The Fourth Corner’s transportation revolution
As the region grows, so do the number of transportation options available to its citizens – and business is reaping the rewards
by M. Scott Schrum


In our society almost everything is measured by either time or money, and if you asked anyone if they had enough of either you’d probably get a crooked look and a sarcastic “no” in response.
Time and money are being used in vast amounts on our roads every day. Gas prices continue to rise, as does the amount of time we sit in traffic. Every community in Northwest Washington is visibly growing every year, and with it come the inconveniences of the big cities that most people moved here to avoid. Here’s proof: “Bellingham used to be a place where you could go anywhere you wanted – between any two points – in 11 minutes. Now it’s more like 16 or 17 minutes,” remarked Maureen Camandona, manager of community relations and marketing for the Whatcom Transit Authority (WTA). This is a reality, and it’s one that cannot be ignored.
As a result, some people are turning to alternative forms of transportation to save both time and money. The choices are as varied as the citizenry of our region, and all of them provide rewards that extend beyond the amount of free time in our day and the balance in our checkbooks.

The wheels on the bus
When most people think about alternative means of transportation, they immediately think about the bus. This is obvious for many reasons, mainly because we see buses everywhere, and they’ve been a part of urban culture to one degree or another for decades.
WTA is meeting the challenges created by urban growth and the price of fuel with a number of programs, most notably with its Go Lines and the Cross County Connector, the latter of which offers service to Whatcom, Skagit and Island counties and was an instant success. “It’s operates pretty much at capacity, and there’s not a person on that bus that couldn’t drive if they wanted to. Most of those people had been driving up until [the County Connector] began operating,” said Camandona.
The County Connector’s hub is in Mount Vernon at the county’s multimodal center, Skagit Station. According to Skagit Transit’s Web site, “Commuters and travelers can converge on a central location in downtown Mount Vernon to switch between Skagit Transit, Greyhound, Bellair Airporter, Amtrak and local taxis,” providing easy and stress-free access to Seattle, Vancouver, BC, and beyond. Additionally, Skagit Station is a destination unto itself, featuring a community room that can handle a gathering of up to 95 people, with all of the food service and audio/visual equipment any group would need.
With traffic congestion not enough of a problem to get people out of their cars just yet, attracting ridership is a significant challenge for the WTA. “The two main things we’re doing right now to increase the number of riders is adding frequency where it makes sense and having a much higher profile in the community,” said Camandona, and that’s where the Go Lines come in, which offer service intervals every 15 minutes in Whatcom County’s densest areas and those with the highest levels of ridership. These lines are designated by color: The Blue Line runs south from downtown Bellingham to Western Washington University; the Green Line services the north area along Northwest Avenue and Bakerview Road to Whatcom Community College; and the Gold Line heads east from downtown up Alabama Street.
“As we progress down this road of building out and building out, there’s a cost to people sitting around in traffic – in goods and services – and in people going about their daily lives. There’s definitely an economic benefit to pulling cars off the road,” Camandona added.

The air up there
Other means by which people are getting around Northwest Washington involve aviation, and this extends beyond the Bellingham International Airport (BLI).
Case in point: Kenmore Air has expanded its service to include land plane service to Oak Harbor. The airline is best known for its seaplane service, which has been active in the San Juan Islands for many years. However, Tim Brooks, vice president of flight operations, saw a new need and addressed it.
“The acquisition of a land plane service about 18 months ago is new for us, and it’s based on several things: The market to the islands for sea planes is limited because of daylight hours and weather conditions,” Brooks said. “When Horizon Airlines left Port Angeles, nearly two years ago, there was a void to fill, and the nine-passenger, turbo-prop Caravan seemed to be the perfect plane. We have proven that concept, and it’s working well.”
The passenger demographic runs the gamut. “A lot of people come down from the islands to Seattle to do business, come in for medical care or a number of different reasons,” Brooks said.
From a business perspective, it made sense for the airline to expand into the land plane market. Brooks explained, “We net 70 percent of our annual revenues in the seaplane business in three months: June, July and August. There’s a more even demand for the land plane market year-round, which helps the cash flow and keeps our experienced staff here through the winter.”
That’s not to say the Bellingham International Airport (BLI) doesn’t have a lot to offer. Airport business continues to grow. Newly formed Western Airlines announced in December its intentions to offer new passenger service as well as open its corporate office at BLI.
Positioning itself as a low fare, premium service to passengers seeking an alternative to SeaTac or Vancouver International in British Columbia, the carrier plans to fly to Denver, Phoenix, destinations in California, Anchorage and possibly destinations in Nevada.
Western President Jerry Welch told NWBM in December that the airline planned to start offering flights in March or April. “We’d like to get moving as soon as we can,” he said.
“People in our community have asked for additional air service, and we believe this presents an excellent opportunity to provide new service,” said Port Commission President Doug Smith in a December press release. “Last year (2004) we added Allegiant Air service to Las Vegas, which has been very successful, and our passenger studies show there still is considerable unmet demand for flights to other destinations.”
“As Sea-Tac Airport has gotten busier, and the traffic problems on Interstate 5 have been exacerbated, I think it is a big opportunity for our airport,” stated Carolyn Casey, communications manager for the Port of Bellingham.
“The people who are the backbone of Western Airlines are all from Skagit County and are affiliated with aviation and other industries in Skagit County, and so they have a strong connection to this area,” Casey added. “We have had amazing interest. When our news release went out, I had travel agents from all over lower British Columbia and Skagit and Snohomish counties calling me wanting to know how soon they could start booking flights for their customers.”
Casey expects the economic impact of Western’s arrival to be significant, adding numerous high-paying, skilled positions to the area’s employment pool and generating significant income for the Port and the community as a whole.
Not to be outdone, Allegiant Air announced last month that it will add flights on Wednesdays and Saturdays beginning April 5. The new flights will increase Allegiant’s Las Vegas service to six days a week.

