Your message will be sent to the Washington State Utilites and Tranportation Commission and to Skagit County Commissioners.

A copy will also be sent to you and to the appeal organizers, Sharon Schlittenhard, Mary Jo Andrak and Susan Briggs Churchill.

A printed copy of your message will be combined with others and sent to our Congressional representatives, other state agencies as well as several newspapers.

LineTime will not post any comments without your express permission.

Thank you.

It's Only Fare!

The Skagit County Commissioners have proposed more than doubling in one year the most often used Guemes ferry fares.

Here is an opportunity to address our concerns directly to Washington State Utilites and Transportation Commission which must approve this outrageous increase.

Versions of this letter will be posted for signing for two weeks and then mailed to the WUTC. OR you can send an email here and add your own comments if you wish.

To:

Washington State Utilites and Transportation Commission

SUBJECT

ADD YOUR OWN COMMENTS

Please carefully and thoroughly review the Guemes Island Ferry fare increase approved by the Board of Skagit County Commissioners on August 1, 2005. The amount of the most often used Frequent User Vehicle/Driver fare, currently $2.88 per round trip via a 20-trip booklet, is proposed to more than double to $6.30 per round trip. The Frequent User Passenger fare, currently $.75 per round trip via a 25-trip booklet, will also more than double to $1.80 per round trip. The current fares for the Lummi Island Ferry, our peer ferry system, are $3.68 per round trip for frequent user vehicle/driver, and $.92 for frequent user passenger.

While many islanders are expected to mitigate the impact on their finances by converting from car-on-ferry to walk-on-ferry passengers, the persons most adversely affected by these increases will be the elderly on fixed incomes, and the disabled, both of whom are often unable to navigate the pedestrian walkways. They will have no option but to drive on the ferry and can't take advantage of the passenger walk-on fare rate.

The lack of equity in assigning fares conflicts with Skagit County Comprehensive Plan, policies, 9A.-9.5, 9A-9.6,9A-8.2, 9A-9.9, and 9A-10.3, which encourage pedestrian and nonmotorized movement in the county transportation system. These conflicts should be reviewed by the Department of Community and Economic Development as potential violations of the Growth Management Act.

IF, after careful analysis of the data presented to support the increase, the proposed Guemes Island ferry fare increase is somehow deemed justifiable, we ask that the increase be incrementally implemented using a number of smaller steps over a multi-year period of time, as we understand the Washington State ferries to be doing.

Thank you for your consideration of this request.

NAME

EMAIL ADDRESS

ADDRESS

cc

Don Munks, Ted Anderson, Ken Dahlstedt, Skagit County Commissioners