Greyhound Canada cuts daily sailing service with B.C. Ferries

A spokesperson for Greyhound Canada said she can “empathize” with passengers inconvenienced after the company eliminated its daily sailing service with B.C. Ferries between Horseshoe Bay and Departure Bay in Nanaimo.

Maureen Richmond, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, told the Georgia Straight that as of April 4, Greyhound buses no longer make two daily return trips via ferry across the Strait of Georgia; they now only provide pickup and drop-off at designated points at each terminal.

“I can certainly understand and empathize with that frustration,” Richmond said by phone. “Because”¦that does provide a disadvantage for passengers who are travelling with luggage or bags or other hand-held items, even youngsters.”

It is the latest cut in a years-long pattern of service reduction. Two years ago, Greyhound offered eight trips per day between Vancouver and Nanaimo. Prior to last fall, Greyhound provided six daily crossing trips with B.C. Ferries, according to Richmond. However, the company reduced that to two trips several months ago before abandoning the crossing option altogether this week after B.C. Ferries refused to grant Greyhound a fee concession on what the company claimed is a money-losing route.

In an application to reduce service, filed with the provincial Passenger Transportation Board last October, Greyhound claimed that in its fiscal year ending March 31, 2010, it lost almost $1.4 million just for operating the “cross water on ferry bus service 6 times per day in each direction between Vancouver and Nanaimo”.

Richmond said B.C. Ferries cost Greyhound $166 per trip per bus. In one year, that alone amounts to $790,000, she said.

“So then you are looking at those very challenging and high costs and trying to keep the costs low for the passengers and that type of thing,” she said. “We looked at the ridership on the schedule, the cost of boarding the coaches, and just, frankly, it wasn’t beneficial to the operations to continue operating on the ferry.”

Richmond said earlier discussions with B.C. Ferries to lower fares were unsuccessful.

For Alberni–Pacific Rim NDP MLA Scott Fraser, this is a “cause for concern”.

“Is the public interest being looked out for here?” he asked in a phone interview with the Straight.

Fraser, also the NDP local-government critic, said members of the mid-Island-based Strathcona Regional District—a conglomeration of four electoral districts and five municipalities, including Campbell River—drafted a resolution on the bus-ferry issue last fall for this weekend’s SRD annual general meeting and convention of the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities in Sidney.

“I would hope that the Passenger Transportation Board will ensure that this significant change will not inhibit the public’s access to transportation to and from Vancouver Island,” Fraser said.

Meanwhile, B.C. Ferries spokesperson Deborah Marshall was unapologetic. “We’re not going to give our service away for free,” Marshall told the Straight by phone. “They’re taking up space on the car deck.”

The Straight asked what B.C. Ferries would tell Vancouver foot passengers who will now have to board at least three separate buses as well as the ferry (and carrying their luggage) to reach their destinations: one to Horseshoe Bay, one from Departure Bay to the Nanaimo Greyhound station, and another one to their final destination.

“B.C. Ferries provides marine transportation,” Marshall said by phone. “We’re not in the bus business. Greyhound has decided to discontinue their service, and, you know, that’s not a decision B.C. Ferries makes. That’s a decision Greyhound made.”

Marshall conceded that it affects people using B.C. Ferries’ service.

“Indeed it does.”

There will be no porters on hand to help anyone, Marshall said.

“We’ve got a luggage-rack system that people can use,” she said. “But, really, your questions should be for Greyhound.”

Last fall, taxi pickups of B.C. Ferries passengers in front of its Departure Bay terminal were halted for 10 weeks after B.C. Ferries reportedly demanded a $9,000 annual fee from each of two Nanaimo taxi companies for pickup rights. The two sides came to an undisclosed settlement on December 10.