This summer has been a particularly difficult one for people who rely on the BC Ferries.
For people who just need a ferry to get home, or to a long-anticipated medical appointment, or work, or an endless number of other reasons, the excuses about a complex governance structure created by one government and maintained by another government, are unacceptable.
Missed medical appointments and an overall lack of certainty are really difficult for people to manage. It wears on people and I have a great deal of sympathy for the many exasperated and frustrated folks who rely on ferries.
Demand on the service is growing and this summer they have been failing to keep up on many routes. However, it’s not every route and every sailing. The challenge is meeting the peak demand.
Many suggestions for improving the system have been sent to BC Ferries and copied to my office. It’s important that you continue to direct your correspondence to them and include me and the Minister of Transportation. I will always advocate with both the corporation and government for a better service.
Increasing demand on the system, limited supply of space, aging infrastructure and consumer expectations are all factors that need balancing. The recipe for a perfectly running system year round is always changing. In my opinion, the way they are currently structured too much of this is left to chance.
Improving the system
Getting on the ferry has always been a gamble. Show up and go, first come, first served. In most instances everyone who wants to get on a specific sailing is successful. In recent years BC Ferries has added a reservation system on some routes to increase the certainty. Consumers reserving a spot on a specific sailing have had to pay a premium, which in my mind is the opposite of how it should be. Earlier this year BC Ferries announced that they are changing their reservation system this coming fall.
An expanded reservation system might allow for people to better plan their trips on and off the Southern Gulf Islands, limiting the amount of time needlessly wasted waiting for ferries. In addition, it might help BC Ferries plan to deal with higher than usual volumes if they knew it was trending that way well in advance. In addition, they are exploring variable pricing models to encourage more manageable traffic patterns.
I believe we can address the issues around uncertainty and limit missed appointments. While an expanded reservation system might not completely do away with the high volumes we are seeing this summer, it will help everyone be able to plan better. So on this I would like to know your opinion:
Would you support an expanded reservation system for all trips on and off the Southern Gulf Islands? What are your thoughts?
Photo Credit: “M/V Queen of Cumberland” by “Scazon” license “CC BY 2.0“
Yes,
I think it would make it much better, we always book reservations for our trips to the mainland, $10 each way is reasonable Going to Saltspring for the day as we do several times a year can mean a long sit on either side. {the boat is too small for that route Crofton- Vesuvius}
Washington State ferries do not charge for reservations and offer a better deal for a smaller shorter car {Honda Fit qualifies} which makes sense. We notice that there is too much space between cars on many ferries when operating at “Full” , many more cars would fit if they would pack them tighter. Many of these things “Gords Ideas” would require a few more staff….
*Please respond to idea*
I absolutley want an expanded system!
I am juggling the need to charge an early short range BEV (battery electric vehicle) as well as the scheduale. This is not always compatible.
If charging could happen while waiting for the ferry this would help.
To assist the charging infrastructure resiliency it would be great to have a automated text check in that says yes I’m on time and nearby. Thus giving us BEV owners a chance to charge outside the line up. instead of 60 min checkin this partial checkin/confirmation would allow 20 min before sailing arrivals without losing reservation.
I like the system in the States. You reserve ahead of schedule. If you show up, that fee becomes part of the cost. You don’t show up, it’s theirs. If reservations were the norm, say up to 95%, with 5% (or 80-20, what ever is deemed appropriate, heavy on the reserve side) held back for last minute to get on, and say 25-30% of the built in cost, with said penalty, this would alleviate the problem. Let people book any day, any time in the future, up to 15 minutes before if spots are still available.
Having a reservation system will in no way solve the problem of shortage of space on the Fulford and Vesuvius ferries. First of all there is no way to implement it as there is barely and space in either terminal to simply line up for a ferry let alone separate the reserved from the non reserved. It is an absolute non starter. We need larger ferries and we need them now. It is affecting our ability to live on Saltspring. My dentist has lost two staff because of the Crofton Vesuvius ferry fiasco as they cannot commute with the new ferry. This is just one business. Every business which has staff living off island (which is nearly everyone because of the insane situation with available housing, let alone affordable housing) will be affected. For gods sake do something to help us islanders. BC Ferries are completely deaf to the issues. We will still be in the same situation in Winter as the majority of travellers on the Crofton-Vesuvius route are either commercial services for the island, commuting workers or schoolchildren attending school either on or off the island.
Why haven’t you written about Handydart but you write about BC Ferries?
Is it because there was difficulty getting to and from Salt Spring Island yesterday for people attending the Green party picnic? Are topics only relevant if they are from your own experience?
Is it because you haven’t experienced the horrors of Handydart yourself, so you can’t relate? I have invited you to ride with me. I have offered you my login credentials to see you could successfully book your life two weeks in advance get every ride you need, which you can’t?
I have provided analysis and suggestions gathered from riders and drivers and prepared that information for you for free.
