After the Walla Walla broke down Monday, the state moved one of Bremerton’s car ferries to Kingston and brought in two passenger ferries to try to try to fill in for the car ferry in Bremerton. The state has taken this approach before but at other times has grabbed one of Southworth’s three ferries for Bremerton. Under the circumstances, the moves make sense, but there’s no avoiding that Bremerton or Southworth will feel like they’re getting a raw deal. Do you have any better ideas. Remember, there are no backup boats available.

Jeff Chew of the Peninsula Daily News wrote today that the beleaguered Port Townsend-Keystone route will be without a car ferry sometime before the end of the year. The Steilacoom II, which the state is leasing from Pierce County, needs an annual Coast Guard inspection that could take two to three weeks. It’s the only ferry, apparently in the state, that can navigate Keystone harbor. Passenger ferries will do what they can to fill in.

Locals are worried that it could happen during the holidays. They didn’t have a car ferry during last Christmas and New Year’s because the state abruptly retired the steel-electric ferries that served the route in November because of unsafe corroded and pitted hulls.

Read the complete story here.

My pal Andy Binion sent me this link ages ago and I never got around to sending it out. It’s KIRO’s Dave Ross.

http://www.daveross.com/songs/ferry.mp3

I don’t know how they came up with an increase from 2007 to 2008 since this year is a long way from over, but … 7 percent sounds pretty good. Washington’s ferries were down 1.2 percent from 2006 to 2007, to 23.7 million, and I think they dropped just about every year after they started the big fare increases in 2000. I think they peaked at about 28 million in 1999.

I’m not quite sure what Alaska means by consistent scheduling, either. I’ve looked around for a more complete story, but haven’t found one yet.

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP)

State transportation officials say the ferry system is getting more use.
Passenger and vehicle traffic increased 7 percent between 2007 and 2008.
Transportation spokesman Roger Wetherell says consistency in scheduling was the key factor.
The Alaska system is much different than Washington. It has 11 vessels serving 32 ports between Bellingham, Wash., through Prince Rupert, British Columbia, and west to the Aleutians.

The state Transportation Commission will meet in Bremerton on Sept. 16. The commission is an appointed board that primarily is responsible for setting ferry and bridge fares. They meet mostly in Olympia but also tour the state to get local perspectives. A public comment period starts at 3:45 p.m.

The Bremerton meeting will be 8:30 to 4:30 at Kitsap Conference Center. Presentations on local transportation issues will be made by Bremerton Mayor Cary Bozeman, KRCC director Mary McClure, Kitsap County Commissioner Steve Bauer, Suquamish Tribe Chairman Leonard Forsman, Port Gamble-S’Klallam Tribe Chairman Ron Charles, Patrick Babineau, coordinator for the Peninsula Regional Transportation Policy Organization, John Beitzel of the PRTPO transportation policy board, Jefferson County Commissioner David Sullivan and Mason County Commissioner Lynda Ring-Erickson.

The DOT’s Olympic Region administrator, Kevin Dayton, will talk at 11:15 a.m. After lunch there’ll be a bunch of ferry stuff, including updates on a customer survey, a long-term funding study and WSF’s long-term plan.

The period for brokers and bidders to make proposals for the state’s four retired Steel-Electric ferries ended Friday. Washington State Ferries received “multiple” proposals for one or more of the 80-year-old boats, said spokeswoman Hadley Greene. We might know this week who’ll get them and maybe what they plan to do with them.

The boats were on eBay for 10 days in July, but none got the minimum bid of $350,000.

I was walking to my car after work recently when a maroon pickup roared past.

Hard on the brakes, a quick look at the intersection, and the engine growled again as the truck accelerated - to another stop sign.

All I could think of is, “Man, that guy’s wasting a lot of money for nothing.” I never would have thought that before.

I’m not here to wag my finger with a holier-than-thou rant about drivers like that. I was “that guy” about two months ago.

I didn’t know if hypermiling was going to work, but I decided to bring you guys along for the slow, slow ride. As far as the blog is concerned, I’m done.

