News from King County Department of Transportation
Release date:  June 23, 2006

Thursday’s one-day Water Taxi ridership triples

During major traffic disruption, West Seattle commuters sought waterborne alternative

More than 1,600 passengers rode Metro Transit’s Elliott Bay Water Taxi yesterday, triple the normal ridership for an average weekday in June.

The West Seattle Bridge was closed for eight hours yesterday due to a fatality traffic accident and subsequent police investigation. Because the bridge was closed well through the morning commute, traffic back-ups were extreme and many commuters sought to leave their cars at home.

Metro responded by providing extra runs on the Elliott Bay Water Taxi and accommodating more passengers than usual on buses serving West Seattle.

Many of the trips on the 149-passenger Elliott Bay Water Taxi were full, and Argosy Cruises worked with Metro to add extra runs and provide a larger boat on two of the trips to handle the additional passengers.

Most trips on the water taxi during commute times were close to capacity, but it wasn’t until complete ridership numbers were compiled today that Metro managers determined the round-trip, one-day ridership had totaled 1,613 passengers. In comparison, the average one-day ridership for June 2005 was 530 passengers.