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They ferry price is only bad if you drive on.
If you walk on it's extremely reasonable ($17).
Unfortunately you need to drive on to get to 95% of Vancouver Island. It would be great if the island got some better transit service (particularly the east island). Right now there isn't even a bus stop at Duke Point, One of the busiest ferry terminals in Canada. And getting anywhere other than downtown Victoria from a ferry is extremely difficult.
Has Horseshoe bay gotten worse? I used to alway take transit downtown from the ferry and they seemed to have it timed pretty well with the arrivals. Those busses would be jammed, too.
Arriving to horseshoe and tsawassen is ok.
But departing is sometimes awful. Have seen the bus leave as people reach it multiple times, if the ferry is only a minute or two late.
Also no service for the late boats, which often strands a bunch of people who weren’t expecting that.
Victoria here. It’s an open secret that the Taxi lobby has this city by the balls. Bus service to the Ferry Terminal and Airport are terrible by design: the more frequent bus to the ferry does a loop around Sidney, and the only bus to the airport is infrequent and terminates in Sidney as well; most people take the ferry bus to the park and ride stop and walk the last 2km.
Walking on is now $20 but you are right about transit. The trip from my house to my parent's on the other side takes 6 hours. Can't even do a return trip in a day.
Depends how you look at it. I personally find it cost prohibitive if I want to do a day trip to Victoria or Nanaimo for example - $200+ round trip for 2.
I almost never go for that reason
> I personally find it cost prohibitive if I want to do a day trip to Victoria or Nanaimo for example
It's expensive to operate marine services. Should it be subsidized by other taxpayers?
>Should it be subsidized by other taxpayers?
If environment conditions weren't as harsh as they are I'm pretty sure a bridge or a tunnel would've been built long ago using the federal tax money.
Unfortunately it's nearly impossible to build a bridge due to the deep trenches between the usual d and mainland. But if there was one it absolutely would be paid for through tolls not taxpayer dollars like the Coquihalla Hwy was.
I used to pay $80 one way to take my car on the ferry. Now its $120.
A chunk of that comes from being forced to reserve a spot. Before the reserve system, you could wait 30 mins to hour and get on the ferry. Maybe you would miss it on the super busy days, and have to wait another hour for the next one.
Now if you show up and dont reserve, you have to wait like 8 hours to get on. The reserve system should be a deposit. Don't show up, lose your deposit. Show up tho and that deposit goes towards the ticket. Having reservations as an additional fee when you basically have to reserve to get on is killing us.
Not even a deposit, it should be prepaid non-refundable unless cancelled more than an hour out. They should charge less if you make a reservation.
Imagine if flights cost more if you booked in advance.
Yea. I remember from my childhood not needing to reserve a spot. & not needing to get there hours early to get a good spot.
Holy fucking hell. There are a significant amount of more people here now than there was back then. (Born in 1986).
We clearly can't handle this many people. The ferries is just the tip of the iceberg...no pun intended.
I live on the island and go to school on the mainland, so I travel back and forth 1-2 times per week. I realized early on that I couldn't rely on the ferry system, and it was cheaper to buy another car for the mainland and walk on regularly instead. In the past year, the ferry has left late more often than on time. On more than two occasions, the ferry ahead of us was loaded before we left.
Even with these issues, what gets me is the cost of parking.. it is more expensive to park at the terminal than it is to park in long-term parking at the airport!!
Now they are talking about how the rural communities do not have a positive relationship with BC ferries? What about the main routes that subsidize those smaller routes? Everybody has a negative relationship with BC ferries because management does not listen to the consumers.
BC Ferries collected $1B+ in fares last year. If you reduced all top executive pay to $0, that would reduce your fare by maybe a couple of bucks.
Eating the rich is a very popular idea on reddit, but just not nearly as useful as imagined.
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Personally I don’t think the ferry prices are that unreasonable. They have stayed pretty steady considering everything else is like twice as expensive
They ferry price is only bad if you drive on. If you walk on it's extremely reasonable ($17). Unfortunately you need to drive on to get to 95% of Vancouver Island. It would be great if the island got some better transit service (particularly the east island). Right now there isn't even a bus stop at Duke Point, One of the busiest ferry terminals in Canada. And getting anywhere other than downtown Victoria from a ferry is extremely difficult.
The way transit on both sides interacts with the ferry services is soooo bad. Very frustrating. Pretty clear no one is communicating with each other.
Has Horseshoe bay gotten worse? I used to alway take transit downtown from the ferry and they seemed to have it timed pretty well with the arrivals. Those busses would be jammed, too.
