After being served with a freedom of information request and lobbied by the Southern Sunshine Coast Ferry Advisory Committee (FAC), BC Ferries is restoring the eighth sailing to its Sunday schedule between Langdale and Horseshoe Bay, effective April 3.
The Langdale to Horseshoe Bay route was reduced to seven round-trip sailings on Sundays in April last year as a way for BC Ferries to cut costs on the local run.
Sunshine Coast residents have been complaining about delays on Sundays ever since.
Gambier Island property owner Chris Cleator filed a freedom of information request with BC Ferries in February, asking to see the ferry corporation’s on-time performance during Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays in 2015.
He received the on-time performance statistics on March 15, which showed an overall 75 per cent on-time performance rating during those days in 2015.
But Cleator decided to dig a little deeper into the numbers, having experienced long wait times repeatedly at the Langdale terminal on Sundays in particular.
What he found was that the ferry corporation’s on-time performance on Sundays was surprisingly low. In fact, when looking at Sunday evening sailings from 4:30 p.m. on, he found BC Ferries was late 100 per cent of the time during March, April and November in 2015.
“When you break it down, there are certain days and certain times of the year when their on-time performance is terrible, absolutely terrible,” Cleator said.
“I’m sure this isn’t going to surprise anyone on the Sunshine Coast, but the facts are there now. I basically just proved it.”
The FAC has heard complaints about late Sunday sailings repeatedly from Sunshine Coast residents since the eight sailings were cut almost a year ago, and FAC chair Barry Cavens said his group responded by asking BC Ferries to review the possibility of reinstating the eight sailings late last year.
BC Ferries had previously stated it would not look at restoring any sailings unless it could be proven financially viable.
“We recommended at the last meeting in the fall that BC Ferries do a business case review of the Sunday sailings because there were concerns about on-time performance and overloads. We listened to the community, we brought those concerns forward to BC Ferries on behalf of the residents,” Cavens said.
“They conducted a detailed review and made [restoring the eight Sunday sailings] as a business decision, and I’m obviously pleased with that decision.”
The eight-sailing Sunday schedule is now in effect until March 2017, according to the schedules posted on the BC Ferries website. Cavens expects it will continue past that point.
Deborah Marshall, executive director of public affairs with BC Ferries, said the late Sunday sailings have been generally due to higher traffic, which makes loading and unloading take longer than normal and has caused some overloads.
It’s expected the added round trip sailing on Sunday will help alleviate the problem.
Marshall said BC Ferries wasn’t able to make the change until it could prove it wouldn’t lose any money.
“We have minimum service levels with the province that we have to provide, and to go above and beyond that, it would have to financially make sense for us to do that,” Marshall said.
“We did crunch the numbers, so we have come back and said ‘yes, we will be in a position to put that [sailing] back in.’”
Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons said he was pleased to hear the sailings were being restored.
“I’m glad BC Ferries realizes what the FAC has been telling them all along – that the route was profitable and the consequences of cutting it were terrible,” Simons said.
“Now that sailing has been cut and restored twice – let’s hope it’s the last time.”
The next FAC meeting is set for April 21 at the Gibsons and Area Community Centre from 5:15 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. Cavens noted that the community is welcome to attend.
If anyone would like to make a presentation at that meeting, Cavens asks that they send an email to him at [email protected] or his co-chair Diana Mumford at [email protected]
