With ferry tensions mounting and frustration with BC Ferries coming to a head, here’s an update of how the Ferry Advisory Committee and the Bowen Island Municipality Transportation Advisory Committee has been advocating for Boweners.
The situation: Late in the last school year some high-school students were left behind when trying to travel on 7:30 a.m. ferry from Snug Cove because the passenger capacity was reached. Some of these students had exams that day. BC Ferries responded by raising crew from B licence (392 passengers) to A licence (432 passengers) for the rest of the school year.
BC Ferries resumed licence A at the start of the school year in September, but after about a week of passenger numbers not exceeding 392, they reverted to B licence.
B licence is BC Ferries’ regular crewing level for our route, unless we inform them that extra passengers are expected, in which case with due notice they are willing to increase to A licence. The difference is two extra crew, who are employed for several hours, hence the difference involves a significant expense over budget for BC Ferries. These crewing levels are set by Transport Canada for the safe and efficient operation of the ferry fleet. The responsibility for requesting higher crew levels lies with the community.
Since then there have been passenger overloads, three of which resulted in high-school students being left behind.
Both BIMTAC and FAC have been working really hard to get a solution for the community: BIMTAC by chance had a meeting on Sept 25 and added the item to its agenda as a matter of urgency and as a result asked council to request from BC Ferries that they address the problem immediately, either by increasing from B licence to A licence or by chartering a 40-person water taxi at 7:30 a.m. The content of the request was communicated to BC Ferries on Sept 26.
BC Ferries has taken no action to provide transportation for all who require it at 7.30 a.m., despite several further emails from me as the Ferry Advisory Committee chair. They have asked for the number of high-school students leaving Bowen each morning, which we are seeking to supply.
BC Ferries has said that an issue is that the days of the week the ferry is overloaded lack any pattern.
One side issue has been the timing of school buses arriving at the ferry dock. While the cut-off for all passengers sailing from Snug Cove is five minutes prior to published departure time, there did seem to be an issue about the school buses arriving after the cut-off time. There is now a commitment from West Vancouver School district and the bus drivers to get the students to Snug Cove by 7:20 a.m. BC Ferries has said that they will board school students if they arrive by 7:20 a.m.
This does raise a philosophical issue. Which, if any, categories of traveller should receive priority treatment? BIMTAC has debated this and while I am generally an egalitarian till the cows come home, in this case I believe that because the school kids are not in control of how they get to school, the community should acquiesce in their being given priority over commuters and other travellers. Similarly, I am sure that we all agree that medical priority should be given to people with dialysis or chemotherapy treatments.
The situation on Bowen seems to have been exacerbated by the inconsistencies between the different watches on the Queen of Capilano. There are four watches, A, B, C and D. Observers have noted different patterns between these four watches in terms of punctuality of departure, counting of passengers and loading policy. For example, some watches have been loading foot passengers who are arriving at the terminal at 7:27 or 7:28 a.m. – after the official cut-off and long after the first cars got in line. Members of the public have started doing their own guesstimating of the number of people travelling and have called into question the accuracy of the clicker-count method. I have raised this last matter with BC Ferries who responded by saying that the crew is aware of their responsibility for an accurate count.
Tuesday morning, the chair of BIMTAC, David Hocking, and I had a telephone call with Mark Wilson, vice president of strategy and community engagement for BC Ferries. We emphasized the urgency of the issue and how intolerable it is for the community. We urged the company to increase the licence to A immediately for a month while we all look into numbers and patterns of travel and seek some viable permanent alternatives. (It is relevant to note that council approved BIMTAC’s request to approach Translink to provide a foot passenger-only service from Snug Cove to downtown Vancouver for commuter runs.) Mark Wilson could not make any promises but he said he would take this to the top and to respond to us within 24 hours.
Mayor Murray Skeels is also writing a letter to the BC Ferries president, which should be sent shortly.
What can community members do?
- Please communicate your concerns directly to BC Ferries, customerservice@bcferries.com (we realise you are getting irritating form replies, but please keep up the pressure) and copy in BIMTAC (bimtac@bimbc.ca) and the Minister of Transportation & Infrastructure, claire.trevena.MLA@leg.bc.ca.
- Consider attending the next twice-yearly meeting between the Ferry Advisory Committee and BC Ferries, which will take place in council chambers on Thursday, October 25 starting at 11 a.m. This meeting is open to the public who may observe; if members of the public wish to speak, they must submit their intention as an agenda item to me as soon as possible and I (as chair of the meeting) will do my best to include their contributions, which must be limited to five minutes of civil discourse. The rules of the Ferry Advisory Committee-BC Ferries meetings do not permit me to accept comments from the floor.
A final note of thanks: on Sept. 26 Cormorant Marine took the eight people who were not able to travel on the ferry to Horseshoe Bay at no charge, which shows the generosity of Brian Biddlecombe. We are all grateful. However, I entirely agree with his view that the ad hoc chartering of the water taxi is obviously no solution to a problem that is squarely BC Ferries’ problem.
