales tax of up to 0.3%, implement commercial parking taxes, and collect passenger tolls and advertising fees.
The measure was first introduced last year, but stalled in the Senate. A revised version of HB 1923 cleared the House last week with significant bipartisan support and has a Senate committee hearing Friday. It has tight deadlines for approval with the legislative session scheduled to end March 12.
Rachel Aronson of Washington Maritime Blue, a nonprofit supporting the sustainable maritime industry, said the organization “supports the economic and quality of life benefits that this bill can bring by supporting new passenger-only ferry routes.”
But the group, which oversees the Quiet Sound program protecting the region’s endangered orcas from noise disturbance, wants stronger safeguards for whales and is pushing for low- or zero-emission vessels, saying the shift “further positions Washington as a global leader in clean maritime innovation.”
Routes on the horizon
County leaders last year proposed an electric ferry service between Seattle and Tacoma, with plans for a pilot project this summer to catch the wave of 2026 FIFA World Cup tourists. The timeline appears too tight — and the initiative would still require the permissions granted by the proposed legislation.
Other promising potential routes suggested by HB 1923 supporters include:
- San Juan Islands to Sidney, B.C.
- San Juan inter-island service to Bellingham
- Port of Everett to South Whidbey
- Olympia to Sea-Tac via Des Moines, and other runs
Peter Philips, a longtime Seattle-area advocate for the local maritime sector, is a proponent of passenger ferries and a supporter of the bill. He believes the vessels could be quickly deployed.
“You can build one of those boats in 18 months in a Puget Sound yard,” he said. “All the expertise is here.”
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