Every day there seems to be a new woe for the Washington State Ferry system, a service that carries 24 million passengers and 11 million vehicles a year on 10 cross-Puget Sound runs. Bulletins are issued often, sometimes hourly of late, telling of a new series of cancellations of service, late sailings, substitutions of service, closed kitchens and sick passengers needing ambulance service.

Those notices have always happened, as they do with any major transportation system, but they were of a more routine nature. Now the e-mail from Washington State Ferries seems to scream in panic.

Here are some recent headlines from media:

- "Auditor: Washington State Ferries wasting millions" in the P.I. recently.

- "FBI: Washington state ferries likely eyed for possible attack" in USA Today via Associated Press.

Then there are these of more immediate impact:

- "Cracks in hulls sideline 4 state ferries" in the Seattle Times.

- "UPDATE: Further Cancellations From Bremerton Ferry Damage" in the Kitsap Sun.

And even from the ferry system itself:

- "Seattle/Bremerton - One Boat Service With Added Passenger Only Service. The Yakima was damaged by high winds and will not return to service until repairs are made. One boat service with the Kitsap is in effect until repairs are completed on the Yakima."

- "Seattle/Bremerton P.O. - Beginning Monday, Feb. 11th, both Victoria Express Passenger-only vessels operating from the adjacent P.O. dock in Bremerton will not offer ADA accessibility due to limited loading and offloading space restrictions."

We think the word "disaster" is not too strong a word for a system that once was the gem on ferry systems worldwide.

All of this added to the beginning of this latest stream of bad news; the four 70-year old steam electrics that were pulled off because of hull cracks.

The ferry management is considering a variety of means to find money to buy new boats and to fix the present ones, apparently left without adequate maintenance for too long, which is a way for politicians to save money but a terrible way to do business.

There has been some talk about limiting or ending special frequent-use discounts as a way to increase income. That is bound to have a bad effect on regular ferry passengers, especially the ones who commute.

The answer probably will end up churning in the Legislature, itself facing impending revenue shortfalls. It is a political year so anything Gov. Chris Gregoire does (or doesn't do) will be sniped at by contender Dino Rossi. We hope he will stop taking cheap shots and make a positive proposal.

No matter what, fiscal overspending and under maintaining our ferry fleet has put us on the brink of adding to the fiscal chaos of the economy.

We hope an energetic new ferry construction bond issue is crafted. We need all those ferry commuters to help our economy survive.

- Jack Mayne