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West Shore Express Passenger Ferry | Royal Bay to Victoria


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#161 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 05 October 2020 - 06:57 AM

and the maritime museum don't forget.



#162 Mike K.

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Posted 05 October 2020 - 06:58 AM

The biggest infrastructure mistake made in this region was not connecting Esquimalt with View Royal at the time Halifax connected Dartmouth. Not having that crossing has relegated us to having to drive in totally opposite directions from where we actually want to go, like having to go north to get to the West Shore, and vice versa.

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#163 Mike K.

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Posted 05 October 2020 - 07:05 AM

Cruise to Venice and see St. Marks Square!
Cruise to Alaska and see the glaciers!
Cruise to Turkey and see the Roman ruins!
Cruise to Langford and see the Costco!

You’d have a point if Ogden Point didn’t look like an abandoned industrial site more fitting of some land-locked place in the rust belt. The optics of the entry into Victoria are terrible, like worst on the west coast terrible, and there’s little appetite to change it.

Royal Bay is planning a grand promenade with master-planned communities along the coastline with clear views of downtown Victoria beyond. Your average cruise ship passenger will be delighted by that sort of thing, and some might even buy the “Old Town Victoria” package for a look-see on their way back from Butchart.
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#164 Nparker

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Posted 05 October 2020 - 07:30 AM

....Royal Bay is planning a grand promenade with master-planned communities along the coastline with clear views of downtown Victoria beyond. Your average cruise ship passenger will be delighted by that sort of thing, and some might even buy the “Old Town Victoria” package for a look-see on their way back from Butchart.

I am a fairly avid cruiser and I can't imagine I'd be all that excited to visit the residential suburb of any city, even if it has a very nice port facility. The one nice thing about Ogden Point is that cruise ship passengers don't have to get on a bus to explore the city. 



#165 Spy Black

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Posted 05 October 2020 - 07:35 AM

Ogden Point is currently a total mess, really just a miss-mash of car dealership storage, bus storage, and random while lines and assorted derelict buildings ... and a "welcome" tent for cruise ship passengers that wouldn't be out of place in Li'l Abner's Dogpatch.

The entire facility needs to be re-thought, and Mike is right in positing it as the transit hub linking the Westshore to downtown Victoria.

 

James Bay Residents Association will have to be put in their place unfortunately ... and understand that they no longer enjoy the moniker of "quiet little neighbourhood" unaffected by the rest of what goes on in the COV.

They are, in fact, a neighbourhood directly adjacent to the downtown core ... but really, bus traffic doesn't have to run right through the middle of James Bay, it can easily skirt most of the residential areas via Dallas Road and the Erie/Kingston/Quebec/Bellville wrap-around to the Inner Harbour.

 

There is really a lot of potential transit solutions ... too bad the only real "visions" of what could be show up on Vibrant Victoria, and not at assorted City Halls in the region.


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#166 Spy Black

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Posted 05 October 2020 - 07:37 AM

 The one nice thing about Ogden Point is that cruise ship passengers don't have to get on a bus to explore the city. 

But of course our proposed high-speed ferry from the Royal Bay cruise ship terminal to Ogden Point will put those same cruise ship passengers right where they are now in only about 15 extra minutes than their current walk from the ship to Dallas Road :)


Edited by Spy Black, 05 October 2020 - 07:38 AM.


#167 Mike K.

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Posted 05 October 2020 - 07:39 AM

But you’re happy exploring a cruise ship industry-operated “town” along your stops? Because that’s what many of them are, a giant corporate stopover designed to appeal to cruise ship passengers who are none the wiser.

The cruise ship industry doesn’t care about authenticity, it just needs to fulfill the Jones Act and be on its way. Ogden Point is a tragedy and to think nothing has been done with it over the span of 30 years goes to show how careless we are towards this industry, but the thought of the port moving to Colwood suddenly has everyone rushing to downplay Colwood? From a visual and optics angle it will be world-class compared to Ogden Point. And people will love getting on a passenger ferry to spend a few hours checking out downtown Victoria.

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#168 Barrrister

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Posted 05 October 2020 - 07:48 PM

I suspect that many on this blog have totally missed the obvious solution that is being crafted by the CofV council as we speak. The plan is to make downtown Victoria increasingly undesirable to the point where there is only limited traffic to the downtown core. 

 

On a serious note, businesses are starting to move out and a lot of younger families are seeing the Westshore as the place to be. 



#169 FogPub

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Posted 07 October 2020 - 12:29 AM

No. That is not the plan anywhere along the route. It is all at-grade, 100% of the way.

And that right there is the problem, and why none of this is going to be much use in the long run: making one transport type more efficient will come at the cost of making another type - in this case pretty much all other types - less so.

