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West Shore Express Passenger Ferry | Royal Bay to Victoria


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#61 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 20 March 2019 - 11:24 AM

ssi alone has over 30 departures every day in the summer.  25+ year-round.

 

if you are one of the a poor lonely isolated ssi residents these are your only options to get to vancouver island each day:

 

6:00 am
6:15 am
7:00 am
7:50 am
8:10 am
9:20 am
9:50 am
10:30 am
11:40 am
11:50 am
12:50 pm
1:50 pm
2:10 pm
3:20 pm
3:50 pm
4:30 pm
5:40 pm
5:50 pm
6:50 pm
7:50 pm
8:30 pm
9:30 pm
 
plus 4 to the mainland

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 20 March 2019 - 11:30 AM.

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#62 Nparker

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Posted 20 March 2019 - 11:30 AM

Presumably, the frequency of SSI service is only possible due to the profitability of the Swartz Bay-Tsawwassen route.


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#63 Rob Randall

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Posted 20 March 2019 - 11:42 AM

I don't know what the subsidy structure of the HK ferry system is like. It's crazy cheap. I went on the HK/Kowloon Star Ferry years ago and even today it is only 50 cents. Spectacular views.



#64 Matt R.

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Posted 20 March 2019 - 11:49 AM

if you are one of the a poor lonely isolated ssi residents these are your only options to get to vancouver island each day:
 
6:00 am
6:15 am
7:00 am
7:50 am
8:10 am
9:20 am
9:50 am
10:30 am
11:40 am
11:50 am
12:50 pm
1:50 pm
2:10 pm
3:20 pm
3:50 pm
4:30 pm
5:40 pm
5:50 pm
6:50 pm
7:50 pm
8:30 pm
9:30 pm
 
plus 4 to the mainland


Those ones that end in :50 are just great for business! Thanks, BC Ferries.

Matt.
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#65 Fairbanks

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Posted 20 March 2019 - 03:31 PM

I saw a piece on the news about this service reducing traffic load by 1000 vehicles a day from "The Crawl".  I'm wondering where passengers for this service will park their cars.  Locals will have to travel to Royal Bay to embark; a distance of 7 km from West Shore Town Centre.


Edited by Fairbanks, 20 March 2019 - 03:32 PM.


#66 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 20 March 2019 - 03:33 PM

i really don't think anyone needs to worry.  at $100m it's not going to happen.

 

also royal bay does not even make sense for the launch point.


Edited by Victoria Watcher, 20 March 2019 - 03:35 PM.

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#67 Rob Randall

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Posted 20 March 2019 - 03:45 PM

I think the past train and blue boat experiments proved beyond a reasonable doubt that you can conceive any kind of ship, railcar, dirigible, or warp transporter commuting service but unless it's free there will be no takers.


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#68 sdwright.vic

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Posted 20 March 2019 - 04:44 PM

so nobody has given any reasonable comparables then. where a 30-minute long passenger ferry over open water saves you a 25-35-minute car trip.


How about this... that 25 minute car ride is 45 or more during rush hour?
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#69 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 20 March 2019 - 05:00 PM

not on a bus.

#70 sdwright.vic

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Posted 20 March 2019 - 05:24 PM

^okay...

So from BC Transit announcements the bus lane has reduced travel by 10 minutes at most... so bus is 35 minutes minimum.
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#71 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 20 March 2019 - 05:40 PM

by the time this ferry is introduced we will have bus lanes from downtown to colwood corners. plus the mcjenzue interchange.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 20 March 2019 - 05:40 PM.

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#72 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 20 September 2020 - 05:53 AM

not this again.

 

this would be a disaster of an underused service.  takes longer than the car trip.  it's of no use.

 

 

 

https://www.timescol...says-1.24206207

A 2019 report on a commuter ferry said such a service could remove up to 1,000 vehicles a day from local highways and move more than a million people a year between the West Shore and downtown Victoria. It envisioned five catamaran fast ferries travelling between Royal Bay and Ship Point, each with room for 294 passengers, paying $2.50 per 28-minute ride.

 

 

The cost was at more than $100 million, said Martin, with $25 million for a breakwater and dock at Royal Bay, up to $4 million for dock improvements in the Inner Harbour and the remainder for vessels.

The report estimated that the service, if implemented by 2021, would carry 3,077 passengers daily and generate annual revenues of $2.59 million. By 2038, the daily ridership could reach 4,019, for annual revenue of $3.39 million.


Edited by Victoria Watcher, 20 September 2020 - 05:54 AM.


#73 Mike K.

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Posted 20 September 2020 - 06:03 AM

It’s definitely not going to be a $2.50 fare, that’s for sure.

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#74 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 20 September 2020 - 06:31 AM

when the harbour ferries tried to do it for about that much nobody (to the base) wanted to take it.  not even 40 people.  when 400 used to take the free ferries.  that was all before the mckenzie interchange.

