Washington State Ferries (WSF) is a

government agency A government or state agency, sometimes an appointed commission, is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government that is responsible for the oversight and administration of specific functions, such as an administrati ...

that operates automobile and passenger

ferry A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water ta ...

service in the U.S. state of

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

as part of the

Washington State Department of Transportation The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT or WashDOT, both ) is a governmental agency that constructs, maintains, and regulates the use of transportation infrastructure in the U.S. state of Washington. Established in 1905, it is ...

. It runs ten routes serving 20 terminals located around

Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ) is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected m ...

and in the

San Juan Islands The San Juan Islands are an archipelago in the Pacific Northwest of the United States between the U.S. state of Washington and Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. The San Juan Islands are part of Washington state, and form the core ...

, designated as part of the state highway system. The agency maintains the largest fleet of ferries in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

at 21 vessels. In , the system had a ridership of about per weekday as of . , it was the largest ferry operator in the United States and the second-largest vehicular ferry system in the world.

History

The ferry system has its origins in the "

mosquito fleet The term Mosquito Fleet has had a variety of naval and commercial uses around the world. United States In U.S. naval and maritime history, the term has had ten main meanings: #The United States Navy's fleet of small gunboats, leading up to and ...

", a collection of small steamer lines serving the Puget Sound area during the later part of the nineteenth century and early part of the 20th century. By the beginning of the 1930s, two lines remained: the Puget Sound Navigation Company (known as the Black Ball Line) and the

Kitsap County Transportation Company The Kitsap County Transportation Company was an important steamboat and ferry company that operated on Puget Sound. The company was founded in 1898 as the Hansen Transportation Company. Hansen Transportation The Kitsap County Transportation Com ...

. A strike in 1935 caused the KCTC to close, leaving only the Black Ball Line.History of Washington State Ferry system
wsdot.com, retrieved March 15, 2008 Toward the end of the 1940s, the Black Ball Line wanted to increase its fares, to compensate for increased wage demands from the ferry workers' unions, but the state refused to allow this, and so the Black Ball Line shut down. In 1951, the state bought nearly all of Black Ball's ferry assets for $5 million (Black Ball retained five vessels of its fleet). The state intended to run ferry service only until cross-sound bridges could be built, but these were never approved, and the Washington State Department of Transportation runs the system to this day.

Routes

Former routes

*Agate Pass, replaced by the

Agate Pass Bridge The Agate Pass Bridge is a structural steel truss cantilever bridge spanning Agate Pass, connecting Bainbridge Island to the Kitsap Peninsula. It was built in 1950, and it replaced a car ferry service which dated from the 1920s. The bridge provid ...

on October 7, 1950 *Edmonds–Port Ludlow *Port Gamble–Shine, replaced by South Point route on June 10, 1950 *Seattle–Suquamish, discontinued on October 1, 1951 *South Point–Lofall, replaced by Hood Canal Bridge in 1961 *Tacoma Narrows, replaced by Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940 but reinstated from 1940 to 1950

Fleet

, there are 21 ferries on Puget Sound operated by the state.Washington State Ferries – Our Fleet
Washington State Department of Transportation, Retrieved June 16, 2020 The largest vessels in this fleet carry up to 2500 passengers and 202 vehicles. They are painted in a distinctive white and green trim paint scheme, and feature double-ended open vehicle decks and bridges at each end so that they do not need to turn around. WSF plans to electrify its fleet over 20 years. By 2024, it intends to build 16 new hybrid-electric vessels and convert six others to have hybrid propulsion. This will reduce carbon emissions by up 180,000 tons annually and save $19 million per year in diesel fuel costs. The ferry fleet consists of the following vessels:

Retired vessels

Since the beginning of state-run ferry service in 1951, WSF has retired many vessels as they have become older, too expensive to operate or maintain, or have become too small to provide adequate ferry service. WSF owned passenger-only vessels between 1985 and 2009, but after discontinuing its two passenger-only routes in the 2000s, WSF has sold its passenger-only ferries to other operators. Below is a list of ferries that WSF has retired since 1951. Unless otherwise noted, all vessels introduced in 1951 were acquired from the Puget Sound Navigation Company (PSN), also known as the Black Ball Line, when the state took over the company's routes and ferryboats in Puget Sound.

Other ferries

There are several other publicly operated, private, and passenger-only ferries in Washington state.

References

External links

*
Evergreenfleet.com – A History of Washington State Ferries Past and Present
{{Puget Sound Transit Sound Transit Ferries of Washington (state) Ferry companies based in Washington (state)