Dear Editor,

I read with great interest about the proposal to extend the Water Taxi to yearlong service. Quite frankly, I have grown tired of the coverage of the Water Taxi issue. I am rather shocked that neither elected officials nor the media have provided appropriate scrutiny to the Water Taxi as a transportation alternative. It is time to assess whether this taxi is something more than a gimmick and actually addresses any real transportation needs.

The March 18 Herald article on the Water Taxi stated that the Water Taxi allegedly handled 182,000 passengers in 2008. That number is essentially meaningless. The real question is how many trips per day and at what cost the passengers were handled.

For example, the SR 99 corridor (the viaduct) handles 110,000 vehicle trips per day presently. The West Seattle Bridge handles about 100,000 trips per day. Metro Transit and the Washington State Ferry System aspire to a subsidy of approximately 75 percent of the cost of operation of the public transportation. In other words, fare box revenues may represent only about 25 percent of the cost of operation of these two modes of public transportation. The article also references extensive, and expensive, changes necessary to the Seacrest Dock to accommodate year-round Water Taxi service.

The public, the media, and elected officials addressing the Water Taxi question should be considering the following questions:
How many trips per day does the Water Taxi actually handle? (This is necessary to draw a real comparison to utilization of the Viaduct or West Seattle Bridge.)

What percentage of the overall operational costs of the Water Taxi are covered by fare box revenues? (Again, to draw a legitimate comparison to Metro or WSF subsidies.)

How much will the capital costs for Seacrest Dock be, and who will pay for them?

Do we really expect that people will chose to ride a boat on rough seas during the bad weather of the fall and winter in Seattle?

If the Water Taxi did not exist, what would its users do for transportation purposes? (In other words, do Water Taxi users get out of single occupant vehicles or are they already using public transportation?)

What is the general destination of the users of the Water Taxi? (In other words, is this a service that runs essentially from West Seattle to downtown, or do Water Taxi users in any substantial number actually go from downtown to other destinations?)

It is time to put aside rosy thoughts about transportation alternatives like the Water Taxi or inflated expectations that it will somehow be a legitimate alternative to the West Seattle Bridge or the Viaduct, and evaluate its merits or demerits on actual numbers both as to ridership and cost.

Philip A. Talmadge
Seattle