Read before you buy!

From time to time we're all guilty of failing to read the small print when we make a purchase - but when that purchase is costing over $1,000 then surely it has to be a must. 

Take BC Ferries' Assured Loading Tickets (ALTs), for example. If you're a frequent traveller between Vancouver Island and the mainland, ALTs offer priority travel right up to 20 minutes before departure time. The down side is that you have to pay for ten ALTs at a time, and that's currently going to cost you $1,250 up front. And you have to use your tickets within two years, or the card expires, along with your cash.

The conditions of sale are clearly spelt out by BC Ferries - and so when someone fails to take notice, is it really any wonder that the company says "sorry, not our problem" ?  No matter how clearly terms and conditions are spelt out, there will always be customers who fail to read them and suddenly realise that they're out of pocket. Today's Nanaimo Daily News cites one such case, and without doubt there will be others.

The moral of the story is clear - buyer beware! If you're paying as much as $1,250 to any business, then make sure you understand what you're getting. After all, BC ferries spell out the terms quite clearly.... [click to enlarge]

We are sailing...... ( #1 )

One of BC Ferries' best kept secrets is SailPass - a prepaid voucher for either 4 or 7 consecutive days' travel over much of British Columbia's island ferry network. 

With a 7 day SailPass costing just $40 more than its 4 day counterpart, the 7-day ticket offers much better value - though, in reality, even 7 days hardly provides enough time to experience all of the dozen or so available routes. Still, with claimed savings of around $200 on a typical 7 day itinerary, Island Transport Solutions decided to put the product to the test.
As with any multi-route ticket, planning the journey is half the challenge - balancing the desire to get maximum use out of the ticket with the desire to actually see something of Beautiful British Columbia along the way - apart from a series of ferry car decks that is.  Our journey begins in just over 7 days time - and already we've realised that not everything is quite as straightforward as it seems.

First off, where can you buy your SailPass?  They're not sold at ferry terminals - even the major terminals - so you either have to search out one of the few Tourism Centres that does sell them (which means only Nanaimo or Victoria on Vancouver Island) or buy it on line. If you're a BCAA member, there's another 10% discount if you buy on line - but, perversely, the discount isn't available if you take your BCAA membership card into a sales agent. There must be some logic to that..... or maybe not.

Ok, so now you have your ticket to travel - your passport to freedom of the Salish Sea. Well, not so much a ticket - more a flimsy sheet of paper, less than half the size of the receipt you printed off your computer when you booked it. The sort of thing any student with access to the school's laser printer could produce in less than 5 minutes. And small enough to blow away at the first sign of a sea breeze. Note to self - pin it to something heavy before you leave. If BC Ferries can issue credit-card style Experience Cards, why not do the same for a SailPass? That way, they could prevent counterfeits and monitor the amount of travel undertaken - surely of value for future marketing?

Next it's time to plan your itinerary - to build a vacation around your ticket to travel. If it's summer, it's probably wise to pre-book overnight accommodation along the way - but what about reserving space on ferry crossings?  Only the major routes offer advance reservations - but how do you decide whether a reservation is actually needed? Obviously, BC Ferries will encourage you to make advance reservations on all major routes - after all, it means they can charge you another $15 for the privilege. 

Our planned itinerary will [probably] look something like this:
Day 1 : Gabriola-Nanaimo Harbour; Departure Bay-Horseshoe Bay; Horseshoe Bay-Langdale.
             overnight at Sechelt on the Sunshine Coast.
Day 2 : Earls Cove-Saltery Bay; Powell River-Comox. Overnight in Courtenay.
Day 3 : Buckley Bay-Denman Island; Denman-Hornby Island. Return to Courtenay overnight.
Day 4 : Chemainus-Thetis Island & return. Theatre and overnight in Chemainus.
Day 5 : Cofton-Vesuvius. Maybe a quick hop over to Pender Island? Overnight on Salt Spring Island.
Day 6 : Salt Spring-Tsawwassen via Mayne Island. Overnight in Vancouver.
Day 7 : Tsawwassen-Swartz Bay; Brentwood Bay-Mill Bay; Nanaimo Harbour-Gabriola.

Well, that's the plan anyway, with various events along the way. So what about reservations? $15 may provide peace of mind on the busy crossings - but it does mean committing to a specific departure time - thereby limiting the options for sightseeing. Decision time - we reserve for Powell River-Courtenay (only 4 sailings a day) and Salt Spring-Tsawwassen (1 or 2 sailings a day). The rest will just happen - or not!

