The cost to ride on B.C. Ferries will increase on April 1 with walk on passengers paying 85 cents more ($13.45) and vehicle passengers paying $2.85 more ($45.20) per vehicle on the Langdale-Horseshoe Bay route.
The increase is upsetting to members of the Southern Sunshine Coast Ferry Advisory Committee, who have been disputing the increases for many years. However, committee chair Jakob Knaus notes there is nothing the committee can do about the upcoming fee hike.
'We have absolutely no control over it. The commissioner decided three years ago that for performance term two, which goes from 2008 to 2012, the fare increases for all the routes was 7.2 per cent,' Knaus said, noting that increase is broken down into roughly a two per cent increase in fares each year. 'The big question comes at the end of this month when we see what the commissioner is proposing for the next performance term from 2012 to 2016.'
Knaus said he expects the Coast will see an even larger hike during the next performance term.
'There are all kinds of rumours floating around, from a 20 per cent increase to a 90 per cent increase over four years,' Knaus said.
The ferry corporation insists the increases were needed to pay for increased costs for fuel and the servicing of their aging fleet. The same arguments are expected to be made to the B.C. Ferries commissioner this year.
'Obviously the commissioner will come out with his recommendations and then the public and the advisory committee and governments have got three months to comment on it and then the commissioner will take that into account,' said Knaus. 'Then he has got three months to think about it and at the end of September, he will give the final version of what will be happening from 2012 onwards.'
Knaus said he hopes the commissioner will not raise rates exorbitantly, adding the more that passengers have to pay, the fewer people will use the service.
'I think both B.C. Ferries and government have now realized that higher fares means lower traffic,' he said. 'I think for a long time they have all blocked it out and said it's due to the recession, it's due to this, that and the other thing.
But now finally, I think the penny has dropped and we see that the traffic is still going down despite the recovery in the economy.'
He notes the 1,250 commuters who use B.C. Ferries regularly are feeling the pinch and if the rates go up much more, some of those commuters may chose to move to the city to avoid paying the daily commuting fee.
'What we have heard from commuters is that there's a pain level at which the commuters say they can't afford it any longer and they will relocate to the Lower Mainland,' he said. 'Once that level is reached obviously they [B.C. Ferries] are going to lose these people.'
Knaus noted that if the increases were kept in line with the cost of living, they would be easier to take.
'But when it goes up three times the amount, as it has during the last three or four years then of course it starts hurting. I mean our fares have gone up 67 percent since the beginning of performance term one and the cost of living has gone up by 12 per cent,' he said.
Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons agrees.
'If fares were tied to inflation, there would be stability and predictability for residents and businesses…a specific strategy needs to be developed for ferry-dependent communities. Transportation policy should reflect the needs of businesses and residents,' said Simons. 'The privatization experiment has failed, and ferry-dependent communities have suffered.'