( before I got sick, I was billed out at $250 US an hour by the company I worked for to do business analysis and management) and never heard back from you regarding our meeting and The significant effort it took, never mind the impact on my health.. I was hoping for a copy of the letter you promised to send to BC Transit, but mum’s the word.
I am not trying to be a dink and harass you. I’m trying to hold you accountable and ask for follow up and recognition of the difficulties of people BC in your own constituency, many of whom are in a similar situation as me.
We are shut outs, not shut ins. Shut ins are people who choose not to engage in society. Shut outs are people who try to be part of society but prevented from doing so because of lack of access to the very basics such as transportation, housing, medical care, home support and food.
The budget for BC Transit in total wasn’t sufficient and Handydart isn’t going to improve. What happened after our meeting? Did you hear back from them. Did you write to them as promised?
Exactly!
People making reservations are doing BC Ferries a favour, by giving them important information that can help them plan better. In an age when information is everything, companies like FaceBook or Google would are frothing at the mouth to have customers voluntarily provide such information.
BC Ferries should provide a discount to customers who can plan in advance, with a reasonable up-front down-payment that is lost if the conditions for reservation are not met by the customer.
Reserve the ferry? Let’s also reserve Deas Tunnel and the Lions gate bridge. Both are Highway systems for taxpayers,both are equally ridiculous
Yes, I support an expanded reservation system for all trips on and off of the Souther Gulf Islands.
There absolutely must be a reservation system, particularly for the SGI – Swartz Bay routes. As you point out, charging a premium for reservations is idiotic. It should be the other way around. Interestingly, commercial vehicle reservations do not carry a premium, but them we pay almost twice as much as a recreational vehicle of the same size. I’d still like someone to explain that.
As full-time residents with full-time jobs, not being able to reserve between Pender and Swartz means in the summer season we either pay triple the cost and go to Tsawwassen because we can reserve and properly plan or we don’t go off island at all. Full-time SGI residents should either get priority boarding year round between Swartz and their island, or be able to reserve on that route w no additional fees. We rely on the main island for many things – big shopping, supplies for our businesses, medical, some rely on it for jobs in Victoria. We should not have to get in line 2.5 hours early, fingers crossed, hoping we get home to our children, animals, spouses, or in time for work.
The problem is carculture. Decades of it. Drive anywhere and everywhere. No political party has looked at the costs of all this and put a stop to promoting carculture when they should have and still should be promoting better options and innovative public transit.The noise + air pollution +health costs and all the infrastructure costs continue to be overlooked and ignored.
The terminals are not set up to handle reserved patrons and it is not always possible to reserve enough ahead of time. It would also mean revising the whole ticketing system as we now pay round trip to get onto the islands so BCF has our money, often for weeks or months, before we use the already paid return part of the trip. Another big issue is BC Ferries using the roads as a parking lot. I live in Fulford village and have had times I could not get home until the ferry had loaded because of so many cars waiting in the road. They do have flaggers sometimes now letting cars through on the wrong side of the road but it begs the question of insufficient infrastructure. They’ve been talking about widening the road and putting in a parking lane for years but no action. The restaurant in Vesuvius is suffering because people won’t chance the traffic chaos to go there for a meal. Like many corporate structures BC Ferries is self-serving and would rather spend money on exorbitant executive salaries than service.
We fully support expanding the BC Ferries reservation system to include SGI sailings to and from Swartz Bay. We have missed appointments due to overloads particularly in the summer months. With increased traffic it’s time has come. 18 year Mayne Island full time Residents
A reservation system would be welcomed but it is a stopgap solution. It would allow Penderites an opportunity to get on a ferry of their choice and successfully make business and medical appointments.
A certain percentage of the ferry has to be available for tourists and unplanned travel.
The reservation should be made on a Charge card and cost 15 dollars. As you go through the booth, give your phone number and the charge is removed. This would limit no shows!
We, on Pender, need a dedicated ferry, about the size of the Skeena Queen.
No, it won’t work for Ves & Fulford as we do not have ticketing at those terminals & it would cost a lot more to put full time people ticketing at them. Trying to seperate or bring reserved out of the lineup at Vesuvius would be impossible as there is no room & pulling reserved ahead of those that have been waiting an hour would start a riot down there for sure!
Using vehicle reservations would be a stopgap measure but definitely a sign that something is being done to solve the problems Pender is having with ferry overloads.
A charge of $15 to make the reservation would be appropriate. As you go through the ticket booth, this charge should be revoked. This would elimate most “no shows”.
Pender really needs a full time ferry the size of Skeena Queen.
BC Ferries are superior to the Washington State ferries both in punctuality and services. The advantage of The WSF system is that you can make bookings and providing you show up, the reservation fee is included in the ticket price.
I do not think reservations will help or be fair for those of us who cannot schedule our departures. They also encourage some people to make even more trips. Some people are travelling to or from Salt Spring on a daily basis are making a choice and decision about where to live and work. Why should they be guaranteed a spot because they can plan based on this? Why should their larger carbon footprint be rewarded with a shorter wait time in ferry lineups?
