The Anti-Monorail

Ask West Seattleites what they for Christmas, and a healthy sum will reply with something along the lines of "a mosquito fleet  capable of ferrying  us to all points in the city from the shores of Alki by the time the viaduct gets torn down." Well, West Seattle architect Vlad Oustimovitch and a handful of community leaders and planners have decided not to wait for Christmas, instead unveiling a proposal to significantly beef up existing water taxi service and move it from Seacrest Boathouse to Jack Block Pier.

"The idea would be to relocate the water taxi service to an area that has potential for all-weather use and be expandable over time," says Oustimovitch. "The base funding is already in place for the level of service we've been contemplating."

King County Councilmember Dow Constantine has directed the Port of Seattle and King County to study Oustimovitch's "West Seattle Mosquito" proposal. Says Oustimovitch of current water taxi service: "Right now, it's really a small pilot program. It's really hard for most people in West Seattle to use. The idea is to make it more accessible for public transportation, and the site we've got it planned for has room for buses to be properly staged and 500 Park and Ride stalls. A 70-year-old woman living in Fauntleroy with a hip replacement can drive her big car to the lot and take [the Mosquito]."

While he won't say exactly how many boats should be placed in rotation or how big they should be, Oustimovitch does offer the following: "The most important thing is to have a service that runs more often, rather than larger. If you know there's a boat running every 15 minutes, you won't even look at a schedule. The size of the current boats are a good size. But really, it's just a tour boat, which is probably not ideal. So ideally, the boats that will end up being used in the future will be different. Metro, in the future, almost certainly will have their own boats with their own staff." Here, Oustimovitch raises the possibility of working with the Whidbey Island manufacturer Nichols Brothers, which already provides large-capacity catamarans to the Bay Area's waterborne transporation authority.

Oustimovitch's proposal includes artist's renderings of different Mosquito route possibilities, viewable here courtesy of the wonderful West Seattle Blog. A future route connecting West Seattle to Magnolia is included, but Oustimovich says the possibilities for expansion "are endless." "I know there's been some interest expressed from having water service from Shilshole Bay to downtown," he notes.

"The advantage of a system like this is the infrastructure costs up front are minimal," adds Oustimovitch, whose most ardent political backers have been State Sen. Erik Poulsen and Seattle City Councilmember Jan Drago. "It's the exact opposite of the monorail, where the infrastructure costs were enormous. The water taxi, instead of billions of dollars to get in operation, it's just millions of dollars. Which, in public transportation terms, is a pretty low number."