Washington State Ferries
Washington State Ferries is a public ferry system in the U.S. state of Washington that carries passengers and vehicles. A division of the Washington State Department of Transportation, it operates 8 routes serving 20 terminals within Puget Sound and in the San Juan Islands. The routes are designated as part of the state highway system and also comprise a major public transit network in the Seattle metropolitan area. WSF is the largest ferry system in the United States and carried 20.1million total riders in 2025, of which 10.7million were passengers and 9.4million were driving vehicles. The agency carried an average of per weekday in.
The ferry system began operation on June 1, 1951, after the state government acquired routes, vessels, and terminals from the Puget Sound Navigation Company, a private company that had a virtual monopoly on ferries in the region. The company had sold its assets after it was barred from raising fares in the 1940s and was unable to cover rising costs. Under state control, the ferry system was modernized and expanded through the use of custom-built vessels that could carry larger numbers of passengers and vehicles. WSF was originally a division of the Washington State Toll Bridge Authority and was transferred to WSDOT control in 1977.
WSF maintains a fleet of 21 vessels that are able to carry passengers and vehicles. The largest of the fleet is the Jumbo Mark II class, which can carry 1,791 passengers and 202 vehicles. The ferries have a 60-year lifespan and undergo at least one refurbishment during their time in service; they are maintained at a Bainbridge Island facility and inspected by the U.S. Coast Guard. The agency plans to convert existing vessels, which use diesel fuel, to hybrid-electric propulsion and construct new hybrid ferries by 2040. WSF has over 1,500 full-time employees and an annual budget of $354million that is primarily funded by fares and the state's gas tax.
History
Predecessors
Early transportation in modern-day Western Washington relied primarily on the use of Puget Sound by the indigenous Coast Salish peoples and later settlers in the region. The first ferryboat in the region was the Fairy, which operated on a weekly schedule with service from Olympia to Steilacoom, Alki Point, and Seattle. The Fairy was a sidewheel steamer that carried passengers as well as freight and mail between her introduction in October 1853 and her sinking in October 1857. As new settlements developed along Puget Sound in the late 19th century, more steamships were brought to serve the region and later formed the "mosquito fleet", a collection of small ferries run by private companies to carry passengers and freight. At its peak on Puget Sound and Lake Washington, the mosquito fleet comprised an estimated 700 to 2,500 vessels, each with an average length of and capacity of 300 passengers.The ferries of the mosquito fleet were also designed to carry horse-drawn carts and later automobiles. The City of Seattle, built in 1888, was the first to carry carts across Elliott Bay; it was followed by the sternwheeler Bailey Gatzert, which was retrofitted in 1920 to add a car elevator. Smaller operators on Puget Sound were gradually consolidated or eliminated due to the cost of converting their fleet to carry automobiles, which left two companies with the majority of routes: the Puget Sound Navigation Company and the Kitsap County Transportation Company. The Black Ball Line had been founded in 1900 and were among the first to adapt to automobile use, including at their flagship Colman Dock terminal in Downtown Seattle. The company had 17 routes and 25 vessels by 1929, when Alexander M. Peabody became its president and general manager. A 33-day strike that began in November 1935 halted all ferry service from five companies, including KCTC but excluding the Black Ball Line, amid a dispute over working conditions and pay. The Black Ball Line acquired KCTC for $140,000 in liabilities during the strike and continued to buy out other operators to create a near-monopoly on Puget Sound.
Black Ball strikes and shutdowns
A second major strike lasted for 29 days in May and June 1937 required intervention from the state government, which held regulatory power as the franchiser of ferry routes. Governor Clarence D. Martin announced an agreement with Peabody and the striking union to raise fares in exchange for increased wages and a nine-hour work day. To accommodate a growing demand for modern ferries that could carry automobile traffic, the Black Ball Line acquired 14 vessels from operators in the San Francisco Bay Area between 1937 and 1942 following the completion of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. By 1942, the Black Ball Line operated 452 daily sailings on 15 routes with a fleet of 23 vessels that were able to carry a total of 22,500 vehicles and 315,000 passengers. At the request of the U.S. Navy, Peabody voluntarily lowered fares on the Seattle–Bremerton route by 10percent and increased service to assist in worker recruitment for the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton. The company ran hourly ferries from Seattle to Bremerton on a 24-hour schedule and saw an increase in traffic due to gasoline rationing. Peabody announced in December 1946 that pre-war fares would be immediately restored and that Black Ball would petition the state government for another fare increase of 30percent to cover higher wages.In February 1947, the state government granted temporary approval of the fare increase until a full investigation of the company's finances was conducted; ferry commuters criticized the decision and formed the Northwest Washington Community Council, a civic organization that lobbied the state legislature for a government takeover of the ferry system. The state legislature authorized the creation of local ferry districts as a compromise that fell short of a full takeover. A union of Black Ball engineers went on a seven-day strike in March 1947 that completely shut down the ferry system; buses, chartered vessels, small airlines, and the U.S. Navy's amphibious landing ships were enlisted to provide temporary service. A labor agreement was signed after arbitration from governor Monrad Wallgren and service was restored, but commuter confidence in Black Ball was damaged. The state government's investigation of Black Ball's finances found that the 30percent fare increase requested by the company was "unwarranted" and only granted a 10percent increase. A partial refund of passenger fares charged during the temporary approval period was also ordered and later upheld by a superior court after Peabody's appeals were rejected. In response to the court decision, Peabody threatened to cease operations of the Black Ball Line but offered to lease vessels and facilities to the state government for fare compensation, which was rejected.
