BC Ferries

[Smurf]

Just as good as outrageous salaries and bonus's for upper management. Right.

[LongHaul]

Interesting article in the March 1st, 2014 Vancouver Sun by Stephen Hume. Takes a bigger picture look at the BC Ferry problem which leads to results that should be investigated further by the Provincial Government.
If the results are correct they should be incorporated into any planning the government may be developing for BC Ferries.

Some excerpts from the article follow. The link to the complete article is below.

The tourism-dependent Gulf Islands lost a cumulative total of 2.7 million visitor trips over the decade after a newly privatized BC Ferries corporation began steadily reducing service and raising passenger fares.

Another 559,000 visitor trips vanished from the Central and North Coast routes after 2004, for a total of more than 3.2 million.
The controversial austerity program that Gulf Islanders say is hurting regional businesses — the percentage of self-employed entrepreneurs there is about three time the provincial average — is defended by both ferry authorities and the provincial government as an essential measure to offset rising operating costs.

But annual financial reports to the ferry commissioner show smaller service routes cited as money drains often operate in the black. The Swartz Bay-Gulf Islands service, for example, generated net surpluses of $2 million in both 2013 and 2012. The red ink rises when servicing costs for ferry company debt that has zoomed from zero to $1.4 billion in just 10 years are applied.

And even as the corporation was starting to trim more than 5,000 sailings to and from small communities with no alternative, it was simultaneously pouring cash into a hole in the water called Route 30, a daily ferry service between Tsawwassen and Nanaimo.

Route 30, one of the three major routes to Vancouver Island cited as the ferry system’s money-spinners, has, in fact, consistently operated at annual losses that dwarf other losing routes over the period when cuts were decimating the visitor traffic that sustains the region’s economically vital tourism sector.

Tom Toynbee, who returned to Saltspring to take over Mouat’s, a company his grandmother began there in 1907, points an accusing finger at the provincial government. He argues it privatized the ferry system not to improve an essential service but as an expedient way to get the costs off its books.

“What has amazed me,” says Toynbee, “is how compliantly most people in the media bought into the government story. The ferry system was regularly described as ‘massively subsidized’ when, in fact, it is the least subsidized of all the major car-carrying ferry systems in the world.”

So what’s the plan?

Well, it appears there is no plan. A policy paper delivered to the provincial government in 2011 noted that while there’s much talk about marketing the provinces’ tourist attractions — like the Gulf Islands — there’s no planning that actually “ties together the main policy areas for tourism into an action-oriented business plan.”

Gosh, I’m no economist, but I’d say a greater public “investment” in ferry services aimed at recovering those vanishing tourist trips might be one strategy for stimulating business activity and generating some concurrent increase in provincial tax and export revenues.

Put another way, cutting off your nose to spite your face seems a weird way to go about developing B.C.’s economy. Just saying ...

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Ferries+austerity+program+based+false+assumptions+Stephen+Hume/9565270/story.html

[zoo]

To bad the rich cost of our fuel in BC, (taxes) is making it difficult for you to realize a profit.
You should try running a business in BC.
Instead of talking about BC ferries not making a profit, they should show the people how much the government makes of the sales tax, gas tax etc it makes off charging its own business. Millions are made.
Yes MR. government its difficult making a profit when your making so much off us isn't it?

[Bsuds]

I don't know for sure but suspect that BC Ferries wouldn't pay the fuel taxes. Translink and similar either.

[Glacier]

Opinion: BC Ferries’ Discovery Coast debacle turns into pure farce
Tiny Nimpkish gives tourists an experience they won’t forget, but for all the wrong reasons
BY MICHAEL MCCARTHY, SPECIAL TO THE VANCOUVER SUN MARCH 17, 2014


BC Ferries’ Nimpkish, the smallest and oldest ferry in the fleet, has replaced the Queen of Chilliwack on the 16-hour open ocean voyage between Bella Coola and Port Hardy.

Imagine this. You booked your trip in Stuttgart last fall, based on a friend’s rave recommendation. She said: “B.C. has the most beautiful scenery in the world. You must drive the Circle Route and especially you must explore the Discovery Coast by ferry.”