 

 

 

About 400 military and civilian staff from the West Shore and Sooke used the ferry daily, and faced the prospect of joining the jam-packed Island Highway and Trans-Canada Highway starting May 1. Nearly 750 DND personnel responded to a survey supporting a private ferry.

 

 

it also won't be "28 minutes".  it'll be 20-30 minutes to get there and get on and then 1-20 minutes at the other side to walk to work.  and then several days each winter it will not run due to weather.


Edited by Victoria Watcher, 20 September 2020 - 06:37 AM.


#75 Barrrister

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Posted 20 September 2020 - 06:47 AM

Part of the obvious problem is that Victoria is not Toronto. There are not forty story office towers concentrated within a few blocks of each other. There are simply not that many jobs concentrated within a few blocks of the inner harbour. 

 

If you work at the hospital or the University being dumped at the inner harbour is not a lot of help. On top of that lets see what is left of the businesses after Covid. 



#76 Mike K.

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Posted 20 September 2020 - 07:02 AM

3,000 passengers is not much compared to 30,000 vehicles. You’ve got upwards of 35,000 passengers/people (if not more) on that highway in private vehicles today.

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#77 Spy Black

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Posted 21 September 2020 - 06:38 AM

I was out at Colwood City Hall on Friday, and took a bit of a tour around Royal Bay.

Holy crap, that place is getting positively massive in terms of number of houses ... and well on its way to getting much, much larger.

 

It's a pretty safe bet that something is going to have to happen in terms of transportation, as little old Metchosin Road isn't going to be able to handle that traffic once the development is completed, two lanes and through multiple school zones doesn't make for an easy transit to Highway 14.

The connection to Veterans Memorial Parkway (to get to Highway 14) is only via Latoria Road, which is no superhighway either.

 

I could see a large parking/transit hub at Royal Bay (think the "no cars" Staten Island Ferry to Manhattan, albeit on a minuscule scale by comparison), with the ferry making multiple stops at Naden/Dockyard, Workpoint, Inner Harbour, and perhaps Rock Bay (as part of the yet to be planned development) and/or Vic West. Of course transit would have to be planned around each of those docking locations, but that's done everywhere else in the world, so it's definitely not impossible.

 

Of course being who we all are, here in the CRD and COV, nothing of the sort will ever happen, and over time the traffic from the Westshore will develop into its own traffic jam, one having nothing to do with getting into the COV, all the while the capacity for vehicle traffic between the Westshore and downtown will slowly hit its maximum capacity, and we'll once again be a somewhat gridlocked region (at least at rush hours), with no mass transit strategy, and no real plan for a mass transit strategy.

 

The CRD is a bus and car extravaganza, and will remain so until most of us are long buried and gone.


Edited by Spy Black, 21 September 2020 - 06:38 AM.

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#78 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 21 September 2020 - 06:45 AM

 

Of course being who we all are, here in the CRD and COV, nothing of the sort will ever happen, and over time the traffic from the Westshore will develop into its own traffic jam, one having nothing to do with getting into the COV, all the while the capacity for vehicle traffic between the Westshore and downtown will slowly hit its maximum capacity, and we'll once again be a somewhat gridlocked region (at least at rush hours), with no mass transit strategy, and no real plan for a mass transit strategy.

 

The CRD is a bus and car extravaganza, and will remain so until most of us are long buried and gone.

 

somehow you assume more jobs in the downtown core.  that's unlikely to materialize.  even if you add 50,000 people to the west shore you are not increasing the amount of people working downtown.


Edited by Victoria Watcher, 21 September 2020 - 06:46 AM.


#79 Spy Black

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Posted 21 September 2020 - 06:54 AM

somehow you assume more jobs in the downtown core.  that's unlikely to materialize.  even if you add 50,000 people to the west shore you are not increasing the amount of people working downtown.

I'm thinking more of a regional transit situation, and, as per your point, much of the passenger traffic may indeed be from downtown going to the Westshore to work.

 

Remembering too that the current mass transit infrastructure involves pretty much the entirety of the CRD getting to or from the downtown Victoria hub, a strategy that would still work for, say, a person living in Gordon Head working a job out in the Westshore. Such a person would take the bus downtown, ride the ferry to Royal Bay, and take a Royal Bay bus into (say) downtown Langford.

 

I'd posit that, for anything to be approved, let alone actually work, any sort of ferry has to be only a part of a much larger transit strategy than simply getting people who live in Royal Bay into downtown.



#80 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 21 September 2020 - 07:02 AM

downtown Victoria hub, a strategy that would still work for, say, a person living in Gordon Head working a job out in the Westshore. Such a person would take the bus downtown, ride the ferry to Royal Bay, and take a Royal Bay bus into (say) downtown Langford.

 

that sounds painful.  i really do not see any demand for that route.



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