On February 29, 1948, Peabody ordered a full shutdown of the Black Ball fleet after talks with the state government broke down; the company's operating franchise and certificate of public convenience and necessity were subsequently canceled by the state government. The U.S. Navy resumed its use of landing ships to transport shipyard workers to Bremerton, while pleasure boats and other private ferries were chartered to serve some routes. The shutdown ended nine days later with an agreement from King County to charter Black Ball to operate the ferry system. Vashon Island had activated their own ferry district during the shutdown and continued to operate service in defiance of Peabody, whose effigy was hung at the ferry terminal; an attempt by Peabody to land a ferry at the dock to regain his franchise on the Vashon Island route was repelled by vigilantes who wielded blunt weapons, including cue sticks and axe handles. The instability of ferry service and a potential state takeover became a key issue in the 1948 gubernatorial election between Wallgren, who sought to purchase the system, and former governor Arthur B. Langlie, who supported condemnation. An offer from the state of $6million to purchase Black Ball for its ferries and domestic facilities was accepted by the company's shareholders but expired due to the ongoing election. A report from the state government released in July 1948 recommended the construction of five toll bridges and state operation of the remaining ferry routes that would not be replaced.
State takeover
Langlie won the gubernatorial election and submitted two bills to the state legislature during the 1949 session: the first would enable the Washington State Toll Bridge Authority to operate or contract a ferry system; and the second would recognize ferry workers' unions and create a permanent arbitration commission for future collective bargaining negotiation. Both bills were signed into law on March 12, 1949. Peabody was reluctant to lose control of the ferry system and prevented the state government from acquiring land for an alternate public system as well as the proposed Agate Pass Bridge; the state responded with denial of highway access for the facilities and bridge landings. Negotiations between the parties had reached a stalemate that was broken by a state supreme court decision in July 1950 that ruled that the state government's Public Service Commission had regulatory jurisdiction to set fare rates. Peabody also faced pressure from his bankers to sell the system. On December 30, 1950, Langlie announced that the state government had agreed to acquire most of Black Ball's ferry routes, 16 vessels, and 20 terminals and would take over operations in six months' time. The $4.944million purchase by the TBA was financed through a bond issue that also covered the cost of rehabilitating vessels and facilities. Black Ball retained five ferries and the right to operate its remaining route between Seattle, Port Angeles, and Victoria, British Columbia.The Black Ball flag was lowered at sundown on May 31, 1951, and the final run for the company's domestic routes was completed by in Bremerton at 2:30a.m. the following morning. Washington State Ferries took over operations on June 1, with the first run at 5:20a.m. on between Lofall and South Point across the Hood Canal. The new system, headquartered in Peabody's former offices at Colman Dock, retained most of Black Ball's existing schedules and 600 of the company's employees. In the following months, the 16 vessels purchased from Black Ball had their stacks repainted from red and black to green to mark the state's ownership; the ferries also switched to a single, long blast of their foghorns instead of the previous three-blast sequence, which was restored in 1958. The fare schedule was initially left unchanged and Washington State Ferries continued to honor commuter tickets purchased from Black Ball; the fare increases rejected by the state government were rolled back for future use and the partial refunds that had been issued in 1947 were retired. The ten initial routes were reduced to eight by the end of the year despite demands from Kitsap County officials to continue service to Suquamish and Indianola.
In the first year of state operation, the ferries carried 4.75million passengers, an increase of 6.8percent from the final year of Black Ball ownership, and 1.93million vehicles. Fares on the ferry routes were reduced in July 1952 as a result of increased patronage and operational changes made under the TBA. The first fare increase—up to 10 cents for passengers and 20 cents for vehicles—went into effect in January 1955 to cover higher wages. Several fare increases followed, including a 32percent hike, to keep pace with pension contributions for ferry workers as well as maintenance needs. The first gas tax subsidy for the ferry system was appropriated by the state legislature in 1959 to pay for interest on the bonds issued in the 1950s. The state government had envisioned a series of bridges across Puget Sound built by the TBA to connect the Kitsap Peninsula that would largely replace the need for ferries by the 1960s. The first proposal, which would traverse Vashon Island and incorporate a floating bridge to Fauntleroy in West Seattle, was left unfunded by the state legislature in the 1959 session. Most of the other bridges were ultimately never built due to local opposition and left the ferry system as the primary means of crossing Puget Sound for vehicles. The Hood Canal Bridge, opened in August 1961, replaced the Lofall–South Point ferry and is the last major crossing built across Puget Sound. Revenue from the bridge's tolls was used to cover annual debt service payments for the earlier bonds issued by the TBA for the ferry system.