I’ve become a bit obsessed with, and transformed by, the experience. I’ve discovered the near limits of my car’s performance on the opposite end of the spectrum. I’m much more aware of the cost of driving. I even learned a lot about myself.

Usually we write stories and never hear a word from the public. With these blog entires (especially when they ran in the paper.) I heard from more people than I ever have - especially the one about coasting in neutral. (BTW, I don’t do it much anymore. Sixth gear works fine. And a informative morsel - the nice folks at Kitsap County District Court did some sleuthing. Guess how many tickets they found for coasting in neutral? One.)

In two months, I burned five tanks of dino juice and averaged 33.7 miles per gallon. (And that includes a couple tanks where my right foot got a little heavy.) Up from 28 before. I’m living proof that a lead-footed rat race commuter can save money without queuing up for a Prius.

Did I mention I saved about $50?

Some people hypermile as a political statement against American dependence on foreign oil. Some people do it to save the environment. Well and good.

I just want to keep more money in the bank. Feel free to choose your own reasons. That’s the crux of hypermiling - it’s your choice. You don’t have to boost your mpgs, but the money’s there waiting to be saved.
Do any combination of these things, and you’ll save at least a little.

* Keep your tires properly inflated.
* Change your oil.
* Take all the junk out of your trunk.
* Accelerate gently, and try to gently slow to a stop.
* You know the speed limit? Obey it.
* Imagine there’s an egg between your foot and the gas pedal.
* Unless an emergency maneuver requires it, don’t drive over 60 on the highway. Use cruise control to prevent your lead foot from taking over.
Pick out more of the legal hypermiling tips, and you’ll save even more.

More importantly, the first step is to change the way you think about driving. You’ve got to convince yourself that rocketing around usually doesn’t get you there much faster - ESPECIALLY in urban driving. (That’s where my greatest gains were made.) On the highway, stay right and take a deep breath. It’s OK to let people pass you. If you’re late for work, is 2 minutes really a big deal? It can be, but at least consider it. If it’s Saturday and you’re just getting groceries, what’s the hurry?

Now that I’m done blogging about this adventure, I will keep hypermiling. I’m hooked. (Maybe not on long road trips.) We can’t control how much we pay per gallon, but we can control how many gallons we use and how many miles we drive. I’m cutting back on how much I drive, too.

And I’ve come to accept that slow and steady is OK.

Don’t get complacent because gas prices are a little lower. We all know that over time it’s a graph that favors climbing the Y axis. Only four years ago gas topped $2.

More often, we either grumble about what we payed at the last fill up, or wax nostalgic about when gas was only (insert small number here.). Consider the future, and whether you’ll change the way you drive.
I’ve been number happy the last couple months with the blog, so I’ll toss one last equation your way. (Help calculating is HERE and HERE.)

Imagine it’s 2012 and you have the same respectably-economical 24 mpg car, and you drive the same average of 15,000 miles a year. And get this, gas is $6 a gallon.

Here’s an odd way to imagine how you’ll pay for your petrol.

Drive over to the bank and ask the (now stunned) teller for a wheelbarrow packed with rolls of quarters. Sorry, you’re going to get terrible gas mileage on the drive home.

Anyway, grab a couple rolls every time you get behind the wheel. For the next 365 days, every time your odometer ticks off another mile, toss a quarter out the window.

I’ll let you do the math this time.

It took a pair of running shoes and a conversation with a coworker for me to realize something. Thinking in miles per gallon is (almost) pointless.

It’s good to keep track of how many mpgs you cobble together each tank, with the goal of scrounging up more. But when you’re really trying to map out your finances, think in terms of cost per mile, which is an easy bit of math to the cost per trip.

Reporter Steve Gardner brought that concept up over a conversation a while back, and it made sense when I thought about a recent trip I made to buy a pair of running shoes. I live in West Bremerton, and couldn’t think of anywhere in town to procure said sneakers. (That’s a WHOLE other issue by itself.)

