BC Ferries is collecting applications to fill up to 10 spots on a 20-person working group that’s going to be looking at “near-term” options to improve service on the Horseshoe Bay-Langdale route – and the chair of the Southern Sunshine Coast ferry advisory committee (FAC) says she’s hoping to see “a broad base of people.”
As FAC chair, Diana Mumford will get one of 10 spots on the working group for what BC Ferries calls “key stakeholder groups,” along with the chairs of the FACs representing Gambier-Keats and the Northern Sunshine Coast.
People representing BC Ferries employees and local government representatives will also be invited as key stakeholders
Mumford told Coast Reporter she hopes the other 10 spots will reflect voices BC Ferries doesn’t hear from as often.
“It’s the community that BC Ferries wants to hear from,” Mumford said. “We as an FAC can always provide our opinions to BC Ferries, and we do that on a fairly regular basis.”
BC Ferries’ vice president of strategy and community engagement, Brian Anderson, said he’s also hoping to put together a diverse group, drawing people with connections to regular commuters, the trucking and goods hauling industry, local businesses, schools, sports teams, vacation home owners, transit users and First Nations.
The working group will have a different focus from the FAC, Anderson said.
“The ferry advisory committee has an overarching, ongoing role. What we’re looking at for this engagement is focused on near-term solutions, being driven from the community,” he said.
“We know that there’s some pressing things that can be done immediately. Whether it’s around communication or reservation policies, loading procedures – what are those things that we can do right now or in the next year, to make the service better? That’s what we want to hear and that’s why we want this working group to be there specifically for the short-term solutions.”
Mumford said she hopes people will keep the need to focus on the short term in mind when they fill out the survey that was released Aug. 25 or send ideas to the working group.
“They have to realize that this is a short-term piece,” she said. “Long term, we really need more capacity, and that’s another boat. This has nothing to do with more boats or more sailings, this has to do with efficiencies.”
She predicted the hot topics will continue to be resident priority and reservations. “But people have to think of the pros and cons of those on both sides.”
The online survey, which will also be available as paper copies at the Gibsons and Sechelt libraries and the Gibsons Public Market, will be open until Sept. 14.
Sept. 14 is also the deadline for applications for a spot in the working group.
Successful applicants will be informed on Sept. 23, and Anderson said the working group will start going over the public input during two days of workshops on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1.
“We want that group to come out of there with recommendations for the solutions that they deem are viable and worthy of future community input,” he said. “Then we’ll supplement it with a couple of virtual community meetings, and then another opportunity for the public to weigh in on these options that have been vetted or supported by the working group.”
The virtual community meetings are scheduled for Oct. 14 and the working group will meet again on Nov. 18 to “develop recommended solutions for implementation.”
People can access the online survey and apply to join the working group at www.bcferriesprojects.ca/aheadtogether
