Dogwood Ferries - Patricia Bay to Cowichan Bay

[Low Light Mike]

Here's a possible future new private route:

An upstart ferry company might be a Malahat alternative
Hugo Wong/
Jun. 11, 2018 7:30 a.m./


A new ferry service might alleviate Malahat congestion.

Dogwood Ferries is a new operation, wanting to run a ferry between Pat Bay and Cowichan Bay via a potential new terminal in North Saanich near the Victoria International Airport.

CEO Dylan Hildebrand, a resident of Maple Bay, said the ferry is meant to connect the Saanich-area with the Cowichan area and its surroundings, and make travel times more predictable. He said with growth in the Victoria-area and the West Shore, the Saanich Peninsula and Cowichan areas are slowly being cut off by congestion.

“We’re becoming two islands; we just can’t get there from here, and we don’t believe the highway infrastructure will ever catch up to the growth we’re experiencing,” said Hildebrand.

Negotiations with various parties are ongoing.

He, along with partners Trevor Small and Jessica Castle, have experience with battery-powered vessels and operate a marine consulting company. He said the plan is to start in 2020 with a car/passenger ferry, with the hope of shifting the ratio to favour passengers over cars as time goes on. Eventually, an electric boat is the goal.

Hildebrand and his partners have been working seriously on the proposal for the last six months, starting with the idea of a passenger-only ferry. Although they like the idea, they found public transportation wouldn’t be ready in time. A car/passenger ferry was deemed more practical, but more costly, but he said they can shift gradually to increase the number of walk-on passengers versus cars.

The route would take about 45 minutes, and the plan would be to run it back and forth from early in the morning until well after dinner time.

The ferry would travel through the territorial waters of the Tseycum and Cowichan Tribes, so negotiations are ongoing there as well. The company says they have signed a Letter of Friendship with the Tseycum, and hope to mostly employ people from the First Nation.

“We can’t go forward and do a good job without them involved.”

Meanwhile, Central Saanich councillor Zeb King introduced a Notice of Motion for the next council meeting to ask the Minister of Transportation, Claire Trevena, to double the sailings of the existing Mill Bay-Brentwood Bay ferry.

The fate of the ferry was not always certain. In the mid-2000s, BC Ferries were considering the future of the route, and considering selling it to a private company, but only one responded with a plan. During that time, King said “every year we had basically a festival for the ferry in Verdier Park by the ferry.” “Ferry Fairies” were even there, rallying to keep the ferry.

“Even at that time, there wasn’t a good argument for getting rid of it because it’s been popular,” said King, adding it’s the second-highest volume in the fleet.

His Notice of Motion was precipitated by the accident on the Malahat on May 24, but when he saw the Premier’s suggestion that a bridge was one of several possibilities, King wanted to reinforce the transit and ferry connections. During the accident, the Route 75 bus that typically goes down Verdier had to be diverted. Central Saanich has asked Trevena and the BC Transit chair Catherine Holt if instead, BC Transit could reverse the route to travel down Marchant Road and up Verdier to prevent interruption.

Now, King wants Central Saanich to write to the province asking if they would add another ferry to the route, doubling the runs so one ferry doesn’t handle it all. The route has been running for decades, since the 1920s, and “clearly the Peninsula was much different in that era than it is now,” and “I don’t think we’ve kept up with the size to match growth in population,” said King.

“This isn’t going to solve all problems, but I think it’s one of a bunch of options that should be considered.”

The discussion to date, said King, has also missed one point: it is a connection for Indigenous communities, too.

“It’s essentially a school bus that come from the Malahat side and go to school at Tsartlip First Nation or have to return home from school. They live on the other side of the inlet but they can catch that ferry.

“It’s long past time that we consider at least a twinning,” said King.

from HERE

[princessofvanfan]

Maybe the NIP would work on this route.

[Starsteward]

Jun 11, 2018 21:46:54 GMT -8 princessofvanfan said:

Maybe the NIP would work on this route.

    The proponents of the Dogwood Ferries plan are onto an intriguing possibility and a proposal that should be given lengthy consideration.
    Historically, I've never understood  why passenger and vehicle traffic arriving at Swartz Bay (and Sidney) destined for up-Island destinations had to be
    routed 'West', to the outskirts of 'downtown' Victoria, only to be redirected North into the winding gorge section of Goldstream Park that eventually somewhat widens
    out as the route rises toward the Malahat summit.
    'IF' an environmentally friendly route can be found or created that could bring passenger and vehicle/commercial traffic across the Saanich peninsula to link with
    the two bodies of water that our creator has already put in place, (Pat Bay and Cowichan Bay), maybe I'm getting too old to do insightful planning but it would make
    imminent sense to join these two bodies of water with an environmentally friendly vessel that improves the overall regional transportation plan, No?
    In the meantime, double the vessel capacity on the Mill Bay ferry route, yes the 'NIP' would suffice, and let's get on with dragging the Dogwood Ferries plan off the
    drawing boards and into reality! First Nation communities have a very important and valuable role to play in this exercise.   
  

