With the B.C. Ferries fleet having reached capacity, I think it’s time to accelerate the plans to purchase new vessels for the major routes. To help to make them more future-proof, I think the new vessels should be at least 200 metres long, preferably a good deal longer.
As well as increasing the capacity, plus enabling greater efficiencies by transporting more people and vehicles at a time, it would allow for the greater possibility of changes being made to on-board amenities over the coming decades.
It would also allow for improvements over the current ferries, such as more dining options, a larger shop and a very large kids play area.
Unlike some people, I love getting the ferry. With improvements to onboard amenities, I believe that other people would, too, and would look forward to that part of the journey.
When the route between Tsawwassen and Swartz Bay takes one hour and 35 minutes, plus waiting time beforehand, it is hardly a route that daily commuters can take.
Instead, let’s adopt a different philosophy, of providing comfort, relaxation and enjoyment, rather than a bare-bones platform to be transported on.
Matthew Cousins
The premise of the “fleet having reached capacity” feels a little flawed to me. Not necessarily wrong, but (in my uneducated opinion) I think it’s a fleet management problem rather than a capacity problem. There only seems to be a capacity problem during a long weekend/holiday or when a ferry breaks down. There’s not a five sailing wait on a Tuesday in October, you know?
The last time I took the ferry, they loaded a bunch of semitrucks with us. Maybe they should have passenger only trips and cargo only trips instead? I know Seaspan runs the cargo-only ferries from Swartz Bay. Maybe BC ferries should do the same thing?
I’d also almost argue against more onboard amenities. The ferries are part of the highway system and should focus on getting you reliably from point A to point B. A restaurant is a good idea, but leave the shops and touristy things for when you get to the Island/Mainland.
BCFerries is a Tourism Cruise Line, now. It hasn’t been part of the Highways system since Premier Campbell carved it off to save blue-voting in-lander money. Go see their ads.
Unfortunately, BCFerries is suffering from some problems as a result of being heavily user-pay and a public-private-partnership system, notably a goal of high profitability, a CEO Pay affliction, lack of reliability and effectiveness, and a complete loss of the proverbial plot.
The current Celebration boats have issues with high winds that the Queens and Spirits do not, among so many other problems. We can derive new boats from those solid workhorses.
Bigger boats would allow for labour consolidation, which could help, but the constant loss of a boat for repairs with no spares is bad management – and all but negligent for a service as essential as it was when it was part of the highway system and managed completely internally. But bigger boats can’t run as efficiently during times of lower usage.
It’s time to bring it back into the fold, spend the money we’ve ‘saved’ (squandered) on this el-cheapo setup, and provide proper capacity – and continuity plans!
This is incorrect, the one area the coastal class outshines the rest of the (major size) fleet is heavy weather. They have so much power that’s available at both ends and there’s no need to turn around. That means they can safely operate out of Tsawwassen in almost 10kn higher winds than any of the conventional (single ended) ships. The only reason they dont end up sailing is that the other ships are tied up in the way.
All the other problems are valid criticisms. They were designed based on European vehicle specs (if you’ve ever noticed they only load 1 lane of semis at a time vs the spirits loading 2 lanes). Many parts are only available from Europe, or even worse custom order from Europe (the company that built the elevators went out of business between the time the Renaissance and Celebration were built, meaning there are no spare parts). The propellers were designed too close to water level causing major vibration, which in turn is undoubtedly exacerbating every other problem.