BC Ferries will offer hourly sailings on Route 3 between Langdale and Horseshoe Bay starting in January next year – but the additional sailings won’t translate to more service for those travelling by vehicle.
The ferry corporation plans to close Berth 1 at Langdale for upgrades between Jan. 19 and April 6, leaving only Berth 2 available. As Berth 2 doesn’t have the infrastructure to load or unload top decks with vehicles, only the bottom decks of ferries will be loaded.
Using only one deck will cut the number of vehicles that can be accommodated on each sailing from the current 350 to about 175, so BC Ferries plans to launch hourly service and use two ferries (the Queen of Surrey and the Queen of Coquitlam) between Jan. 19 and March 19 to offer a similar level of service to what’s available now.
From March 20 to April 6 the hourly service is expected to continue, but the Queen of Surrey will be taken off the route for a retrofit, leaving the Queen of Coquitlam and the Island Sky to service Route 3.
That will reduce capacity on sailings served by the Island Sky, as it can only carry 125 vehicles at a time.
While the added sailings won’t offer more deck space for vehicles, they will offer more space for walk-on passengers, according to BC Ferries public affairs manager Darin Guenette, who said the “passenger capacity will effectively double.”
For that reason, Guenette said, BC Ferries doesn’t expect overloads once the hourly schedule is implemented.
“We believe that having this temporary, approximately hourly service from Langdale and Horseshoe Bay will provide more flexible travel options for many customers,” Guenette said.
Currently only the Jan. 19 to March 19, 2017 BC Ferries schedule is posted for Route 3 and it shows hourly service running from Langdale starting at 6:20 a.m. and ending at 8:45 p.m. daily. The same schedule shows hourly service leaving Horseshoe Bay each day between 6:20 a.m. and 9:45 p.m.
See the schedule in its entirety at www.bcferries.com