There was some worry for a while because you’d heard the Discovery Coast ferry was cancelled, but then the B.C. government launched a replacement and the transportation minister himself promised “tourists will love it.” Thank goodness, because you’d already paid full fare for the trip. It’s a huge commitment to fly halfway around the world, and it costs a lifetime’s savings as well.

You rented an RV in Richmond and were wowed by B.C.’s beauty from Boston Bar to Bella Coola, but what is this? Now you can’t get your RV on the ferry because there is only space for four RVs? Why didn’t anyone warn you in advance? It was almost impossible to make a reservation in the first place because no one at BC Ferries Vacations answered the phone. And no tour operator in Europe would book the trip either. Hmm . . . .

So you had to sit on the dock in Bella Coola for a few days, reading the ads in the laundromat and watching the gulls. There was no guidebook on the BC Ferries website to download about the Circle Route with any useful information about essentials such as where to buy gas. So you ran dry at Kleena Kleene, which is shown on the map as a town or village but doesn’t exist. Or you could have simply stayed at some of the lovely wilderness lodges you passed along the way, but there was no information provided about any of them on the BC Ferries website either.

What is this tiny barge called the Nimpkish you see bobbing at the dock? It looks like a child’s bathtub toy, suitable for crossing the Bella Coola harbour. Certainly they aren’t suggesting this little boat is suitable for a nine-hour journey at sea? No, someone must be joking.

You remember what Hilda said about her journey “along one of the longest fiords in the world?” It’s a 275-nautical mile trip, for gosh sakes. The worst part, she said, was being in the open water in the big Queen of Chilliwack when a breeze blew up and the ferry wallowed like a drunken hippo. But at least that vessel was 100 metres long and weighed 3,500 tonnes with 115 cars and 300 passengers. This little Nimpkish tub, according to Google, is 41 years old, 33 metres long and holds a maximum of 16 vehicles. Its ancient engine clunks along at a maximum speed of 11 knots; no wonder the trip to Bella Bella takes 9.5 hours, then another five hours to Port Hardy.

Wait, what is this? There is no drinking water on board? It’s a good thing Franz didn’t drink all the beer sitting on the dock at Bella Coola while he was talking to the gulls. And the only available food is a vending machine next to the toilet selling Twinkies? The only place to sit is on hard plastic benches? The captain admits we can sit in the front seat of our cars and play with the knobs on the dash, but the radio doesn’t work because there is no reception. Sit for nine hours in our cars? Ha ha, another comedian.

You must admit the crew provides great entertainment. First, there is an old TV set in the corner where the steward can play DVDs. Maybe the steward shouldn’t have chosen Titanic, but that proves the staff has a sense of humour. There were those poor folks from Berlin who became violently seasick when the Nimpkish (apparently the name means “violently ill” in the local native dialect) hit the open waters of the fiord. That didn’t prove much of a problem because there were so few people on board anyway; evidently most tourists had already seen a photo of the wretched little boat and cancelled their reservations.

You can’t remember much about the wind storm because you closed your eyes and prayed when it hit. The Nimpkish proved to be quite the trooper, although never quite flipping and drowning everyone, but hanging on to the ceiling for five hours proved to be an exercise you’d rather not repeat.

Although the cruise was marketed in Germany for its scenic beauty, it turned out to be a lot more exciting than that. All in all, the trip was like one of the thrill rides at Disneyland these days, with the vomit projectiles sailing through the air that the kids call “technicolour yawns.” Yawning? No, it certainly wasn’t a boring trip at all. It’s hard to rave about the whales and eagles because you couldn’t see anything out of the windows thanks to the pounding wind and heavy waves, but watching Titanic for the fourth time was informative. You can hardly wait to get back home and file a lawsuit to demand your money be returned.

At least, unlike Titanic, the Nimpkish didn’t sink in the end, although you wouldn’t care to push your luck a second time. Wait till you tell them back home in Stuttgart about your trip. They’ll never believe what an adventure it is to travel in British Columbia these days.

[LongHaul]

Maybe the BC Ferries plan is to make the ferry ride itself an extreme adventure for the tourists?

At the trip end BC Ferries can sell T-Shirts saying " I survived the BC Discovery Coast Ferry" which the tourists can
proudly show to their friends back home along with entertaining stories of the trip.

In the vending machine they can include over priced Gravinol along with the Twinkies.

Could be BC Ferries and their Provincial Government Masters are starting to think like Entrepreneurs.....??

