BC Ferries says it’s still looking at tweaks to the schedule for Langdale-Horseshoe Bay (Route 3), as yet another petition circulates calling for the company to close the gap between the last two sailings out of Horseshoe Bay.
Earlier this year BC Ferries introduced an “expanded” winter and shoulder season schedule that spread the sailings out over a longer period in an effort to improve on-time performance and ensure a year-round 5:30 p.m. departure from Horseshoe Bay to serve commuters.
Mark Wilson, the ferry company’s vice-president of strategy and community engagement, told the Oct. 24 meeting of the Sunshine Coast Ferry Advisory Committee (FAC) that over the summer months Route 3 is “chock-a-block” when it comes to demand, and that demand continues to cause overloads and delays.
But, the expansion of the shoulder and winter schedules has led to improvements.
“What we’ve seen on those changes, although there’s still room to improve, is that those changes starting last fall for the shoulder and the winter season have improved the on-time performance for that period.”
BC Ferries’ director of fleet operation strategy, Peter Simpson, said it’s been harder to get improvements in July and August, in part because there are more sailings on all the routes using Horseshoe Bay, leading to congestion.
“Where we’re putting the focus for July and August is revisiting some of the schedules, looking at a little bit more expansion,” he said. “We may be coming back to you with ideas around starting, in just those two months, the first sailing a bit earlier and the commuter sailing perhaps a little bit later.”
The FAC also heard about a drawback to the expanded schedule from Juleika Villanueva, a Gibsons woman who launched a petition on Change.org asking BC Ferries to close the three-hour gap between the last two sailings from Horseshoe Bay on the schedule that started Oct. 9 and runs to March 31, 2019.
Villanueva’s petition says the gap is making it impossible for some families with children who play sports with teams on the Lower Mainland and for some shift workers, like nurses.
“Just one extra sailing between 8 p.m. [and] 11 p.m. would make all the difference to these young people that must travel to the mainland,” Villanueva wrote in the preamble to the petition which now has more than 1,000 signatures.
Villanueva rose during the Q&A after the meeting to tell the BC Ferries reps that the gap means “our kids sitting for three hours at the terminal at nighttime on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday – whenever their practices are. If they can’t make that 7:50 ferry they have to wait until 10:55 at night on a school night. It’s really affecting our lives, it’s affecting our kids’ sleep, it’s affecting their school. It’s holding them back… These are kids that are given opportunities on the mainland that they’re having to turn down.
“My kid has quit the team for this year – that’s the decision we’ve had to make as family, that the ferry service just didn’t work for us,” she added.
FAC chair Diana Mumford said the committee heard similar concerns during the first period under the extended schedule that started back in January.
Wilson said one of the issues over the winter is that ferries have to be pulled out of service for refits and repairs. “I wish I had a quick and easy solution for you… It’s a series of compromises and it’s not that assets are sitting idle across the system [in winter]. They’re in refits.”
Simpson added that Ferries is willing to look into alternatives. “It’s still evolving. We’re not downing tools on this at all.”
BC Ferries representatives at the meeting also said the company’s longer term planning calls for two-vessel service on Route 3 in 2024, and completion of several capital projects, including a new reservation system and more ships, that could mean waits will largely end at major terminals, including Langdale.