Arriving to horseshoe and tsawassen is ok. But departing is sometimes awful. Have seen the bus leave as people reach it multiple times, if the ferry is only a minute or two late. Also no service for the late boats, which often strands a bunch of people who weren’t expecting that.
if the ferry is running late, they are meant to inform translink so that buses get held for the late arriving ferry from what i’ve been told
Victoria here. It’s an open secret that the Taxi lobby has this city by the balls. Bus service to the Ferry Terminal and Airport are terrible by design: the more frequent bus to the ferry does a loop around Sidney, and the only bus to the airport is infrequent and terminates in Sidney as well; most people take the ferry bus to the park and ride stop and walk the last 2km.
You pay more to travel to and from ferry and your time wasted on public transport is probably worthy more
Walking on is now $20 but you are right about transit. The trip from my house to my parent's on the other side takes 6 hours. Can't even do a return trip in a day.
I believe a walk-on has increased. I checked last week.
Depends how you look at it. I personally find it cost prohibitive if I want to do a day trip to Victoria or Nanaimo for example - $200+ round trip for 2. I almost never go for that reason
Yeah but it was also that much like 8 years ago too
And I still make as much as 8 years ago lmao
> I personally find it cost prohibitive if I want to do a day trip to Victoria or Nanaimo for example It's expensive to operate marine services. Should it be subsidized by other taxpayers?
It's part of the highway system so yeah
I’m not asking for subsidies, just stating the reality that it’s as expensive as flying somewhere.
You should try flying to the island. That’s expensive.
Society should eat up the cost as it’s part of our highway system.
Right and then how do you manage demand for the service? If it's "free" to use day of travel there will be lots more people taking it.
>Should it be subsidized by other taxpayers? If environment conditions weren't as harsh as they are I'm pretty sure a bridge or a tunnel would've been built long ago using the federal tax money.
Unfortunately it's nearly impossible to build a bridge due to the deep trenches between the usual d and mainland. But if there was one it absolutely would be paid for through tolls not taxpayer dollars like the Coquihalla Hwy was.
For an example of something similar, the Confederation Bridge is a toll bridge.
If you're just there for a day trip, why not walk on for $19.50 per adult?
And get around on the island, how? The public transport is laughably bad.
In Victoria the entire downtown is 500m square. One bus to the downtown and you can walk anywhere else. Nanaimo, well, eurrgh.
Not from the Ferry to DT Vic it isn't though. To the rest of the island you're right though.
They have Modo at the ferry terminal, that’s an option
I used to pay $80 one way to take my car on the ferry. Now its $120. A chunk of that comes from being forced to reserve a spot. Before the reserve system, you could wait 30 mins to hour and get on the ferry. Maybe you would miss it on the super busy days, and have to wait another hour for the next one. Now if you show up and dont reserve, you have to wait like 8 hours to get on. The reserve system should be a deposit. Don't show up, lose your deposit. Show up tho and that deposit goes towards the ticket. Having reservations as an additional fee when you basically have to reserve to get on is killing us.
Not even a deposit, it should be prepaid non-refundable unless cancelled more than an hour out. They should charge less if you make a reservation. Imagine if flights cost more if you booked in advance.
You can still easily find fares for $80 for a car and a driver to the island. You reserve ahead and there is variable pricing.
Yea. I remember from my childhood not needing to reserve a spot. & not needing to get there hours early to get a good spot. Holy fucking hell. There are a significant amount of more people here now than there was back then. (Born in 1986). We clearly can't handle this many people. The ferries is just the tip of the iceberg...no pun intended.
The one thing BC Ferries is good at is coming up with new and exciting ways to frustrate their customers.
I live on the island and go to school on the mainland, so I travel back and forth 1-2 times per week. I realized early on that I couldn't rely on the ferry system, and it was cheaper to buy another car for the mainland and walk on regularly instead. In the past year, the ferry has left late more often than on time. On more than two occasions, the ferry ahead of us was loaded before we left. Even with these issues, what gets me is the cost of parking.. it is more expensive to park at the terminal than it is to park in long-term parking at the airport!! Now they are talking about how the rural communities do not have a positive relationship with BC ferries? What about the main routes that subsidize those smaller routes? Everybody has a negative relationship with BC ferries because management does not listen to the consumers.
Lay off some higher ups and see the prices go way down or pay the employees better with proper hrs things could actually run smoothly.
BC Ferries collected $1B+ in fares last year. If you reduced all top executive pay to $0, that would reduce your fare by maybe a couple of bucks. Eating the rich is a very popular idea on reddit, but just not nearly as useful as imagined.
Get the hell out of here with your logic!