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Abysmal ferry service

Letters

Editor:

A longer version of this letter was sent to Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Claire Trevena.

I am so upset I don’t know where to start. I am a local. I have lived here 40 years, raised my daughter and granddaughter here. I owned a small business here for 20 years, and put on the Pender Harbour Jazz Festival for nine years.

The ferry service on the Langdale-Horseshoe Bay run is a nightmare. COVID has not only reduced the number of sailings on our run, but has meant reduced capacity on each sailing. For this summer, that has meant up to 10-hour waits for locals trying to get to work in Vancouver, or trying to get to urgent medical care by either a specialist or a special test like an MRI, which is not available locally. And I understand that after the tourist season is over, we will not return to two ships on our run.

There are no reservations available, because BC Ferries has switched their attention to the tourism industry, leaving local residents in the dust.

Priority loading was not thought out or designed well, and was a mess, so now it is cancelled. Priority medical loading is now based on one’s ability to wait at the terminal! This is absurd.

This means that commuters, some of whom are first responders or medical workers, and those of us with critical medical issues cannot get to where we need to go on time. So we miss our appointments.

We need assured loading for resident commuters, and assured loading for any urgent medical appointment on the Lower Mainland. Stamina to wait at the terminal is a poor criterion for receiving an assured medical loading letter from a doctor.

This run is our highway. We have no choice! Tourists or family coming to visit can wait in line. Those of us who commute or need urgent care cannot.

Carole Rubin, Garden Bay