Washington Department of Transportation’s Division of Ferries and Washington’s attorney general combine to block legislative review of abandoned Anacortes-Friday Harbor-Sidney, British Columbia ferry route
Published 1:30 am Monday, July 6, 2026
Submitted by Restore Our Ferries.
In early 2020, the Washington Department of Transportation indefinitely suspended the only vehicle carrying connection on marine highway State Route 20 between Anacortes and Friday Harbor, Washington, to Sidney, British Columbia. Formerly, the only international State Ferry route. We are now in our seventh summer with no service for the former hundreds of thousands of annual passengers on that route
Rather than conducting the required public hearings and seeking the necessary legislative approval as required by state law (RCW 47.60.330), WSDOT bypassed the public entirely.
Confronted with this ongoing refusal to perform a mandatory duty, the Citizens Advocacy Group Restore Our Ferries filed a complaint in Washington Superior Court seeking enforcement of the law. The plaintiffs are a citizens group of affected ferry users who seek to protect legislative accountability and statutory compliance regarding the Sidney ferry route.
This legal case is fundamentally about public accountability and a state agency’s (WSDOT) total disregard for mandatory, statutory procedures enacted by the Legislature. Plaintiffs — a citizens group composed of heavily impacted Washington residents and ferry users — brought the original action to address a profound “procedural void” created by the WSDOT as the years passed, wherein WSDOT neither restored ferry service on the route nor established a budget nor schedule for restoration of the route. WSDOT has successfully placed the future of the Sidney route in limbo by not restoring the route, nor officially canceling the route, while repeating vague, unfunded promises to restore the hundred-year-old route to the public. WSDOT’s limbo tactic has thus far been successful.
Keep in mind that WSDOT has not purchased a ferry for its fleet in almost 10 years. Its latest ferry boat fleet schedule for retirement and purchase of new ships indicates that there will be no net additions to the fleet in the next six years, thus rendering the long-promised restoration of the Sidney ferry route sometime after 2032, if ever.
Consider the abandoned Sidney, British Columbia, ferry terminal, where WSDOT continues to pay (reported by Washington state records) $275,666 USD each year in taxes and rent for the unused property. How much longer will the Town of Sidney allow the abandoned ferry terminal to consume prime waterfront real estate in the center of their town, while Washington state has no funding to restore service in this decade, remains questionable.
This year, WSDOT executive Steve Nevey and the state’s attorney generals’ lawyers Teague Pasco and Teresa M. Shill have spent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars in legal costs seeking to block the legislative review and public hearings required under state law. In addition, Pasco and Shill failed to explain to the court why the people’s representatives are being denied their statutory right to review the ferry route discontinuation. Instead, the Attorney General’s Office successfully sought repeatedly to have the citizens’ complaint dismissed on technical legal grounds. WSDOT and the attorney general claimed that the citizens’ complaint was served incorrectly and that another law should be applied for public review. The court ruled this week to grant WSDOT’s motion to dismiss the complaint.
With state representative and senate elections this fall, the citizens group seeks accountability for the status of the ferry system. Thus far, the group has not identified a single incumbent state representative who has taken tangible and impactful action during the last year to restore the health of the Washington Ferry Fleet. More legal challenges are likely until the Public’s right to have their elected representatives weigh in on the abandoned Sidney route is performed, as state law requires.