[bob vernon]

We've been considering driving out through the Chilcotin this summer to Bella Coola, where some old family graves are located, and then taking the ferry across to Vancouver Island. I've just decided that we're not doing that.

Hey, this might be a Liberal marketing plan. If people quit taking this trip, it can be cut.

[Glacier]

Hey, this might be a Liberal marketing plan. If people quit taking this trip, it can be cut.

It might very well be. Just ask Carsten Ginsburg what the government told him to do.

[Glacier]

Transportation Minister Todd Stone constantly describes his service cuts to BC Ferries, and specifically his elimination of the Discovery Coast direct sailing between Port Hardy and Bella Coola, as “tough decisions”. He claims these cuts are the only possible solution to the economic problems BC Ferries is facing. Minister Stone evidently didn’t look very hard.

BC Ferries’ stated goal is to save $18.9 million by 2016. To achieve this, they are making some big cuts to a number of routes and services, disrupting communities all along the coast and into the Interior, and bringing financial hardship to hundreds of small businesses. Minister Stone asserts these were all “tough decisions” because no easier solution could be found.

But there is a simple solution Minister Stone has not raised.

First, according to the Ferry Advisory Committee Chairs (FACC), the Tsawwassen – Duke Point (Nanaimo) route has been losing $24-30 million a year and operates at only 48% capacity. If it made three weekday sailings instead of four for 10 months of the year, the savings would be $9.6 million over 2 years. That’s one simple cut to reach half the goal.

“Instead of causing business closures and job losses, let’s make choices that make sense,” said Leonard Ellis, Vice-Chair of Save The Discovery Coast Ferry. “With a reservation system and consultation with freight companies, that route wouldn’t lose any traffic at all with this cut.”

Secondly, over the past 25 years the BC Ferries system has increased by only two new routes but has added almost 500 managers. It’s a top-heavy institution that consumes $64 million a year in management salaries. A mere 7.3% reduction in management costs will generate $4.7 million per year, or $9.4 million over 2 years. This second cut covers the remainder of the $18.9 million in savings that BC Ferries says it requires by 2016.

Somehow, these two simple solutions have eluded Minister Stone. He’s been busy making tough decisions like gutting Route 40 to save $725,000, then having to add back refurbishment costs and extra sailings on the inadequate Nimpkish, extra stops on the Inside Passage route, not to mention additional labour and fuel costs, just so his new plan can drive away tourism traffic. The government’s scheme to create savings by adding costs and wiping out small business makes no financial sense.

Yet there is no indication Minister Stone has even considered these simple alternatives. Why?

“This just highlights the fact that BC Ferries should be returned to the Ministry of Transportation and run to benefit the entire provincial economy, just like other transportation systems” said Petrus Rykes, Chair. “Then the Minister would have all the information in front of him to make logical decisions. Right now he’s too remote from the details to understand why his cuts won’t work.”

For more information contact:

Petrus Rykes, Chair
Save The Discovery Coast Ferry
http://www.savethediscoverycoastferry.ca

http://savethediscoverycoastferry.ca/20 ... -decision/

[Rwede]

I have an idea. Petrus can personally pay the large shortfall in revenues that the ferry route costs the taxpayers of BC. Then I'm all for keeping it running to serve his own interests.

[LongHaul]

Interesting article in the March 31, 2014 edition of The Province. Appears our Transport Minister needs to be brought up to speed on the history of BC Ferries or he is trying to rewrite history?

Raises the old argument is the Ferry System an extension of our highways?
In spite of what the Minister says BC Ferries was seen as an extension of our highway system going back to its initial creation by Bennett in the 1960's.

Recall Tourist brochures proudly showing the BC Ferries as an extension of our highways to the islands.

Some years ago Bill Bennett appealed to the Federal Government for help funding the Ferry System as the Ferries were seen as an extension of the Highway System. Article doesn't mention if this appeal was successful? Although the Feds may want to be sure the BC Ferry System is running as effectively as possible before coming up with money? It may be making BC Ferries a "private company" may cause issues getting funding assistance from the Feds even though the one shareholder is the BC Government.

