Southern Gulf Islands route reconfiguration idea

[DENelson83]

If you've ever tried to plan an itinerary to travel in the Southern Gulf Islands using BC Ferries, you may have noticed that the schedules are very hard to predict, and the vessels seem to visit each island randomly, with trips to Swartz Bay and Tsawwassen interspersed in the schedule God knows how. Plus, you have three ships visiting each of the four outer islands on routes 5 and 9—Galiano, Mayne, Pender and Saturna, which seems to be a bit of a waste of fuel. Well, I've come up with a different route configuration which I hope should regularize the routes, and have a side benefit of making mapping the routes a bit easier:


Map data ©2012 Google

On this map, Route 4 is unchanged, linking Swartz Bay to Saltspring at Fulford Harbour and making Saltspring the main transfer island between Vancouver Island and the rest of the SGI. Route 9 is shortened to link Tsawwassen to just Galiano Island, making Galiano the main transfer island between the Mainland and the rest of the SGI. Finally, Route 5 hops among the five islands in a round-robin chain (Long Harbour→Sturdies Bay→Village Bay→Lyall Harbour→Otter Bay), with one vessel going in one direction and a second vessel going in the other direction.

There are bound to be some disadvantages, though, such as having to take two ferries to reach the rest of the SGI from the Mainland or Vancouver Island, having to drive a longer route over Saltspring, and not taking into account the demand for each destination, which is why the crew on Route 5 would have the option of weighing each destination accordingly, only visiting each island a set number of times each day based on demand.

[ferryfanyvr]

The first issue I see is... how would foot passengers from Swartz Bay to the islands other than Saltspring get from Fulford Harbour to Long Harbour to make the transfer? Some kind of dedicated surface shuttle service would have to be set up.

[Low Light Mike]

Jan 7, 2013 1:48:29 GMT -8 DENelson83 said:

If you've ever tried to plan an itinerary to travel in the Southern Gulf Islands using BC Ferries, you may have noticed that the schedules are very hard to predict, and the vessels seem to visit each island randomly, with trips to Swartz Bay and Tsawwassen interspersed in the schedule God knows how.

haha, yes hard to memorize, with all those variations based on the Day of the week, and special things like statutory holidays.

But it is easy to follow using either a printed schedule or the BCF website schedules. Sorted by day and time and destination. I've never had a problem finding the info that I've needed to known when a sailing will be.

[Ferryman]

Not to stomp on your idea or anything Dave, however I believe this has been tried to some extent back in the 80's/90's.

I believe Village Bay, Mayne Island has always been setup to handle the mustering of traffic from the Gulf Islands. I don't have much in the way of hard proof other than word of mouth from locals right now. However Village Bay is the only terminal in the Gulf Islands with two functioning berths to handle two ferries at once. Berth 1 is the smaller dock there which was the original berth for the terminal. Eventually Berth 2 was constructed to handle the larger ferries (V-Class at the time). Believe it or not, Berth 2 was built with provisioning to be double ramped like the Major terminals. This is similar to Berth 2 at Langdale. In fact, Berth 2 Langdale, and Berth 2 Village Bay are likely identical docks. The plan was at the time to have a vessel run around the Gulf Islands and gather up traffic to be dumped off in Village Bay. A V-Class would then come along on her way to Swartz Bay, and pick them up and take them to Swartz Bay. However the biggest problem with that is that it only really worked if there was room left over on the V-Class, and it would probably have to be done while the V-Class was on its way to Swartz Bay. Otherwise for the Tsawwassen direction, the V-Class would have to spin around and dock stern-to at Village since she would have been loaded stern-to at Swartz, which probably isn't really practical. There's a photo somewhere around here of the Queen of Victoria in the late 80's/early 90's docking at Village Bay.

Aside from all that, the only time the schedules for the Gulf Islands really make sense are during long weekends, and in the Summer time. Otherwise it's just a service for the people to have the option to go off the island, like a Ferry service is meant to be.

