Just when Powell River residents thought ferry service couldn’t get any worse, it did. The Queen of Chilliwack replaced the Queen of Burnaby on the Powell River-to-Comox route and chaos ensued, at least in the initial days.
A storm kept the Chilliwack in dock for the first day, with service resuming only in the evening. As the week progressed, late sailings and overloads occurred on nearly every sailing.
BC Ferries attributed the problems to the crew becoming familiar with the loading procedure. It’s hard for mere ferry users to understand why this happened, since the vessel was on the route last year. But apparently the lack of familiarity with the vessel kept the crew busy fitting the pieces of the puzzle together for up to 40 minutes at times.
Then, much to the delight of Texada Island residents, BC Ferries decided to pull the North Island Princess off its regular route to sail a test run to Vancouver Island. This happened on Friday afternoon, September 30, with no warning to residents. The company placed the Tachek, a much smaller vessel, on the Texada route.
This brilliant idea was to prepare for the Thanksgiving weekend, when traffic is expected to be heavy. The North Island Princess has one scheduled roundtrip to Vancouver Island on Monday afternoon, to assist with overloads.
The Chilliwack is an unsuitable vessel for the Powell River-Comox route for a variety of reasons, including its smaller capacity compared to the Burnaby. BC Ferries’ stopgap measures attest to that. It seems the company doesn’t have a suitable replacement because surely it would not put the Chilliwack on a route to deliberately create chaos and confusion, would it?
Late sailings and the chance of missing a sailing because of overloads are unacceptable. Powell River residents need to travel to Vancouver Island for a variety of reasons, including medical appointments. Businesses need to ship goods across the Strait of Georgia. Thanksgiving is a holiday that many families celebrate together, yet how many people will be rethinking their plans because of the potential for overloads this weekend?
Powell River and Texada Island residents don’t receive reduced fares when service declines. As ferry-dependent communities, we deserve timely, efficient and predictable service. Instead, our experience often involves late sailings, inefficient service and unpredictable solutions.
BC Ferry Commission is reviewing the Coastal Ferry Act, legislation that governs ferry service, and will make recommendations to the provincial government next year. For ferry-dependent communities, change cannot come soon enough.
