<\/a>This August 2018 photo shows the MV Columbia in Petersburg. The Columbia is scheduled to return to service this winter for the first time in three years, according to the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities. (Ben Hohenstatt \/ Juneau Empire File)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
That update didn’t go over well with residents of communities not listed, as well as some people in towns stating the scheduled level of service remains insufficient.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“Please add Kake to the schedule,” wrote Penny Ashenfelter, a resident of the 540-person Southeast Alaska town. “The ferry allows us to go to medical appointments, travel for student activities throughout the school year, and to load up our vehicles with groceries and also if our vehicles need to be serviced this allows us to bring vehicle in. Also in the winter flying is limited sometimes because of weather and the cost of bringing a family on vacation is more affordable than flying.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Similar concerns were expressed by Wally Roman, a Tenakee Springs resident, who noted “we now have a new and expensive ferry dock, it would be nice to have a ferry use it to provide service to our community.” He also questioned the lack of winter service to Prince Rupert, B.C., stating that “prohibits travel south for vehicles and most residents.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Several Haines residents submitted comments expressing concern about the lack of winter service that is needed for vital purposes including medical appointments in larger cities. Caitlin Stern, a Juneau resident who grew up in Haines and whose parents still live there, was among the commenters continuing to state the intended level of service is inadequate following last week’s update.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“I find the frequency of ferry service between Juneau and Haines in the proposed schedule insufficient, especially in January and February,” she stated. “My parents frequently need to come to Juneau for medical appointments and to visit their grandchildren. It is extremely difficult to coordinate these visits with the proposed frequency of ferry service.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
For a couple of residents in neighboring Skagway, the timing of the three ferries docking per week during the winter was of concern.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“It would be much better and more feasible if, instead of Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we had a ferry during the week,” wrote Debbie Ackerman, an insurance employee in the town already suffering from the loss of its cruise ship dock for the remainder of the summer due to a lamdslide. “If we have doctor or dentist appointments, we are stuck paying for a hotel for an entire week. Seriously, a Tuesday or Wednesday sailing would be more appropriate. If you want to keep it to three sailings a week remove the Saturday sailing.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Other regions relying on ferry service are expressing similar concerns and questioning if they’re being unfairly shortchanged.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“Better than last year, but why does (Southwest) have zero ferries Jan.-March while (Southeast) continues to have year-round service?” commented Alison Rein, chair of the planning commission in Seldovia. “Better to spread the pain around rather than have us be totally without! Even having a severely reduced schedule of maybe two ferries\/month would seem more fair.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Concern was also expressed about service during the upcoming session of the Alaska State Legislature.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“No cross-gulf service for the legislators and staff that come for legislative session?” inquired Vicki Van Fleet, a Juneau resident. “What exactly are you people playing at? And where has all the (federal transportation funding) gone to?”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
• Contact reporter Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com<\/em><\/p>\n\t\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fears about no or little service for critical needs expressed from Southeast to Southwest Alaska <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":868,"featured_media":90616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[79,230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-90615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-alaska-marine-highway","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/868"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90615"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=90615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}