There was no small irony in the fact that BC Ferries announced a package of long-awaited Route 3 schedule improvements directly in the wake of a particularly hellish weekend for ferry travellers.
And while BC Ferries can blame the intolerable waits on historically high volumes during the third weekend of September, that excuse doesn’t hold water for Gale Tyler of Halfmoon Bay, who endured “ferry abuse” on Friday, Sept. 8, or Chris Wilkinson of Gibsons, who recently drank the poison – twice – on weekday trips back from the city.
Yet BC Ferries’ announcement this week was truly excellent news – both for commuters and for all Sunshine Coast residents who have been pining for a year-round late-night sailing. The promise of a permanent 5:30 p.m. departure from Horseshoe Bay, in particular, is something to celebrate. It’s a major breakthrough and a real payoff for all the efforts put in over the years by ferry advisory committee members and Sunshine Coast Regional District chair Garry Nohr, among many others.
So we salute BC Ferries CEO and president Mark Collins for making this happen, but we have to remind him that he is sadly mistaken if he believes these changes will get BC Ferries to a service level “that meets our customers’ expectations,” as he suggested this week. The expectation of consistently efficient service remains unfulfilled.
Mr. Collins acknowledges that the problem of overloads and delays is not going away because it’s a matter of capacity. He says it will take at least five years to resolve with new vessels and terminal upgrades at Langdale and Horseshoe Bay. That position hasn’t changed, despite the recent public engagement exercise that made it clear that capacity was a critical issue for Route 3 passengers.
Five years is a long time to sustain an “abusive situation,” as Ms. Tyler described it, and the window for these enormous capital upgrades could easily stretch to 10 years or longer. With large development proposals waiting in the wings in Gibsons and Sechelt, it is a certainty that demand on the ferry system will continue to rise and the capacity crunch will only get worse.
BC Ferries says hourly service can’t be delivered under current conditions, but it somehow managed to pull it off earlier this year. So it can be done.
This week’s announcement gets us halfway to an acceptable service level on Route 3. More work, however, is needed.