Two if by sea
And who can forget the ferries? The Washington State Ferries, an extension of the state’s highway system, saw 126,000 riders during the 2003 fiscal year, taking passengers from Anacortes to islands throughout the San Juan chain to Sidney, B.C.
With an average crossing time of an hour and 20 minutes from Friday Harbor to Anacortes and another hour’s drive to Bellingham the new direct Bellingham to Friday Harbor service provided by Victoria-San Juan Cruises is a time saver with its hour and 40 minute crossing time.
Victoria-San Juan Cruises began running a 149-passenger ferry – The Victoria Star 2 – in late November. This is a trial service, funded by a Federal grant orchestrated with the help of the Port of Bellingham. “The government is always looking for alternate transportation that has a low impact on the environment and takes stress off of the road systems,” said Drew Schmidt, owner of Victoria San Juan Cruises.
“The ridership has been better than I expected for the first month,” Schmidt added. “[The ridership] is primarily people going out there to work and folks coming in from the island to visit the doctor or go shopping. One couple makes the trip every Tuesday to take a tennis lesson at the local club.”

Two-wheeled revolution
Four-wheeled vehicles aren’t the only way to get around Northwest Washington. Many people in our community choose to take advantage of the elaborate trail systems throughout the area and ride a bicycle. According to Eric Moe, owner of Kulshan Cycles in Bellingham, bicycle commuters are looking beyond the time and money-saving benefits of alternative transportation and “choosing to make a smaller footprint and use up fewer resources.”
Moe sees this as something businesses should encourage their employees to do. “Getting employees on their bikes is going to cut down on their healthcare costs in the long run, so it’s a benefit to everybody,” he said.
Has Moe and other bicycle shop owners seen an increase in business that corresponds to the price of gasoline? “We saw a small spike in business, but not this huge thing that people thought it was going to be,” he said. The reason? “Well … to me it’s like smoking cigarettes. Fifteen years ago cigarettes were a buck a pack, and people would say that when it gets to two buck a pack, ‘I’m going to quit.’ But now they’re still smoking,” he said.
And what about the rain? There’s an answer for that. For those days it’s too wet, cold and windy to ride all the way to your destination, most buses have bicycle racks, so riders can load up their bikes and climb aboard the bus for a warm and dry ride. When that is not an option, being prepared with the right equipment can make all the difference. “People go skiing with GORE-TEX™ on, and you can also use that stuff for biking. People realize they can be very well protected,” Moe said.

Incentive to business
So what’s the solution to getting people out of their cars, and how can businesses benefit from taking advantage of the various transportation alternatives available to them?
Perhaps the best example can be found with Washington’s Commute Trip Reduction (CTR) law. The law was enacted in 1991 as part of the state’s Clean Air Act and requires large companies to promote transportation alternatives to their employees. The law only applies to counties with populations greater than 150,000 and then only to companies within that county with 100 full-time employees or more. Twenty-four companies in Whatcom County are subject to this law, and though they are obligated to abide by it, they are seeing the benefits and taking full advantage.
According to Susan Horst, Commute Trip Reduction program manager for the Whatcom Council of Governments, “The potential benefits for employers include higher employee moral, less congestion in their parking lot, less turnover of employees, employees arriving more promptly, and it’s a good PR piece for the community.”
Under the mandate, companies have seen these benefits, to the degree which “all of the two-dozen employers that we work with are investing their own money into promoting alternatives, in addition to the programs we’re running on their behalf,” Horst added. Businesses that are not subject to this law should take notice of how well this program is working and look into the viability of voluntarily doing the same thing, she suggested.
Whether getting across town or out of town, the number of transportation options for the residents of Northwestern Washington is growing, and businesses can take advantage of these benefits by extension. The savings in money, time and stress can all add to the already high quality of life we enjoy and positively affect the bottom line for businesses, infrastructure and the environment.