Talk:Washington State Ferries

article
Is the poem really that necessary to the article? Alr 01:08, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Probably not--I wouldn't complain if you removed it. --Lukobe 21:01, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

And what about ferries in other parts of washington besides puget sound? I know of at least two in eastern washington that cross the columbia.
 * You could add a few lines to the article, but this article is really about Washington State Ferries not Washington state ferries, if you get my drift --Lukobe 21:01, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I did start writing some stuff in about private ferries, because what I've added isn't even enough to be a good stub and doesn't fit in elsewhere. I'd encourage the anon to add as much stuff as he wants, if a section on private/non-wsdot ferries gets large enough it'd be a great spin-off article. SchmuckyTheCat 21:51, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm thinking of removing http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ed/WA_ferry.jpg. It is a breathtaking photo, but the subject is too far away. Any thoughts?

I gone and dun it. Kandykornhead

The subject is far away in it, but it is still relevant. It's a view from the ferry dock in downtown Seattle, which is a view that everyone who rides a ferry from there will see (though likely not with such nice weather.) On the article for the Sears Tower there is a picture of a view from the observation deck. The subject is not even present in the photo, but that view is part of experiencing the Sears Tower, just as this view is part of experiencing WSF.

What about a listing of the landbased terminals? They are as significant a part of ferry system as the ferrys themselves.

dock destruction
IN the 1980s, there was a spate of ferries (from marine power in Seattle) which lost control when approaching docks. They took out several over a period of perhaps a year and became a topic of derision, and a song or two, of which the funiest was by Three Damp Duck, a folk trio which perfomred at Folklife for a couple of years. They lyrics of one of their songs would be an excellent addition to this article, as would a paragraph about the dock casualties. No longer being in Seattle, I'm a poor choice to do it. Soemone else? 67.86.174.12 13:22, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Images
I recently shot Commons:Image:Orcas ferry dock 01.jpg, showing one ferry in dock and another at sea off of an island in the San Juans. I think it is a good picture and represents an aspect of the ferry system not well illustrated by the pictures currently in the article. However, it is clear that other people have worked extensively on this article and I have not, so I leave it to someone else to decide whether to add this image, replace an existing image, etc.

Further thought: at the size typically used in articles, it might be more appropriate to crop a little, so that its centeral subject is more obvious. If someone wants me to prepare a cropped version, please contact me on my user talk page, because I don't really follow my watchlist these days. - Jmabel | Talk 03:06, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Article Split
I propose we split the article in two. There is a difference between WSF proper and Washington State ferries in general. I propose we make one article "Washington State Ferries", which will cover the agency itself and another "Ferries in Washington State" to cover all ferries in the state, including WSF's. Zoomwsu 17:07, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree. It is too cumbersome for the page to deal with both. -Gomm 21:43, 28 August 2007 (UTC)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gomm (talk • contribs)

I added a new article titled Ferries in Washington State. The scope of that article will include all Washington State ferries, while this article will be restructured to cover just the agency. The new article is a work in progress, and I encourage others to help develop it. Zoomwsu 03:02, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

The Martha S.
When I converted WSF Ferry Classes to use the navbox structure, I included a link to the Martha S. (aka the Keller Ferry). I'm uncertain how to handle that ferry here. While WSDOT does state that it's part of the Washington State Ferry system, it dorsn't appear to have a direct link or even be mentioned from their Official Washington State Ferries homepage. Per WSDOT's information, the crossing predates the Puget Sound portion of the ferry system by 20 years. Does anyone have more information on how this ferry fits into the fleet? Is it perhaps operated under a different branch of WSDOT, would that explain why its not on their main homepage? Any idea why they don't bother linking to it from the main ferries article? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 17:06, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * FYI: I contacted WSF on this. I can't use their reply in the article because that would be WP:OR, but it gives information and a starting point for finding referenced sources for the info: "The Keller Ferry is part of the WSDOT. The Washington State Ferry System does not operate the Martha S. The Washington State Ferry [ in the description of the Washington State Ferry Martha S. ] is a broad term only because it is in the state of Washington it still makes it a state ferry, plus their ferry is free to ride, it’s just not run by the ferry system. I hope that makes sense."
 * So, the Martha S. is a Washington State Ferry owned by WSDOT, just not operated by the group within WSDOT that's officially named the "Washington State Ferry System". --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 22:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

MV vs M/V
For anyone interested, Barek and I have moved the individual ship articles from M/V to MV, to fix the hierarchy problems created by the forward slash (it subordinates the page to M). If anyone here notices any other articles with the same problem, please go ahead and move the page to fix it. Thanks. Parsecboy (talk) 19:19, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Most used in world?
I have added a to the statement that the Washington State Ferries is the most used ferry system in the world. A statement like this really needs a decent source that is independent of the subject. It probably also needs some clarification as to what a "Ferry system" is. Is it the ferries of a single operator or does it mean the ferries of a particular area? For example Hong Kong has a large number of ferries but there are multiple operators. Taken together I would think that their ridership exceeds that of WSF. Boissière (talk) 09:37, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

"MV"
What does the prefix "MV" stand for on the name of the ships? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.74.243.153 (talk) 21:39, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
 * It is a ship prefix that stands for "motor vessel".  Sounder Bruce  03:42, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Columns in the fleet section
Brought up after two reverts of edits by, who removed the speed column and replaced it with a column for routes that the vessels are supposedly. I'm highly opposed to this move because it's not directly cited in the only reliable source (only showing automobile capacity; the other source is a self-published fansite). The speed of vessels generally doesn't change unless there's a renovation or some repairs, so it should stay. I'd suggest that the routes column be merged with the routes section, which could be expanded into a full table, which I've started in my sandbox.  Sounder Bruce  04:16, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The fleet assignments are too fluid to put it on a Wikipedia page. My proposed solution would be to put the normal vessel class assignment into your routes chart. WSF actually publishes this list already here, so we also have a good source for this info. --RickyCourtney (talk) 06:12, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

routes map
The caption of the map in the routes section - [A map showing the routes operated by Washington State Ferries (in red) in comparison with Washington state highways (in yellow) and Interstate highways (in blue)] - isn't true... the yellow routes are WA State highways without freeway systems, and the blue routes are freeway systems within the state, including interstate and WA state highways. But I don't know how to make that into a nicer caption. Bubsty (talk) 19:16, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Ridership template broken
The WSF annual ridership template appears to be broken. I'm not familiar with how it works, so I have removed it for now. Maybe User:RickyCourtney can take a look. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 01:59, 18 October 2022 (UTC)