Washington State Ferries Long Range Plan

Updated once a decade, our Long Range Plan provides a blueprint to guide our investments and service for the next 20 years, while considering the changing needs of ferry system users and associated funding opportunities and challenges.

Project news

We submitted our 2040 Long Range Plan to the Legislature on Jan. 3, 2019. The Plan recommends short-, medium- and long-term actions for us to pursue and focuses on a set of investments and service enhancements to be implemented over 20 years.

The 2023 Long Range Plan Progress Report (PDF 799KB) provides an update on progress toward implementing the 2040 Long Range Plan.

The Plan

The Plan reflects extensive input from ferry customers, the public and stakeholders, including nearly 900 comments from more than 7,500 people who participated in 32 public meetings on land and on board ferries and in two online open houses.

2040 Long Range Plan (PDF 11.4MB)

Needs and benefits

We developed a Long Range Plan to plan for the future of the ferry system through 2040. The Plan does the following:

• Considers demographic trends and ridership forecasts.
• Looks at the condition of the ferry fleet, terminals and access to them.
• Evaluates our work force and operations.
• Identifies opportunities to use new technology and prepares for climate change.
• Reviews and updates performance measures.

Background

• The objective of the Long Range Plan is to provide information about the needs of ferry customers, establish operational and pricing strategies to meet those needs and identify vessel and terminal operations and capital requirements.
• The Plan makes recommendations in four key theme areas: reliable service, customer experience, manage growth and sustainability and resilience.
• The 2030 Long Range Plan (PDF 7.7MB) presented a vision for the future of the ferry system
  • What have we accomplished?
    • Studied and launched vehicle reservations.
    • Improved customer web experience for easier trip planning.
    • Started construction on the new Mukilteo ferry terminal and Colman Dock.
    • Implemented pricing strategies to maximize use of vehicles space.
    • Built six new ferries.