Article and link follows.

http://www.theprovince.com/news/Ferries+cuts+History+exposes+transport+minister+claim+about+ocean/9673719/story.html

Michael Smyth: History exposes transport minister’s claim about our ocean highways
VICTORIA — One of the strongest arguments from coastal communities against B.C. Ferries service cuts is that the ferry system is actually an extension of the province’s highways.

The government wouldn’t dare shut down highways or bridges to save money, so why are they gutting ferry services just as critical to coastal residents?

The argument clearly annoys Transportation Minister Todd Stone, who recently offered a novel new defence against it to justify $19 million in service cuts on money-losing ferry routes.

“Minister, many ferry users insist the ferries are an extension of the highway system,” CKNW’s Bill Good said to Stone in an interview. “Do you reject that argument?”

Stone’s response: “Yes, I reject that argument and so has every B.C. government for a good number of decades now, including ours, the previous NDP government and Social Credit governments before that.”

Well, what do you know? The government never considered the ferries to be an extension of the highway system after all. In fact, no government ever did!

It’s a great alibi for Stone and the Liberals as they slash ferry services. Or at least it would be if it were true. Which it isn’t.

Contrary to what Stone says, every B.C. government going back to W.A.C. Bennett — the founder of the ferry system — considered the ferries to be an extension of the highways and said so many times.
That includes former Liberal premier Gordon Campbell.
“B.C. Ferries routes are an extension of the highway system and ferry travellers have the right to access those routes as they need to,” Campbell said. Who was Campbell’s executive assistant back in the day? Todd Stone.

What about the NDP government of the 1990s? What did they have to say?
Gordon Wilson, the former NDP ferries minister, put it this way: “Those of us who live within communities along the B.C. coast, or on one of the many Gulf Islands, depend upon the ferries as an extension of the highway system. The ferries are to us what public transportation is to other British Columbians.”

And how about the grand old Social Credit party? What was their founding vision for B.C. Ferries?
Bennett established the public ferry service in the early 1960s because profit-driven private ferry operators were not providing adequate service for citizens. Bennett was no socialist. He did not believe in government meddling in the private sector.
But he knew the province needed an integrated, comprehensive transportation system if British Columbia was going to grow and thrive.

That’s why his son, then-premier Bill Bennett, appealed to the federal government for help in funding the ferry system because — listen up here, Minister Stone — the ferries were an extension of the highway system.
“The federal government, in the terms by which British Columbia joined Confederation, promised a ferry transport system to the mainland,” Bill Bennett told the B.C. legislature in 1977.
“The commitment was there to move people to the most advantageous point of the day. That most advantageous point of the day now is an extension of the Trans-Canada Highway from Victoria to Vancouver and Nanaimo to Vancouver, the two main routes.”

W.A.C. Bennett and Bill Bennett argued taxpayers must support the ferry system because it’s part of something bigger; it’s part of the larger system of roads, bridges and highways that makes the province, and the country, work.

And now here’s some untested upstart like Stone trying to rewrite history, arguing it’s OK to gut a ferry service built up over half a century because it was never part of the larger transportation system to start with.

It’s simply not true. Even the current premier, Christy Clark, knows that.

Back when she was a CKNW talk-show host, Clark rejected the argument that putting taxpayers’ money into unprofitable ferry routes amounted to an unjustified “subsidy” because — well, you can probably guess by now.

“That’s the thing that I don’t get about that ‘subsidy’ argument,” Clark said in 2008.
“If there is a ‘subsidy’ going in to support people who live on the smaller (ferry) routes, why don’t they say that they’re ‘subsidizing’ people who live in Whistler by the massive expansion of the Sea-to-Sky Highway?
“Why don’t they apply that same math to the highways they build and maintain that they do to the ferry routes?”

Excellent question, premier. Maybe you should have a chat with your transportation minister about that. And give him a B.C. history lesson while you’re at it.

[twobits]

There is some merit in the argument that the Ferries are an extension of the highway system. I can accept that truth if the people whining about the recent Ferry cuts would also agree that there are many mainland communities that realize their small size and traffic they generate only requires a simple two lane roadway, sometimes gravel, and understand the lunacy in expecting or asking for a four lane highway.

[sooperphreek]

build a bridge

[twobits]

build a bridge

There are a few hundred posts you need to catch up on. On the other hand, why bother because it would require retention.

[MAPearce]

build a bridge

It . Just . Won't . WORK.........