I once heard former Gibsons mayor Barry Janyk compare the Langdale ferry terminal to a prison exercise yard, and there have been days in the long, hot summers of our travel discontent that I could picture Paul Newman as Cool Hand Luke feeling right at home.
I’ve also wondered, while waiting in the fall rain with my motorcycle, whether the design for the terminal originated in the bleak Berlin offices of the former East German Ministry of Transportation.
BC Ferries is working on major upgrades to the terminal, backed in part by around $17 million in federal infrastructure money. The company needs rezoning from the SCRD, and there’s been some pushback. As of early this week, nearly 5,000 people had signed an online petition against spending for anything other than service improvements.
I’m a big advocate of hourly service, and I understand the frustration behind the calls for BC Ferries to abandon its plans for a “tourist plaza” and sink every spare dollar into improving service. For me, a nicer terminal is a service improvement for all users – not just tourists – and long overdue.
I’ve travelled by ferry my whole life. As a motorcycle rider, cyclist or foot passenger you see ferry terminals from a very different perspective than the travellers who can cocoon themselves in a car, truck or – luxury of luxuries – motorhome, while they wait for the next sailing.
In my last job, I spent many hours at Nanaimo’s Departure Bay terminal. Departure Bay is a pretty good preview of what BC Ferries is planning to do with Langdale. Departure Bay has nice outdoor seating and play areas, an indoor retail court, and lots of indoor seating with tables.
Maybe having a few shops to visit and somewhere more pleasant – indoors and out – to sit for a bit, will encourage people to get out of their cars at the terminal. This is a good thing. For example, when people get out of their cars they aren’t idling their engines to run heat or air conditioning.
I’ve got a challenge for you: It’s November and the weather will be awful at least one or two days out of the next 27. Pick one of those awful days and travel over to the city as a foot passenger. As you huddle under the meagre outdoor shelter, or try to make yourself comfortable in the little waiting room, or brave the lashing rain and wind as you walk up to the coffee stand and then try to keep your precious cargo of caffeine warm as you walk back to the seating area (where, you’ll notice, there aren’t any tables), ask yourself whether you’d rather be at Departure Bay.
We should keep pushing for more sailings, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that it’s not a zero sum game. We’ll still have to wait at the terminal, and there’s no reason that wait has to be a character building experience.
To reverse the oft-shouted quote from the movie 300, “This is not Sparta!”
