North Island residents will soon have a daily bus service linking their communities to the rest of the Island.
IslandLink has announced plans to add a daily connection between Campbell River and Port Hardy starting May 16, with stops in Port McNeill, Woss, Sayward junction and Port Alice junction.
The company already offers bus service between Victoria and Campbell River, so the new route will connect the Island from tip to tip, and will connect foot passengers travelling on northern B.C. Ferries routes from Port Hardy to the Central Coast, IslandLink said.
A one-way fare on the 230-kilometre route between Campbell River and Port Hardy will go for $74.99, while a ticket from Victoria to Port Hardy will cost $99.99.
Port Hardy Mayor Pat Corbett-Labatt said the new bus link is welcome news to residents in her community.
Corbett-Labatt said she’s already seeing residents celebrate on social media. “They’re very excited about it,” she said.
Port McNeill Mayor James Furney said residents will be delighted when the new service starts.
A lack of transportation options linking the community with the rest of the Island detracts from the livability of the town and makes it pretty much necessary to own a vehicle, even as the world is moving away from private ownership of “gas-guzzling vehicles,” he said.
A “very expensive” taxi service is the current transportation option for Port McNeill residents to reach Campbell River, Furney said, but it doesn’t run consistently.
The daily bus service will be particularly useful to people from islands off northern Vancouver Island who arrive in Port McNeill by boat and don’t have a vehicle, so they’re forced to borrow a car, take taxis or hitchhike, he said.
“There will be some joy in the community.”
The difficulty of travelling around the north Island without a vehicle was highlighted in a BBC reality show last spring in which contestants were tasked with getting from Vancouver to Haida Gwaii without flying or renting a car. Some teams on Race Across the World headed to the Island, hoping to travel to Port Hardy, where they could catch a ferry to Prince Rupert and another to Haida Gwaii.
In Campbell River — described by the show’s narrator as “the last major outpost of civilization on the journey north” — a father-daughter team was told they missed a bus to Port Hardy by 45 minutes and the next one was days away. They asked if there was somewhere else they can go to by bus that has better connections to Port Hardy.
“There’s no bus connections,” the bus station employee told the pair.
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