One thing that would immediately free up some space would be to make seniors pay for their weekday trips. The lower fares have encouraged more trips and also harm our local economy because those people also spend more of their money off island.
It would be nice to have a way to have an assured loading for some medical trips. And it would also be nice to have hospitals be able to issue travel forms. If you have an unplanned medical emergency, you pay to come home because the hospitals in Victoria could not (would not ?) issue a pink form
No, I do not think reservations will solve the problem. Perhaps reservations for medical appointments, yes, that could be a good thing. But we either need larger ferries or more ferries. General reservations will in no way help decrease demand, and demand is the issue. People are and will be left behind still. BC Ferries needs to meet demand.
The ideas about reservations are good and thank you for asking. But please first and foremost, “is anyone at BC Ferries capable of listening to the public or even you regarding any suggestions for improvements?” My experience, especially at last months FAC meeting here on Salt Spring is a resounding NO. The management team just sat there with blank stares and attitudes and never really chimed in with feedback or suggestions of their own. Being on live cams, getting ferry notices via email and looking at the status of loads on “current conditions” it is obvious that the same problems are happening in a pattern for months and years and nothing is being done about it.
Sorry to have missed the event yesterday at the winery. A number of factors made it hard for me to come.
Reservations would be helpful in the short term. It’s at the point where any important off-island appointment requires a full day off work to ensure catching the appropriate ferry. However, the capacity on the new Vesuvius/Crofton ferry is ridiculously inadequate. I don’t think anyone was fooled by the re-painting of the parking lot. It’s difficult to see how reservations would work when the cars are frequently parked far up the street and there is no way to go past. This is a complex problem that probably needs more than one solution. Yes to reservations, variable pricing, no dangerous cargo sailings in the middle of the afternoon and more capacity.
I like the notion of a reservation fee that is applied to your full ferry fee..and forfeited if you do not use that ferry. It would help even those who can’t get a reservation as the ferry is already booked…you then know you have little chance of getting on and you can reserve the next ferry. At least that way, you guarantee your ferry travel for appointments and can sit at home rather than the terminal for less critical trips.
I spent most of 2018 in Vancouver for medical treatment, the last half of which I travelled back and forth from the island. Relying on bc ferries have been stressful and exhausting as I would have to arrive several hours early to ensure I got on the ferry. My commute was 6 hours long there and back (including transit in Vancouver). I was unable to reserve because the current system does not accept visa debit and I do not have a credit card. Not that I could afford the reservation fee anyways.
I like the many suggestions regarding the reservation fees being included with the fare rather than extra (and forfeited if no-show). They could even go higher then.
Also, anyone depending on the ferry for a medical appointment should get priority (with an appointment conformation, I suppose).
Those that require a ferry to drive to their regular employment…that is probably reasonable in some situations, but also seems like an extremely wasteful, car-culture excess that needs a more logical solution (as in, work and live in the same community).
All of the Ferries should have a ticketing system akin to the airlines. Pre-Purchased tickets should be cheaper then show up “standby” tickets. Sailings can be added and accommodated for well in advance and people can make alternate plans if the space is not available. It is absolutely ridiculous that we did not follow suit decades ago.
Yes definitely a reservation system would help reduce the anxiety about missed appointments etc that we go through now. But it doesn’t resolve the lack of capacity. It’s mind-boggling that in the 7 years we’ve lived on Salt Spring, capacity on the Fulford run hasn’t improved, even though it’s clearly getting more and more overloaded with more and more misses for SS residents and visitors alike. Another thing that should be considered is a passenger only ferry from Ganges to downtown Victoria. I believe that would eliminate a lot of vehicle traffic. I would happily walk, take a bus or cab from Victoria Harbour to any appointments I have there.
A reservation service would resolve absolutely nothing! The simple fact is that BC Ferries in a corporate effort to squirrel away a few millions to pay its executive bonuses has decided that a half-arsed service to and from SSI is a terrific idea because a) it saves them a fortune in fuel and b) Salt Spring recently voted itself ungovernable and ungoverned and thereby incapable of taking any effective action.
Well, there’s a bit of hyperbole, no?
Under the proposed self-governance, seven people would do whatever they wanted with Salt Spring. Under the current system, you need your elected officials (yes, we do have them, despite assertions of “ungovernance”), CRD, Islands Trust, Ministry of Transportation, VIHA, and a few other TLAs on board before you can rip up some land and put over-priced condos on it.
One of our basic tenets of governance is, “To preserve and protect the rural character of the island.” Do you know of any municipality anywhere who has such a mandate written into their charter?
More condos, less farmland, higher housing prices, more transient population, crony council governance — no thanks. I like the effective governance we have.
And at this moment, Harold Sweringa, chair of the Salt Spring Island Ferry Advisory Commission, is working on near-term plans to have a bigger boat put on the Crofton-Vesuvius run.
Just because it isn’t “business as usual” doesn’t mean we don’t like the very effective governance we have here! Please, keep your crony municipal council governance model in the cities.