[Neil]

You start off with the complaint...

Jan 7, 2013 1:48:29 GMT -8 DENelson83 said:

If you've ever tried to plan an itinerary to travel in the Southern Gulf Islands using BC Ferries, you may have noticed that the schedules are very hard to predict, and the vessels seem to visit each island randomly

But then you suggest...

Jan 7, 2013 1:48:29 GMT -8 DENelson83 said:

the crew on Route 5 would have the option of weighing each destination accordingly, only visiting each island a set number of times each day based on demand.

Do you see the contradiction here?

If you've been to Sturdies Bay, you know that there is no room to marshal traffic for four islands. There is also no room at Fulford Harbour- they can't even properly handle Saltspring traffic- nor is there sufficient room at Long Harbour. The Skeena Queen could not handle traffic for anything other than Saltspring. You would be changing a forty minute trip from Swartz Bay to Pender into more than two hours, and funnelling dreadful amounts of traffic across Saltspring. Every island's travel time to Swartz Bay would lengthen. Sorry, but this does not work on any level.

I know we all like re-designing ferry routes from time to time, but, believe it or not, BC Ferries probably is using their vessels to their best advantage, and covering their territory in the most efficient, economical way that their resources allow.

[Mike C]

This system seems a bit odd.

I am a bit conservative as, like several others on this forum, have memorized the "important" sailings for Routes 5 and 9, and actually CAN predict where the ferry is going when. This prediction is actually made primarily based on a document that is published on their website called a "schedule". After reading this document, I find it quite easy to predict where the ferry is headed ;D

Your system requires a transfer at Sturdies Bay where the facilities simply do not exist for doing this, as opposed to Village Bay, which is designed for handling transfer traffic. I am also a little lost on how you plan on getting foot passengers from Swartz Bay to any other Gulf Island besides Saltspring.

The "weighing destinations" option seems ridiculous. There goes any predictability or reliability, out the window.

Also, Saltspring Island does not have the road infrastructure to handle all of those vehicles traveling across the island between terminals. The roads in Ganges are quite clogged as it is, so the notion of forcing people to travel across the island is insane.

[DENelson83]

Thanks for the input. Yes, I did not consider the impact it would have on foot passengers, or the fact that Village Bay was already set up to be sort of a "hub" for the SGI. But still, it doesn't make too much sense to me to have three ships serving all of those destinations. Unless the Queen of Nanaimo is converted to run on natural gas, it still strikes me as a bit of a waste of fuel. I think route 9 should still be downsized to link Tsawwassen with only one terminal in the SGI as a transfer point. If Village Bay is already set up to be that transfer point, then by all means, it can be used that way. As for foot passengers, there's always the option for a water taxi service out of Swartz Bay and Tsawwassen using boats similar to the Stormaway III, but then that would mean more boats, more fuel, more crew, and more money to have to run them.

[Deleted]

Why do you want to downsized the Tsawwassen / Southern Gulf Islands to one terminal in Southern Gulf Island?

I understand the schedule for the Gulf Islands.

[Deleted]

Jan 7, 2013 1:48:29 GMT -8 DENelson83 said:

I do not see any benefit of the plan route on the map above. It will most likely make Gulf Islanders mad and want a new service.

[Olympic Ferries]

I was thinking something more along the lines of this.

You have Route 4 as it is from Swartz Bay to Fulford Harbour on SSI (Skeena Queen)

Separate Route 5 into 5a and 5b
5a - Swartz Bay to Pender and/or Mayne Island (Q-Cumberland (?and Bowen Queen for extra service?)
5b - Swartz Bay to Saturna and/or Galiano (Mayne Queen ONLY?)

Route 9 remains as it is:

Tsawwassen to Sturdies Bay to Village Bay to Otter Bay to Long Harbour (Salish-class vessel)

[Neil]

The latest schedule proposals  have been posted in the southern gulf islands schedule re-design thread... probably more worthwhile to discuss that, rather than another excursion into fantasy ferryland.