[Ferryman]

Dogwood Ferries website is now up and running.

www.dogwoodferries.com/

They also have a facebook page, providing regular updates. Mostly pertaining to potential vessel prospects both locally and internationally.

www.facebook.com/dogwoodferries/

[Neil]

Nothing on their website and no news on their facebook page since last June. Guess that the process of "working with stakeholders" has clued them in on how expensive it is running a car ferry service. Boats to buy, terminals to build, crew to pay... must have seemed so much easier when they were sitting around the table in the pub.

[Starsteward]

Apr 7, 2019 14:06:13 GMT -8 Neil said:

Nothing on their website and no news on their facebook page since last June. Guess that the process of "working with stakeholders" has clued them in on how expensive it is running a car ferry service. Boats to buy, terminals to build, crew to pay... must have seemed so much easier when they were sitting around the table in the pub.

    Glad you dug this little nugget out of the waste-bin 'Neil', as their website looks quite professional but as you say they seem to have gone cold on us. (Or the price of
    beer went up too).
    That said, their concept is not totally without merit given the long delays that can occur on the Malahat at times due to accidents, bad weather conditions and the like.
    Would the government under the Department of Transportation be at all interested in at least going to the public to gain some sort of indication if there is ANY interest
    in providing such a service?
    This service would not seem to meet the increased commuter traffic that comes out of the west-side as I believe most of that vehicle traffic heads towards the inner city,     but I could be wrong.
    I wonder if the Transportation folks have any firm numbers as to where the bulk of vehicle traffic goes from Duncan/Cobble Hill south towards Victoria City and either
    into the Saanich Peninsula or to the West side? And if they do have some research figures how new are they and how often are traffic patterns recorded?
    'IF' there was justifiable traffic to do a crossing that these folks are espousing, would a revamp/upgrade of the Mill Bay route or a new route be something to consider?
    The topic does make good fodder for throwing back a cold one ...or two.
    
    

[Neil]

Apr 7, 2019 15:22:35 GMT -8 Starsteward said:

Apr 7, 2019 14:06:13 GMT -8 Neil said:

Nothing on their website and no news on their facebook page since last June. Guess that the process of "working with stakeholders" has clued them in on how expensive it is running a car ferry service. Boats to buy, terminals to build, crew to pay... must have seemed so much easier when they were sitting around the table in the pub.

    Glad you dug this little nugget out of the waste-bin 'Neil', as their website looks quite professional but as you say they seem to have gone cold on us. (Or the price of
    beer went up too).
    That said, their concept is not totally without merit given the long delays that can occur on the Malahat at times due to accidents, bad weather conditions and the like.
    Would the government under the Department of Transportation be at all interested in at least going to the public to gain some sort of indication if there is ANY interest
    in providing such a service?
    This service would not seem to meet the increased commuter traffic that comes out of the west-side as I believe most of that vehicle traffic heads towards the inner city,     but I could be wrong.
    I wonder if the Transportation folks have any firm numbers as to where the bulk of vehicle traffic goes from Duncan/Cobble Hill south towards Victoria City and either
    into the Saanich Peninsula or to the West side? And if they do have some research figures how new are they and how often are traffic patterns recorded?
    'IF' there was justifiable traffic to do a crossing that these folks are espousing, would a revamp/upgrade of the Mill Bay route or a new route be something to consider?
    The topic does make good fodder for throwing back a cold one ...or two.
    
    

I don't recall where it was, but I seem to remember that sometime recently BC Ferries had considered the possibility of upgrading the current Saanich Inlet route. Or maybe it was a provincial minister or MLA musing about it.

Whatever... the current service model does nothing to provide an option for Malahat disruptions. It's also always seemed to me to be a really under ambitious attempt to make what might be a worthwhile connection, aside from the Malahat issue. I've often thought that a shorter route, from Deep Cove to the Hatch Point area, would provide the same function as the current route, but would add a really useful connection from the Duncan/Cowichan area to Swartz Bay. But that's thinking big, and it's also putting me into the category of others who I've criticized for dreaming up ferry routes with a magic marker on a map. Admittedly, I have no insight into the logistics of two new terminals and the required access routes.
Still. I'm not sure what the current route, with the tiny Klitsa, is supposed to accomplish, in the context of a regional transportation strategy. Coast Ferries started it, decades ago, with the limited resources they had. Maybe it's time to do better. I know one thing for sure... it won't be accomplished by 'Dogwood Ferries'.