The in basket: While sitting in a car on the car deck of the ferry Spokane July 3, I looked up and saw the odd repair shown in the accompanying photo. It looked like the repair was made with cardboard and duct tape. I asked what I was seeing.
The out basket: Hadley Rodero, a consultant with Washington State Ferries, replied, “The patches you saw are a primer coat that was put in place after a welding repair. The tan is the primer and the blue is painters tape.
“Due to time constraints, the finish coat of paint couldn’t be applied before the Spokane was pulled back into service. The finish coat will be applied next time the ferry goes to Eagle Harbor for other work.”
The “merge” at the end of the 4-lane near Parr Ford always creates a large back up. I have seen folks in the left lane move to the right lane so they can advance their position but them then needing to crowd back over at the end of the right lane is what is causing the back up in the first place. The only people needing to move into the lane are the ones who left Loxie-Eagans to get onto Rte. #3. Traffic under the overpass is unobstructed and if folks were already in the left lane before they got there, the back up could be greatly reduced. The road needs to be striped with diagonal yellow lines guiding traffic to move into the left lane much sooner and bigger signs are needed saying that right lane ends; merge left.
I have to laugh about this story. The fact that someone really thought that looks like cardboard and duct tape. Now while it might be the same color as cardboard, it is clearly not. I guess because this picture looks like an overhead picture, maybe the writer thought that there was a hole in the overhead and thought that a car would fall through when driving over or maybe someone would fall through a hole while walking. I mean how dumb can someone really be to think that this is cardboard. I mean some people really don’t have a brain to think with. Cardboard really would not do much good on a boat that travels on the water all day long with all the salt water moisture that is in the air.
Travis I really hope you followed this up, because you had a curiosity about this, or you really thought it was cardboard.
Enjoy the ferry ride.
Well, I originated this question, not because I thought the ferry system was using cardboard, but because it looked like they were and l was curious about what it was. I thought the answer was informative, showing that the system won’t allow cosmetic shortcomings on the ferries to keep a badly needed boat from returning to service.
This may have been the weakest Road Warrior column I’ve written in my 19 years writing it, and I resorted to it when a deadline arrived without a better idea. Things should pick up next week.
No cardboard. No cellotape. Good thing – the front could fall off!