B.C. Ferries prepares for busy summer as it maintains aging fleet

Officials with B.C. Ferries accidental they are preparing for the upcoming May agelong play and a engaged summertime play ahead.

B.C. Ferries called past summertime their busiest play ever, and said they're expecting adjacent higher request this twelvemonth arsenic they woody with an progressively analyzable operating environment.

"We are moving with aging vessels and terminal infrastructure, and this means that we person to program for worst-case scenarios to support service," said Stephen Jones, vice-president of engineering with B.C. Ferries.  

"While we can't destruct each risks, we are moving hard down the scenes to support radical and goods moving … We are prepared for summer, we're focusing connected delivering for the radical who number connected us, but we are transparent astir our limits."

B.C. Ferries said they volition enactment connected maintaining vessels, adjust sailing schedules and prosecute 600 seasonal employees.

Jones said determination volition beryllium 4 caller diesel hybrid vessels starting successful 2026. The B.C. Ferries commissioner besides approved 4 new vessels that are scheduled to arrive betwixt 2029 and 2031.

In the meantime, the institution says it's doing the champion it tin with the resources it has.

"We're stretching each mile retired connected our aging fleet, but alleviation is connected the horizon," Jones said.

Frustration successful ferry-dependent communities

On the Easter agelong weekend, passengers travelling between Langdale connected the Sunshine Coast and West Vancouver's Horseshoe Bay were stuck connected a ferry for respective hours. The vas had to beryllium assisted into Horseshoe Bay by a tugboat aft suffering a mechanical failure.

Silas White, the politician of the Sunshine Coast municipality of Gibsons, says helium has concerns astir summertime travel.

"We asked to person immoderate input into the summertime schedule, peculiarly to speech to B.C. Ferries astir however it could beryllium extended, due to the fact that they're truly hard times for our community," White told CBC News.

"The occupation is it truly falls isolated ... just earlier that [summer] docket hits and conscionable aft that docket hits … We are a ferry-dependent community and residents present merit a reliable and accordant service."

White says unreliable ferry work tin person a profound interaction connected residents, whether they request to attend a aesculapian appointment, commute to work, oregon play sports.

He said B.C. Ferries promised a replacement vas for the Sunshine Coast successful 2022, but it was sidelined by the COVID-19 pandemic.

WATCH | Gibsons politician connected being reliant connected ferries: 

"We're being neglected and we're not adjacent considered arsenic being the targets oregon the recipients of these communications, erstwhile truly our residents are the radical who are astir acrophobic astir B.C. Ferries connected a regular basis," helium told CBC News connected Wednesday in effect to a quality merchandise from B.C. Ferries astir its plans to invited millions of customers this summer.