Editor:
Re: “No highway home,” Letters, Nov. 26.
I also have lived on the Coast for 15 years, worked in the city, and I am a small business person who also depends on BC Ferries and the passengers that use it. Personally I find the Ferries do a great job. The people working at the terminal work hard and have to deal with a lot of cranky people who have a large expectation of how the system should run. Basing one’s arrival to the ferry should never be on if the ferry is running late; that would mean it has had overloads that day. In today’s hugely expanding population, one should know that you have to arrive a minimum of 45 minutes to one hour early if it is a busy time you seek, or make a reservation. If I have an appointment in the city, I do not risk it and instead make a reservation and then still show up 45 minutes early to ensure I don’t miss it.
As I travel back and forth all the time, it still astounds me the number of people not in their cars when we are loading. I guess they assume the ferry will wait? The same applies when we are approaching the dock: announcements are made and many people sit there waiting to the last minute to find their cars, then I see people wandering around trying to remember where they parked – really. If one were truly respectful of others’ time and the ferry workers’ time, you would be in your car waiting to load or unload.
We all know that the world is changing. Some cannot accept it, but Canada is a popular place to live. Our resources are going to get stretched more and more each day and adjusting is going to be hard for many. Be careful not to fall into a sense of entitlement or your stress level is going to kill you.
John Pickersgill, Sechelt
