The Sidney-Anacortes ferry service won’t resume for at least seven years.
Washington State Ferries, which has been dealing with a shortage of both vessels and crew, made the announcement Tuesday.
The news comes as a blow to travellers on both sides of the international boundary. They had hoped the century-old route, dormant since the arrival of the pandemic, would be revived this summer. Instead, they learned the state system’s boat-building plans won’t allow for resumption until 2030 at the earliest.
“This is difficult news to receive,” said Sidney Mayor Cliff McNeil-Smith. “There are certainly economic impacts for our local business community, which, thankfully, has shown remarkable resilience in adapting to the changing realities since 2020.”
It’s not just a blow for the tourism sector, he said. The ferry has allowed Saanich Peninsula residents to stay connected to family and friends. Indigenous people have relied on the vessel to maintain cross-border relationships that predate the service itself.
Among the questions now is the fate of Sidney’s municipally owned ferry terminal.
Washington State Ferries is partway through a 20-year lease that runs through 2031, with an option to renew for a further 15 years. The town received $178,000 from the lease in 2022. The ferry service also paid $145,000 in property taxes on the five-acre site, $65,000 of which went to the municipality.
McNeil-Smith said it will take some time for Sidney to explore its options.
The service hasn’t operated since the end of 2019, when it went into what was supposed to be its usual three-month hiatus, a break that dragged on after COVID-19 brought an end to non-essential cross-border travel in March 2020.
Even before the pandemic, though, the Washington system was struggling to keep the Sidney-Anacortes run going.
For years, there were two ferries capable of sailing the route, but when the MV Elwha broke down in the summer of 2019, that left only the 124-car, 1,100-passenger MV Chelan. When it, too, broke down that November, the once-a-day — twice in summer — run had to be abandoned for four weeks.
The Chelan is operating again, but is being used exclusively on the U.S. side of the water as Washington State Ferries tries to keep its aging fleet in use.
It described the dilemma in a report Tuesday: “In coming years, vessel availability will become a major constraint, especially in restoring international service to Sidney, B.C. With no WSF vessels built between 2000 and 2010… the fleet is aging, with 11 of the 21 vessels over 40 years old, including five over 50 years old.”
Crew and vessel shortages continue to plague the system as it gears up post-pandemic. “We want to resume our domestic service as fast as we can, and we’re struggling to do that,” said Washington State Ferries spokesman Ian Sterling.
Sterling said shelving the Sidney-Anacortes run was a difficult decision. “We understand that it’s not what people on the route wanted to hear,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll get back to Canada some day.”
The route goes back to 1922, when it began on a converted kelp carrier at the foot of Beacon Avenue.
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