VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The province wants your feedback on how BC Ferries can cut down on costs to save $26 million by 2016. That’s why it held a consultation meeting in downtown Vancouver last night. The open house at SFU Vancouver was one of about 40 meetings in BC communities.

Kirk Handrahan with the Ministry of Transportation wants you to consider things like staffing, the routes utilized, and the cost of those routes.

“Is there more staff on the ferry than people? What’s the annual utilization? How does a route perform in terms of its finances, making money vs. cost of service? What’s the basic level of service needed?” wonders Handrahan.

He says a variety of suggestions that will help boost ridership and generate revenue have been submitted, such as vehicle free sailings out of Vancouver.

“Things like that have come up… connection, from a passenger-only point of view, passenger ferry between Nanaimo and Vancouver or Victoria and Vancouver… better advertising… in cooperation with tourism operators, and ideas about how to better connect the ferries with public transit,” outlines Handrahan.

News1130 spoke with ferry users at the meeting; some say BC Ferries should get rid of certain routes or sailing times.

“A lot of the early and latest ferries have very low vehicle utilization, less [than] like, 10 per cent of the ferry is full,” says Ron.

“I’m sure there is some efficiency in the system. If they could just get out of the existing contracts that they are locked into… I understand that there are some routes that they have to maintain…I’ve been on a ferry this year with 13 vehicles and 69 passengers on a major run from Prince Rupert down to Port Hardy; that’s not sustainable,” says Ian, a frequent ferry traveller.
    
Based on numbers from 2011/2012, almost all of the coastal ferries routes are seeing a shortfall in the millions.

So far, there have been more than two dozen meetings. Public consultation ends in mid-December, with a full report expected in February.