Better communication and more reliable service.
Gibson Mayor Silas White is speaking out after residents were plagued with ferry delays and cancellations that lasted for almost 20 hours earlier this month.
He says putting smaller boats on the route might help improve challenges with staffing sailings.
“If they [BC Ferries] had smaller boats, the capacity utilization would be much better. If people were to miss one run, they’d only have to wait an hour for the next one,” said Mayor White to 1130 NewsRadio.
He says the summer schedules should be implemented for the whole year.
“I think that’s kind of service year-round, we get in the summer in an efficient way would be something very welcome to Sunshine Coast residents and would work for BC Ferries too.”
On Sept. 20, when BC Ferries’ Queen of Surrey experienced issues with its engine, multiple sailings between Horseshoe Bay and Langdale were cancelled for the following days.
White says one of the biggest problems with this month’s delays was the lack of a contingency plan.
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The consequence was that passengers were stranded without a way to or from the coast before BC Ferries was able to move another vessel onto the route.
Mayor White was affected himself as he was on his way to the Union of British Columbia Municipalities (UBCM) Convention in Victoria. He ended up taking a water taxi to Vancouver Island.
White says he was able to bring some of his concerns to provincial officials in Victoria.
“This was a need to touch base again with B.C.’s Minister of Transportation. I had a meeting with him, met with BC Ferries twice, and the BC Ferry Authority. I managed to even get a phone call with the BC Ferries commissioner,” White said.
In his conversations, White made the point that one of the biggest problems is the communication between BC Ferries and passengers.
“People don’t know where to go. They’re misdirected. They don’t know where to park, and we heard BC Ferries’ side of this, too. They talked about how they really had to drop everything. And I’m totally confident they did and make this their top priority to figure out a contingency plan,” he explained.
With files from Ben Bouguerra.