What if I drive the approximately 15 miles to the consumer megaplex in Silverdale? What’s that trip cost me? If gas is $4, I get 34 mpg, and drive 30 miles roundtrip, I’ve spent $3.60 on fermented dinosaur juice.

What if your truck gets 15 mpg? The same trip costs you $8.10. Is it worth it?

To make it easy to calculate your cost per mile, GO HERE.

(If you really want do extract the numbers, including insurance, etc., go HERE.)

A logical way to think about your next shopping trip might go like this: I need to drive 30 miles roundtrip for my Very Important Household Object. If my SUV’s gonna charge me $8.10 for the pleasure of driving, is that a trip I’m willing to make? Will it cost less to buy it online, including shipping? Can I take care of several errands at the same time, avoiding future trips and saving some dough?

(If you really want to get fancy with the math and Google maps, figure out the costs of your ferry destination - Seattle or Edmonds - versus driving around.)

Every time we step or drive onto a ferry (if it’s a discretionary trip) most of us instinctively do the “Is the cost worth it?” dance. When we drive, we don’t.

If we take the cost-per-mile equation further, and calculate our yearly gasoline bill…well, the numbers can speak for themselves.

The left column includes groups of two. A high and low number. The low is a theoretical current mpg. The high is an mpg increase of 20 percent, a figure that isn’t ridiculous to attain if you hypermile, or EcoDrive, or whatever you want to call it.

The next column shows the cost per mile for the respective mpg ratings.

Column three is your annual fuel bill, at $4, if you drive 15,000 miles (A figure that seems pretty commonly used as an average yearly clip.)

The fourth shows your annual cost if you drive 12,000 miles.

15    .27    $4050        $3240
18    .22    $3300        $2640

20    .20    $3000        $2400
24    .17    $2550        $2040

25    .16    $2400        $1920
30    .13    $1950        $1560

30    .13    $1950        $1560
36    .11    $1650        $1320

Just for giggles, let’s peer into our crystal ball for a moment. In 2004, gas was around $2. If it’s $6 by 2012, what’s your annual gasoline bill going to be?

If you go by today’s average fuel economy in America (See it HERE. PDF) of 22.5 mpg, the average American will pay $4,050 per year if they drive 15,000 miles. If they still have a 15 mpg truck or sports car, it’s $6,000 (40 cents per mile).

That’ll really make you think, “Is this trip worth it?”

You can call it hypermiling, or if you’re the Governator, EcoDriving. 

It’s the same thing, really. Well, EcoDriving is like hypermiling-light. But the premise is very similar to why I started this whole blog adventure. My motivations are more closely tied to my pocketbook than CO2 emissions, but that’s a positive bonus. 

You don’t have to buy a new car or hybrid to reduce your fuel bill. You do have to overhaul the WAY you drive. It’s not that hard.

You can get some sound tips on EcoDriving HERE. 

By the way, I filled up this morning and got less-than-stellar fuel economy - 32.2 mpg. But I have a confession. A couple days there I got acquainted with the gas pedal again. I just can’t help myself. Still, for the tank I managed 4 mpg better than my previous average.

The new Tacoma Narrows Bridge is one of 10 projects in the running for the People’s Choice Award, a nationwide competition sponsored by the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials, the American Automobile Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The winner is decided upon by people across the nation via an online voting process.
Last month, The Western Association of State Highway Transportation Officials awarded the bridge one of its highest honors, the America’s Transportation Award, making it a finalist for the Grand National Prize and the People’s Choice Award.
“Now is the chance for the entire region to show the rest of the country that our project — on time and on budget — was the best of the best transportation projects in 2007,” said state Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond. “
The winner of the People’s Choice Award receives a substantial cash award to donate to a local or regional community service project of its choice. The Grand National Prize and the People’s Choice Award will be announced on Oct. 16 in Hartford, CT.
Cast your vote at http://www.americastransportationaward.org/Voting.aspx.