6400 replies to this topic

[Victoria Watcher]

Institute an Uber like rideshare system where passengers can pay via the app $15 each for a ride off the ferry and into the town and the driver gets $10 from the app for each passenger.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 13 August 2024 - 10:49 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Allow and encourage private passenger-only ferries at major terminals.

[Victoria Watcher]

Explore passenger-only private ferry options to Friday Harbor and Bellingham from our new downtown terminal.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 13 August 2024 - 10:59 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Sidney should invest in a passenger ferry to Salt Spring.

[Victoria Watcher]

Allow and charge for overnight parking prior to the first sailing.   $25.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 13 August 2024 - 11:18 PM.

[Mike K.]

Or more importantly, charge different rates on different days and on different sailings.

Everybody wants to travel on a Monday? Ok. There’s a 50% premium. Or you can book 1 week in advance and pay the regular fare. Also, tourists pay more, regardless. If you have a boat full of vacationers and British Columbians can’t get to the mainland for medical appointments or whatever, at least allow the system to make more money.

[lanforod]

Yeah that last point is something. I had a reservation for a ferry return for a medical appointment. Traffic in Richmond made me 3 minutes late getting to the ticket booth. Would not honor the reservation, put me on standby and I missed the boat by 4 cars. Thankfully it was a return trip and a nice day but could have been a trip there and stupid hot or something too.

[Mike K.]

Summer line-ups can be hellish on those exposed parking lots. Are we unable to install awnings? Maybe make them a premium lane. Surely we can do something to not require people to be in the hot sun for several hours. I did a long weekend drive up by pure happenstance once. It was brutal. We were also too far from the terminal to walk to the Horseshoe Bay village for supplies, under constant alert that a lane might shift and we’d have to move.

Not a soul from BC Ferries to be seen, to offer items for sale. They’d have made a ton of money selling water and snacks from a van that day. I’m sure they see dozens of days like that.

[Victoria Watcher]

^ True.

[Mike K.]

Oh oh.

 

Queen of New West has broken down. 10AM, 2PM and 6PM sailings to Swartz Bay have been cancelled. Sailings from Victoria have been cancelled for noon, 4PM and 8PM.

[LJ]

Backside of shipyard where the last 4 ferries were built in Gdansk Poland.

 

Beautiful day there today.

 

 

Edited by LJ, 03 September 2024 - 11:12 AM.

[Mike K.]

Oh yeah! How’s Poland so far?

Please give us the pros and cons, if you can. 99% of people who travel to Europe don’t consider Poland, but I hear those that go kick themselves for not having gone sooner.

I’ve only been once, for just a couple of days in 2010 and not far into the country from Berlin so I can’t comment much.

[Nparker]

As I have commented before, Poland, especially Krakow, was one of my favourite places during my tour of eastern European in 2013.

[LJ]

Beautiful, clean, law abiding, inexpensive, terrific history. Having rid themselves of communism in 1980 people appreciate that hard work can improve your lot in life and give you things you  never had access to before.

 

Sort of the opposite to what Canada has been doing since 2015.

[Mike K.]

Right, in 1989 you mean. The Poles understand what socialism/communism means. It leads to nothing good.

[LJ]

Right, in 1989 you mean. The Poles understand what socialism/communism means. It leads to nothing good.

1989 was the end of it, the Solidarity movement started in 1980. 

[Mike K.]

Yes, but Poland was not rid of communism in 1980. It was at its worse in the early 1980s, including martial law.

 

The start of the fall of communism was after the Papal visit in 1979, when Pope John Paul II said the world was watching. That galvanized the country, and when the grip of communism started to crumble, but the communists would try to strengthen their grip and things got ugly.

[Victoria Watcher]

Queen of New Westminster out six months for repair: B.C. Ferries

One of the ferry’s propellers came off on Tuesday while it was travelling on its regular route, from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay.

 

https://www.timescol...ferries-9489757

 

 

I'm hoping Raeside has a cartoon coming.  

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 07 September 2024 - 11:37 PM.

[Mike K.]

And I hope it involves the navy fishing out the propeller to use in a broken sub.

[max.bravo]

A prop falling off seems like a big deal. Somewhere there’s a senior chief engineer who had to answer to why it happened…