 

If you're going to build any sort of light rail it has to be above (or below) grade except in areas where it doesn't interact with any other transport infrastructure, if it's going to make any real difference. (they should do the same with the bike paths where they meet major roads e.g. where the Lochside bike trail crosses McKenzie at Borden there should be a bridge similar to the one that goes over Hwy 1 by Uptown)



#170 Rob Randall

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Posted 07 October 2020 - 06:51 AM

Ogden Point is a tragedy

 

Who cares? Who spends more than five minutes there? People know Victoria and they don't waste time getting there. Who says, we went to Venice, Italy but that airport--so boring to look at it ruined the whole trip.



#171 Barrrister

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Posted 07 October 2020 - 06:54 AM

Ogden Point is starting to look better than downtown. Our city council has made progress.


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#172 Mike K.

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Posted 07 October 2020 - 07:15 AM

Who cares? Who spends more than five minutes there? People know Victoria and they don't waste time getting there. Who says, we went to Venice, Italy but that airport--so boring to look at it ruined the whole trip.

Venice has a very nice airport.

There’s a reason why the entire world invests so heavily into ports of entry; they’re the first and last thing people consume on their visit. It sets the tone, and cements the experience.

I’m sad that we’ve slid to the point where “who cares” is literally the sentiment towards the largest, most important tourism component of a city that depends heavily upon tourism.

I think you’d be shocked by how many people remain on the vessel when in port. One look out the window and they’d rather stare into a bottle or a slot machine. Not everyone “knows” Victoria. We’re not quite as big on a map as our tourism officials would like us to believe.

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#173 On the Level

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Posted 07 October 2020 - 07:19 AM

I suspect that many on this blog have totally missed the obvious solution that is being crafted by the CofV council as we speak. The plan is to make downtown Victoria increasingly undesirable to the point where there is only limited traffic to the downtown core.  

 

While I know you were joking, I think there is some truth to that statement although I'm not saying that CoV is deliberately doing it.  Victoria has become increasingly a gated community instead of being run like a business and making attempts to attract the other ~300K citizens that make up the CRD.  Ignoring the needs of the mainstream population, promoting ghettoization and making it increasingly difficult for someone from outlying areas to travel or work downtown has consequences.


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#174 Nparker

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Posted 07 October 2020 - 07:36 AM

...Victoria has become increasingly a gated community...

If by gated community you mean prison, then you're correct.


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#175 JohnsonStBridge

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Posted 05 January 2021 - 10:08 AM

How do you make a commuter ferry more extravagant? Add a gondola of course. Perhaps this could connect with a Monorail on the Victoria side.

 

Colwood mayor pitches 10 acres for gondola, parking

 

Imagine a future where you live on the West Shore and commute to downtown Victoria using a commuter ferry and a gondola.

 

“It’s one of those ideas that you start thinking about and you just can’t stop talking about it,” said Colwood Mayor Rob Martin of his vision. “I don’t believe in using our waterfront as a parking lot, so that’s where a gondola comes in.”

 

Martin is proposing that a 10-acre, city-owned lot, just behind the site for the new Royal BC Museum Collections gallery along Metchosin Road, be turned into a parking lot and gondola system. Commuters could park their vehicles and ride the gondola about a kilometre into the Royal Beach area, which Martin has flagged to waterfront developers as as ideal location for a commuter ferry to the downtown core.

 

He said council hasn’t determined the potential for the 10-acre piece of land yet. There is no funding in place for a gondola project and there has been no discussion of it at council.



#176 Nparker

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Posted 05 January 2021 - 10:13 AM

...There is no funding in place for a gondola project...

This.  :whyme:



#177 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 05 January 2021 - 10:24 AM

why not also make the participants skip rope for 3 minutes then each answer a skill-testing question too?

 

it's well known that the more barriers and curves and you place in front of efficient transportation the more widely used it is.


Edited by Victoria Watcher, 05 January 2021 - 10:25 AM.

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#178 Rob Randall

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Posted 05 January 2021 - 10:58 AM

Trust me, you don't want to be in a gondola in open ocean. That's SS Minnow stuff.



#179 Rex Waverly

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Posted 05 January 2021 - 11:00 AM

I mean, i happen to think gondolas are under-utilized as a mass transit system, especially in BC with the terrain that we have; the only place that i'm aware where they're widely used for transit is South America. 

 

But yeah, to expect people to drive and park, then hop on a gondola, then take a ferry?  Can't see that working at all. Especially on the return trip, when the ferry drops everyone off at once. One of the big advantages to gondolas is that they are continuously loading / unloading so the wait time is usually low, but if there's a big crowd getting off a ferry at once, that would very quickly overload the gondola's loading ability.


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#180 Rob Randall

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Posted 05 January 2021 - 11:03 AM

Wait, he means a sky gondola, not a boat gondola? OK, then.


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