Why are BC residents at the mercy of tourism when we literally use the ferries to live? Ferries are completely unusable in the summer that I just plan my life so that I don’t need to go the mainland and I think that’s unfair. You know, considering we pay taxes for this shit.
Edit: Just want to express my distaste for the lemmy community yet again. I posted this as a “change my view” sort of thing and you all just downvote it into disappearance. There are very good comments in this thread that real people put effort into. If you disagree, simply don’t vote at all. I didn’t break any rules. This behaviour is what prevents this platform from growing.
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Tourists are usually unaware that you can book in advance while if you know you need to go in on the 4 PM Friday ferry every week you can book it far in advance.
Don’t you think residents should be able to simply show up? Things happen in life where you might not be so lucky to be able to plan like that.
The majority of people using the ferries today for example are not residents.
okay, so let me try explain a little bit why this is very likely not going to happen.
- it’s a “public” transportation service that’s pay per use, first come first serve, there are different fee depending on time/distance/etc.
- in order to “restrict access” say, use the commercial/residential parking lot as example, you carve out certain part of the capacity that only BC resident can use and BC tax payer have to foot the bill. The parking lot example, commercial side and residential side strata foot the bill for the maintenance and design which area/zone etc for the residential one and it’s gates/etc.
- practically, 80% of BC don’t even use that service, source: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/data/statistics/people-population-community/population/pop_subprovincial_population_highlights.pdf 2021 about 5.2m in BC http://viea.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021SOTI-Report-WEB.pdf 2021 report says +1.2% population for 10,272, so 100% of population is around 856k. which compare to 5.2m is 16% So I lump in another 4% that are not counted to Vancouver Island region but closely tied to the region which should be pretty fair estimate.
That means, if the people that won’t use the service has to pay and reserve for the people that do use the service that would be unfair thus usually, a “toll” would be put in place to cover the cost of transportation deficit. You might ask, what deficit? To have reserved space for resident to use ferry, they have risk of running the ferries with empty space reserved for resident use. Those would have to be “over reserved” for service guarantee. If they under reserve, then you simply have 2 choice, either queue with tourist or queue for the next for resident.
- we have not even talk about the environment impact of reserving those spots just for residents instead of doing as much full ferry each time. That cost is footed by the whole BC as a province. (assuming we do have a carbon budget)
In the end, it’s all about running cost and tourism scheduling. Let me run a very simple situation. Say, a tourist group booked a trip to run a bus with everything scheduled properly. Now, if resident have priority queue, means the whole tourist bus’s schedule is NOT guaranteed. If the fluctuation of local traffic suddenly spike, the tourist group might face 2 hours+ delay. Which is simply not acceptable for a tourism company to run such risk, the tourism industry might simply opt for other first come first serve transportation service. Which would have a big impact to Vancouver Island. And if you remove tourism traffic from ferry, then you foot more cost per trip or face reduced scheduling.
The fact that for all 17+ years I lived in BC I only take the ferry round trip 3 times, and yet the tax is budgeted for subsidize it for more affordable traveling for the Van Island residents I think first come first serve is a fair compromise. Cause the people the visit Vancouver Island for tourism will most likely also visit other part of province, lower cost of transportation benefits everyone.
This is a great comment. Thanks.
Maybe I am just spoiled but I take the ferry to Vancouver almost once per month outside of the summer months.
Oh, one thing to mention - if you’re a resident in Nanaimo who frequently needs to go downtown you might just consider keeping your car on the mainland. It’s theoretically possible to have a ferry with no walk-on room but it almost never happens in practice.
And, like, living on an island is a “luxury” there are complete services on Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast so in theory you can do things locally but if you choose to live there the limited transportation is something you should be aware of.
We usually walk on for day trips to Vancouver and use transit (or even Uber). Horseshoe Bay is well served by the 257 Express bus to downtown.
There’s also Uber/Lyft/taxis and Shaw Go bike rentals. Saves a fair bit. Also opens up the Hullo walk on ferry.
As to the local/commuter vs. tourist thing, it’s debatable either way which is the bigger benefit.
As a local, I think you have a fair amount of flexibility. Not as much as would be ideal, but Hullo has certainly taken some of the load off of BC Ferries (similar to the Seaspan barge for commercial traffic).
The majority of people using the ferries today for example are not residents.
That’s probably a good thing, otherwise your tickets would probably be 3x more expensive. They pay for your ferries that you rely on.
Ferries are the main reason I would never consider living on the island.
But tourists are making plans and are happy to make the reservations. Many have rental cars and already know their exact travel dates months in advance.
There aren’t many residents actually using the ferry so I don’t think many people would notice a difference in service if there was a BC residents only ferry lane that boards first. Within reason of course. I think 20% of every sailing is reserved for drive on customers? Why not 5% reserved for BC residents who pay taxes to subsidize these ships?
I think 20% of every sailing is reserved for drive on customers?
It’s closer to 75-90% (depending on various factors).
And I think you’re significantly underestimating how many BC residents take the ferry. Next time you’re on there walk around and look at plates. I’d be very surprised if you get anywhere close to 50% of personal vehicles with out of province plates.
Lots of rentals in the summer months. But yeah probably like half the people are residents during peak tourism
Do tourists not pay for ferry trips?
Yeah but some of the cost is subsidized
The major routes between Vancouver and the island are profitable without subsidy, the subsidies essentially all go to the minor routes.
The routes that locals use for commuting?
“Plan my life so that I don’t need to go to the mainland”
They’re talking about the Vancouver Island to Vancouver route.
The same routes that are less likely to attract masses of tourists?
Some? If your ferry is like any other, it’s a money maker for the community. If you can schedule trips to get precedence over tourists, you have a much better system than most. Feels a bit like complaining about immigrants taking jobs but its tourists taking a ferry, sorry.
Why would I ever want to leave the island?!?
j/k. My daughter and I are going to Vancouver this week. If I had to go back and forth regularly I would probably be very frustrated but it is a rarity for us.
