The online engagement part of the provincial government’s effort to find out what coastal residents want to see as a long-term vision for ferry services got underway Feb. 2.
The “visioning” exercise came out of a key recommendation from the review of coastal ferry services by former deputy minister Blair Redlin, which was released nearly a year ago.
“Significant investments are being made in ferry infrastructure, with decisions being made today defining the service long into the future,” Transportation Minister Claire Trevena said in a release announcing the launch of a website to gather input.
The website, engage.gov.bc.ca/coastalferries, will be live until March 20.
Trevena has already met with stakeholders on the Sunshine Coast and in Nanaimo, Victoria, Vancouver, Salt Spring Island, Haida Gwaii and Comox.
“What I heard time and time again is that people want to have ease of transportation,” Trevena told Coast Reporter last December, after those meetings. “They know that things are changing, that they won’t always want to be getting in a car and driving to the terminal, getting their car onto the ferry and going. They’re looking at more seamless travel so you can get on a bus, get to the ferry, get where you’re going and get on a bus – right down to could you pay for it all at one go.”
Trevena also said she’s heard a lot from people concerned about the state of the BC Ferries system, but is hoping the online engagement will go beyond that. “We’re asking people to get beyond BC Ferries to what should a marine highway look like in the next 20, 30 years.”
In a letter to the mayors of Gibsons and Sechelt following the Union of BC Municipalities AGM last September, Trevena promised to consider the idea of a pilot project for a subsidized passenger-only service between the Sunshine Coast and Vancouver as part of the consultations.
“When we get the results of the visioning we’ll sit down and take a hard look at where the opportunities are, bearing in mind that at the moment we have this contract with BC Ferries for the main routes. But this is really an opportunity to see what could be done looking at that big picture,” she told Coast Reporter.
Trevena said the ministry is hoping to have a report on the results of the visioning, along with an idea of “where we as a government would like to take it” by the end of May.
