Overloads and delays on BC Ferries sailings out of Langdale on Sunday, Sept. 17 generated a lot of buzz on social media, but the ferry company says the traffic wasn’t much different than it usually is for the third weekend in September.
According to Deborah Marshall of BC Ferries, they actually saw slightly more traffic at Langdale on the same weekend in 2016.
Last year there were seven overloads and 43 more vehicles carried on the third Sunday of September, compared to six last Sunday.
Marshall said the first overload was the 10:05 a.m. departure, and the worst backlog hit around the 1:05 p.m. sailing, which left about 350 vehicles behind. She also said the Queen of Surrey was operating about 30 minutes late by the evening when minor delays caused by high traffic volume were compounded by an issue with a stalled vehicle that slowed up the unloading of the ship just prior to the 5:30 p.m. departure.
Marshall said Ferries already has an extra Sunday trip on the schedule, at 2:40 p.m., and they were able to clear all the vehicles and passengers waiting at Langdale without adding an extra night sailing, although they were prepared to take that step if needed. Marshall said the crew on the final trip reported having room for just three more vehicles when the ferry departed.
Marshall also said the company isn’t able to say if any people hoping to travel on the 17th “self-selected” and decided not to try for a ferry when they learned about the overloads.
Some of the online chatter about the delays pointed to a couple of big weddings booked for the Coast and a major event at the Coast Gravity Park, which drew a lot of mountain bikers from off-Coast. Marshall said BC Ferries keeps a calendar of events that helps them anticipate possible spikes in volumes and be ready.
