Departure Bay Expansion

[Doug]

Well it's final now...BC Ferries has big plans to expand the Departure Bay Terminal. Here is an article from the Nanaimo Daily Newspaper for those of you who don't know the situation....

Major changes are being proposed for Departure Bay's ferry terminal.

A delegation from B.C. Ferries informed Nanaimo city council of the plans late Monday.

Spokesman Manuel Achidinha said the company's master plan calls for taking over company land next to Zorkin Road and moving the intersection of Zorkin Road, Stewart Avenue and Brechin Road further south, to increase the terminal's parking capacity by 230 vehicle spaces.

"If we proceed with the master plan, we expect traffic lineups on Stewart Avenue waiting for ferries will still occur, but less frequently," he said.

"We're also planning to reconfigure our ferry berthing structures to accommodate the three larger Super C ferries when they come on line in 2007 and 2008."

Achidinha said much of the Departure Bay terminal infrastructure is aging, so B.C. Ferries plans to build new ticket and retail buildings, upgrade the waiting rooms, build a new walkway and add more washrooms.

The foot passenger ticket booth is expected to be torn down as part of the terminal's upgrade, but the plans are in preliminary stages and there may be changes after the public consultation phase is complete.

"We plan to do all of this in three phases, with the first being replacing the marine structures for the new ferries, then reconfiguring the compound. The third phase being replacing the Zorkin Road intersection," he said.

"We plan all this work to occur around existing operations in a well co-ordinated manner."

Achidinha said an open house regarding the master plan will be held March 14 at the Coast Bastion Hotel. (4 p.m. to 8 p.m.) to get feedback from the community on the proposals.

Any thoughts? I think they are doing land reclamation but I couldn't be too sure. I guess we will have to wait and see...this is pretty exciting if you ask me.

[Balfour]

It's a good idea. Departure Bay is too small to handle the current C class loads for route 2, and with the Super C class arriving in 2-3 years, Departure Bay will need lots more capacity.

I'm sure BCF will have an official press release about this soon.

[Dane]

Good idea, any idea where/when plans will be available to take a look at?

[Political Incorrectness]

It said there will be an open house in Nanaimo on March 18th. I am not sure they will release the plans online but a press release is for sure.

[Low Light Mike]

I saw the BCFS presentation to Nanaimo City Council, last Monday night, on Shaw-TV.

One interesting thing that they mentioned was that they will be making the current middle-berth (berth #2?) as the main berth for use by the Super-C. It sounded like that would require some modification. They explained this situation that the Super-C needs a direct-path into the berth, and berth #2 offers the best in that regard.

They want to relocate / reallign the intersection of Stewart Ave & Brechin Rd (the current traffic light just outside the compound.....so that there's more compound room.

They will utilize a parcel of property where Zorkin Rd is currently located (the dead-end road that goes down from the traffic-light towards Newcastle Channel).

Similar to Horseshoe Bay's strategy, they want to get the vehicle ticket booths as far away from the berth's as possible, creating a larger car-waiting area for sailings. They also talked about better food service, and mentioned the success of Tsawwassen Quay as an example (I'm not sure if they want to duplicate that at Dep.Bay, but that's the example that they used).

Sorry I didnt' post this last week, I was lazy.

[QSaanich]

Has anyone noticed that berth 2 at dep bay is a one laned berth at least on the top deck would it look like the new berth 2 at Swartz bay but why wouldn't they use berth 3 see berth 3 at dep bay is the most used dock and why upgrade the berths for the super C's they are not as big as the spirits and just a little bigger then the c class there is no need to upgrade the berths for the super C's

[Ferryman]

That's good they're going to be putting berth 2 into good use again. I think that was the berth the Horseshoe Bay ferries would use back when route 30 was running out of there, and the Alberni and New West would utilize berth 3.

[Curtis]

This is great Departure Bay is becoming more like a better Regular Major Ferry Terminal

[Mac Write]

the Super-C needs a direct-path into the berth, and berth #2 offers the best in that regard.

With the re-building of berth 2 at Swartz, are they doing the same thing and make Berth 2 for the Super C's? That has been my thinking for a while now since it would cut off about 10-15 minutes from having to do the big loop the Spirits do now.