Riders wait to board the MV Doc Maynard at Seacrest Dock in West Seattle. King County photo by Ned Ahrens.
The King County Water Taxi enjoyed another banner year of ridership aboard our vessels in 2017.
We carried a total of 599,954 riders on our West Seattle and Vashon Island routes combined while maintaining nearly perfect completion and on-time performance rates on each sailing, for each route.
Technically, our systemwide total is about 2,000 riders less than in 2016 (when we carried 601,942 riders). But that doesn’t account for the week-long service interruption on both routes in early August as we moved to our temporary location on the Seattle waterfront.
For all you numbers junkies, if you account for another 15,000 riders—the average number who boarded our vessels each week in August— ridership is actually up more than 2 percent.
And if you don’t count the spring spike in ridership that we experienced in 2016 with the Alaskan Way Viaduct closure, our ridership is up nearly 5 percent.
That’s a lot of numbers, but they all point to something that’s pretty clear: the King County Water Taxi is more popular than ever.
Thank you to all of our riders for helping make that possible. We look forward to helping you reach your destinations in 2018!
Get all of the latest ridership information about the King County Water Taxi on the “Data” tab of the “About us” page on our website.
Captain's Blog 
There’s nothing like crossing Elliott Bay on the deck of a fast ship. Going to miss you guys when Sound Transit gets light rail to West Seattle.
Thanks for riding, Joe!
Parking in West Seattle near the ferry dock is becoming increasingly hard to find, adding substantive walk time to get from car to ferry dock. If ridership continues to increase and the development on the Alki waterfront also continues to increase is there a plan to accompdate the exponential number of riders’ cars that need a place to stay during the day? Perhaps as radical as move the dock to Jack Block dock?
Hi Craig – Here’s a response from Greg Lerner, Shoreside Operations Manager:
“Thanks for your comments to the Water Taxi regarding parking in West Seattle. As the Water Taxi’s popularity continues to grow, we are very aware of the current constraints of parking near Seacrest Dock and are currently exploring viable parking (and transit connection) options to accommodate our riders.”