The Bowen Island Municipality Transportation Advisory Committee (BIMTAC) met with senior officials of BC Ferries (BCF), led by their VP Customer Relations, Corrine Storey, Tuesday, June 10th at the Municipal Hall, at its semi-annual meeting with BCF.
There were several issues which came to a head and which will severely impact the island well into 2015. Chief among these is that BCF has reneged on its promised to provide us with equivalent car capacity while the Queen of Capilano (85 car capacity), is out of service in 2015 for her midlife upgrade (MLU). She will be replaced by the Bowen Queen with a 70 car capacity, a vehicle capacity reduction of approximately 20%. While BCF haS stated this refit will take only four months (starting January 5th, 2015) Bowen Island must prepare for serious compromises during this period and possibly longer.
By way of possibly mitigating the effects, BCF has agreed to carry out a number of changes to their service during this period which could include an extra sailing during the lunch hour, passenger-only service, scheduled barge service for commercial vehicles, free parking at the Horseshoe Bay terminal (HSB), and bus service to downtown Vancouver. BIMTAC will be meeting with BCF to discuss these changes.
The root cause of this change is, according to BCF, they do not have enough spare ferry capacity, now that the Denman cable ferry project has been placed in limbo by legal action. BCF also maintains it does not have sufficient spare crew and crew training capacity to cross-train crews from other vessels such as the Island Sky.
BCF will be writing to BIMTAC outlining the improvements that will be made to the Queen of Capilano during the MLU. This will include loading directly into the passenger lounge, and new to BIMTAC, an increase in car carrying capacity from 85 to approximately 97 by adding upper galleries to the car deck. These galleries will have fixed ramps so the schedule should not be affected by vehicle loading and unloading. A BIMTAC subcommittee will work closely with BCF to track all of the upgrades that reflect on passenger service.
The question of assigning the Island Sky to Bowen on a permanent basis was discussed, but BCF made it clear this is not an option (although it does appear the Southern Gulf Islands route may get the Island Sky as a replacement vessel when the Queen of Cumberland follows the Cap into her MLU, although no clear explanation was given.
BIMTAC and BCF did agree to set up a joint working group with the Southern Sunshine Coast Ferry Advisory Committee (SSGFAC) to discuss HSB scheduling and capital improvement plans. The Southern Sunshine Coast community and Bowen have many common interests. The HSB terminal manager was present and agreed there are minor irritants that could be worked out collectively. At the same time BCF is developing a long term plan for capital improvements at HSB and both BIMTAC and the SSCFAC believe, as frequent users of HSB, our opinions should carry some weight, as opposed to the transient users who go on through to Nanaimo.
In the meantime, this summer we will be getting some support from BCF regarding ferry marshalling and flaggers on Bowen during anticipated overload periods. Bowen is one of the few BCF terminals where there is absolutely no BCF-owned ferry marshalling area. BCF will also be supplying new car tags to Bowen car drivers (who use an Experience card) to assist BCF traffic marshallers at HSB. BCF has also agreed to facilitate Bowen Arts Council “tourism ambassadors” from the Visitor Centre who can give information to tourists on the vessel (similar to the Langdale run), notices to remind visitors that Bowen fares are “round trip” fares and to provide extra notice board space for transportation –related notices – service bulletins, schedule changes and bus timetables.
On the issue of homeporting the Queen of Capilano on Bowen BCF has a number of operational objections. BIMTAC made it clear that homeporting – having the Cap overnight on Bowen instead of at HSB - would provide significant economic (and social) benefits to the island and that indeed, Bowen is one of the few minor routes where the vessel is not homeported. Again, as with the MLU replacement vessel issue, BCF operational problems appear to trump any long term gains to Bowen. BIMTAC will be seeking support from our MLA in pursuing this, we believe the government of BC should be promoting economic and social growth on Bowen (and on island communities in general), not throttling it through service reductions and narrow interpretations of operational constraints.
Following this week’s meeting, members of BIMTAC were left with the collective view that, as before, Bowen Island is low on BCF’s priorities and BCF feels it can safely ignore its customers here.
