Ferries - Mukilteo Multimodal Terminal Project - Complete December 2020

When Washington State Ferries set out to build a new terminal on the Mukilteo waterfront, we gathered input from several groups, one was the local tribes who fished the waters and thrived on those shores long before European settlers arrived. The site of new terminal, one third of a mile east, is historically significant to local tribes and is the place where the U.S. Government and local tribes signed the Point Elliott Treaty in 1855.

The City of Mukilteo and residents asked that the new terminal be green, Washington State required it be LEED-certified, local tribes asked for it to be “light on the earth.” These three requests melded perfectly in a passenger building designed in the form of a Coast Salish longhouse built to LEED-Gold standards. 

WSF, WSDOT, engineers, architects, and construction crews turned the site that most recently housed a U.S. Air Force fueling station, abandoned after the Cold War, into a modern ferry terminal that honors the historical significance of the place. The first phase of construction removed an old 1,360-foot fueling pier that sat on 3,900 creosote-treated timber pilings. Removing the pier took with it 7,000 toxic tons of debris from Puget Sound.

The  project includes:

• Passenger building and maintenance building
• Passenger overhead loading
• Toll plaza with four toll booths and seven vehicle holding lanes
• In-water docking and loading structures
• Transit center for connections to buses and trains
• Signalized intersection and expanded vehicle holding area to reduce congestion on SR 525.
• Waterfront promenade linking to two waterfront parks
• Transit center steps outside the terminal and 800 feet from the Sounder Commuter Rail Station.

The new terminal:

• Improves safety and accessibility for pedestrians, vehicles and bicycles
• Is ADA compliant
• Improves the efficiency and reliability of ferry operations, including vehicle and passenger loading and unloading
• Improves transit connections for riders who travel without a car and help ensure reliable multimodal connections 
• Reduces the ferry-related congestion along Mukilteo’s central waterfront
• Provides public access to the Mukilteo waterfront