WA ferry workers bear brunt of delayed, angry passengers

State ferry workers at the Fauntleroy terminal have seen and heard it all.

Middle fingers, yelling, cursing, slurs, disparaging tirades, passengers going at each other, crying. Motorists have even aimed for terminal crew members in their vehicles.

“It’s been increasing, the frustration,” said Anthony Goch, the West Seattle terminal’s supervisor. “The cussing, the screaming. Very derogatory language. People saying, ‘This is (BS).’ “

As the Washington State Ferries system reels from a lack of boats, delayed or canceled sailings and stranded travelers, terminal workers are reporting an increase of verbal abuse from passengers.

On a particularly bad July weekend, official alerts and posts on social media went out saying, “Please do not take frustration out on our front-line employees.”

Steve Nevey, the state ferry chief, sent out a staff-wide email last week to address the “reports of serious verbal abuse directed at WSF staff from customers.” He said he was “personally very sorry for the abuse any of you received,” and that he was looking into “the large number of cancellations due to crew shortages over the last week,” which he called “disheartening.”

It hit Fauntleroy the hardest on Saturday, July 13, which Goch called “a pressure cooker of a day.”

The terminal is part of the “triangle route” with Vashon and Southworth, which was down to one boat that day. Before COVID-19, the route ran three boats every day. It has been down to two vessels since the pandemic.

In 2018, when WSF recorded a high water mark of 24.7 million riders, the triangle route saw more than 3.15 million riders, which counts both passengers and vehicles. Among the three terminals that year, the route had 39,396 sailings, with an on-time rate of 91.8%. WSF has a goal of being on schedule 95% of the time.

By 2023, ridership on the triangle route had fallen to 2.2 million, with 28,551 sailings that ran on schedule about 81% of the time.

So far this year, the picture is grim. In May, the month with the most recently available data, the run between Fauntleroy and Vashon recorded the best on-time sailing rate between the three, with 78%. The other two routes saw boats leave when they were scheduled to about 72% of the time.

The reduction in service can be blamed, in part, on a lack of boats. The state ferry system has an aging fleet of 21 ferries with $270 million in deferred maintenance.

It needs 26 boats to run at full service, so it’s on a reduced schedule for at least the next four years. The state opened up a bidding process for the boats in May, but new vessels aren’t expected until 2028, at the soonest.

At Fauntleroy that day, it wasn’t a lack of boats, but a deficit of credentialed employees to fill “relief requests” for senior employees who took the day off.

Ted Brosius, a Fauntleroy terminal attendant, said the crew cancellations couldn’t have come at a worse time since there were “three weddings and a memorial” on Vashon that day.

“I got called several names,” said Brosius, who’s worked with WSF for about a year. “Me being a very, very mean person was the nicest thing they said.”

Wait times stretched up to four hours, and waiting passengers turned on each other and terminal workers.

Jarrod Barreto, who’s been employed at the terminal for 2 1/2 years, was working the fare booth when a passenger sped through his gate.

“I spoke very loudly, not to speed through my booth,” he said. “She got mad. She came down here (to the waiting room for walk-on passengers), and gave everybody the business” by getting in their faces and yelling at them. She got back in her car, and sped off.

Barreto said he’s never seen violence, or felt physically threatened. The vast majority of passengers, while frustrated, understand it’s not the terminal workers to blame. The ones who are angry, “90% of them cool down,” Barreto said.

“People get frustrated. People are a little tense these days,” he said. “The big thing is to try and have some type of understanding.”

Barreto’s co-workers all said the same.

“A lot of people are looking for an answer,” said Shane Gilbertson, a passenger fare seller and six-year WSF employee. “They don’t understand how to load a dock. They know we’re not favoring one destination, or one person, over another.”

Doug Harper, who’s been with state ferries for 3 1/2 years, said the “anger isn’t there when they see another boat coming.”

“We understand their frustrations,” Harper said. “Terminal side, we don’t make the decisions.”

On Thursday afternoon, temperatures were in the 80s and, as usual, cars lined up for a mile on Fauntleroy Way Southwest.

Fifteen minutes after the Kittatas pulled in, it left again, freighted with 216 passengers and about 120 vehicles. A line of cars remained.

Lindsay Foster, who lives on Vashon, was near the front, out of her car and playing on the dock with her two kids, Luca, 7, and Olin, 2. She’s used to the wait.

“When you live on the island, it’s one of those given situations,” she said.

Still, Foster couldn’t help but feel frustrated. She and her family “always miss doctors’ appointments.” Nowadays, to avoid that, she’s accepted that going into Seattle is “a whole day.”

“We’re here all day. It’s just all day,” Foster said. “There is zero reliability. It’s sad that it’s come down to this.”

She doesn’t think it’s appropriate to unleash frustrations on terminal workers, but she gets it. She’s felt stranded before, and been left wondering what’s going on with no real communication from WSF, either online or in person.

Short of getting the route back to its pre-pandemic, three-boat service, Foster said communication needs to improve.

“People want to be heard” and know what’s going on, she said, adding that she felt for the terminal workers. “I wouldn’t want to be them. I wouldn’t want their job.”

Jill Harrell, who has homes in Port Orchard and Seattle, said she usually takes the ferry on the weekends. She said she’s “so appreciative of the ferries, the workers and the maritime industry,” and said abuse of the workers was “not right. Unconscionable.”

“But I’m also curious. What’s going on?” she said, adding that it would be “enormously” helpful if passengers had more information. “Even just an ETA.”

Brosius, the terminal attendant, said his crew is doing their best, noting that he’s never seen a “canceled sailing because of a lack of terminal crew.”

Still, he looked at the growing frustration among passengers with a historical eye.

“This is a tradition,” he said. “People have been pissed off at ferry people ever since there have been ferries.”