Latest WA Ferry Procurement Based on 2013-2015 Research

It was a great sight to see today when I saw that Washington State's Governor selected an out-of-state company for the contract to build ferries due to the low bid. I had worked directly on that issue more than a decade ago when I first got into policy. I remember writing legislative memos and discussing WA ferry construction and bidding multiple times - testifying about my research findings.

Then in 2015 the Majority Coalition Caucus negotiated a transportation package that required reforms in: the state taxing itself on transportation projects, re-instating congestion relief as a funding priority, and inserting limited open-bidding on ferry construction.

Then, a couple years ago, The Seattle Times resurrected my findings and asked me what I thought about the Governor's move to open up bidding for new ferries:

Bob Pishue, who works on transportation policy for the conservative-leaning Washington Policy Center, wrote a memo in 2015 calling on lawmakers to roll back the requirement.

“When you put all your eggs in one basket, or pretty close to one basket, one point of failure poses a huge problem,” said Pishue.

While the savings to WA taxpayers and the sigh of relief of families on the islands is definitely welcome, they could save even more money had they opted for diesel/LNG hybrids, to which LNG is really clean! That being said, it was really special to see today's result at this point in my career.

Interestingly, SR 509 expansion opened just 3 days ago, which was also included in the transportation package.