County Postpones New Schedule Until October 1

Steve Flude, Assistant Director Skagit County Public Works, writes:

The Board signed resolution No. R20040170 on May 17, 2004 which did 2 things. First, it amended, slightly, the "new" schedule to better accommodate crew changes and the like. And, second, it delayed the implementation of the new schedule until October 1, 2004.

Delaying the implementation of the new schedule was the Ferry Committee's idea and was agreed to by Public Works. The primary driver behind this decision is the fact that there are numerous facility changes that need to be made prior to the 20 minute runs being possible.

These changes are comprehensive and have required us to submit detailed application packages to both the County and City planning folks. And, as you know, these things take time. So, we decided to delay implementation of the new schedule until after the busy summertime season and, hopefully, until after the facility upgrades are made.

Marilee Fosbre, Guemes Island Ferry Committee, comments:

My recollection of this decision is quite different. I remember the "primary driver" being that that County had failed to develop an implementation plan, train the crew or develop written policies and procedures for implementing the new schedule. Our concern was that without this foundation the new schedule could not succeed if implemented on June 1.

The County and the Ferry Committee seem to see things differently. While the County looks to facilities changes, engineering and signage as the solutions, the Ferry Committee is most concerned with having a thoughtful implementation plan with training and written procedures for the crew so that they can be successful in their jobs. In fact, we have requested that many of the facilities changes either be eliminated all together or set aside for future consideration. In addition we wanted the plan to be coherent and well developed so that it could be effectively disseminated to the ridership in advance of the implementation. As we have seen with this current fiasco of the incorrect schedule being distributed, this is a valid concern.

Carl Cady, Guemes Island Ferry Committee, adds:

I agree completely with [Marilee's] remembrances of our last Roundtable meeting on April 23rd. We could see from the lack of any written procedures and an implementation plan that as they quoted "just do it" there was not way to successfully implement the new schedules. Also as I recall it was Holly Bowman in the previous Roundtable meeting that first brought forward the idea that delaying the implementation of the schedule changes must be considered to permit installation of the new facility changes (required for 20 minute trips) and crew training.

After due consideration the Ferry Committee concurred with this position and brought it forward at the 4/23/04 meeting. As I remember Public Works (Steve Cox) and the crew were relieved that we took that position and that we were willing to go forward with the fares increase.