From PCH blues to Blue Highway cruise?

There's nothing quite as soul-sucking as crawling along the San Diego Freeway or Pacific Coast Highway, trying to make your way up or down the picturesque Los Angeles County coast.

- BY JAMES RAINEY

A FERRY like one that would serve Marina del Rey, Santa Monica and Malibu.

The ocean beckons somewhere out there, but it's hard to imagine when you're drowning in a sea of red taillights.

But now a group of entrepreneurs believes they have an alternative. The innovators intend to launch a ferry service to allow tourists, day-trippers and even commuters to travel the coast with lower stress and in higher style. They plan to call it the Blue Highway.

A partnership called Pier to Pier hopes to begin the service this year, with high-speed ferries connecting Marina del Rey, Santa Monica and Malibu, a total distance of 17 nautical miles.

The operators eventually would like to expand the service to Long Beach and perhaps south to Newport Beach and as far north as. Santa Barbara.

An ocean-bound alternative to the coast’s asphalt madness has been proposed many times over the decades. In 1979, the California Department of Transportation briefly operated a ferry connecting Malibu and Santa Monica after a landslide blocked PCH for weeks. But regular ferry service has not gained traction the way it has in the Pacific Coast's other great cities such as San Francisco and Seattle.