Online reservations are easy - but hardly straightforward. On routes between the Mainland and Vancouver Island, you pay only the $15 reservation fee at the time of booking, then pay the fare (or present your SailPass) at the ticket booth. Then there's the Salt Spring route. Before I realise it, I've paid the full fare online for a journey that I've already paid for on my SailPass. That can't be right, surely? A phone call to BC Ferries Customer Services (press 4, press 2, press 0 - you know what I mean) confirms that reservations on this route require full up-front payment. But I've already paid - and I don't want to pay twice!  "That's a problem with this system" explains the customer service agent - "but don't worry, I'll refund the fare and put a note on the reservation that you have a SailPass".  Sounds good - so long as the reservation is still there when I get there!
Only time will tell..........

Ferry changes throw Greyhound passengers into confusion

Unexpected changes to BC Ferries' Horsehoe Bay - Departure Bay route started today - leaving confusion among passengers booked on Greyhound's coach services to and from Vancouver Island.

With minimal notice to passengers, BC Ferries has implemented new schedules on its Horseshoe Bay routes to Nanaimo and Langdale, because of a shortage of ferries caused by a siezed engine on the Queen of Surrey, which normally plies the Langdale route. This means that sailings to and from Departure Bay, Nanaimo will now run up to 30 minutes later than advertised, from today until September 6.

These changes seem to have caught Greyhound on the hop, with their Vancouver-Nanaimo services not retimed until a week later (July 6) to fit in with the new ferry schedule. No changes are so far proposed to connecting services between Nanaimo to Victoria, Campbell River and Port Hardy - so there is a risk that some passengers may miss their connections in Nanaimo.

Tofino Bus, whose Island Express service links Nanaimo with Port Alberni and Tofino has rescheduled its evening service on Fridays and Sundays to leave Nanaimo at 9.30pm, 15 minutes later than advertised, to ensure the connection from Vancouver, starting Friday (July 2).

Meanwhile, BC Transit is also retiming its 9pm #90 Intercity Connector service from Horseshoe Bay to Parksville and Qualicum Beach to run 30 minutes later from today until September 6.

How do passengers find out about these changes?  You may well ask! Greyhound does not publish a schedule leaflet, so it's only when you book that the times are confirmed. And if the schedule changes after you've booked.........?

Check out the Island Transport Solutions website for up to date ferry, bus, train and floatplane services to the islands

School bus challenge

This week, the Ministry of Education has announced that they are to spend a cool $12.5 million on 106 new green [well, yellow anyway] school buses - of which just two will find their way to the Nanaimo-Ladysmith School District.

In a press release this week, Minister of Education Margaret MacDiarmid revealed:

“Student transportation services cost more than $90 million annually. Over the coming months, we will be looking for new ways to provide bus transportation for students that will save money that can be reinvested in classrooms.”

Nanaimo-Ladysmith School District expects to spend $1,285,000 on transportation this year - of which $1,239,000 is the direct costs (excluding administration) of running 17 school buses around the district. That's an average $73,000 a year for each school bus. On top of that is the capital cost of the buses themselves - with the new 42-seat buses costing $114,000 each, rising to $140,000 for bigger, 84-seat buses.

MacDiarmid suggests that some school districts are saving money by providing students with Transit passes instead of running their own buses. That's great - providing you have a transit service to start with!  Needless to say, there is no transit service on Gabriola - and one cost saving measure proposed by the School District is to assign a mechanic to drive the link bus from the Gabriola ferry to NDSS and back, instead of employing a driver - meaning there's less time spent on maintaining the buses. Sound economy? I'm not so sure.

And meanwhile, Gabriola cries out for a transit service to help the ever growing number of older folk - and young families without their own transport - access the necessities of life. BC Transit has promised a review of the potential for a transit service - but it doesn't look like it's coming anytime soon. And yet we have a school bus on the island that sits idle most days between 9am and 3pm, and daily from 5pm onwards.

Now I'm not suggesting that the yellow school bus should be used to provide a transit service during the day - anyone who has peeked through the door of the school bus will know that you need the agility of a mountain goat to climb the flight of steps inside the bus - which is the price that you pay for designing a school bus on a cheap, mass-produced truck frame.

No, what is needed on Gabriola is some joined up thinking between School District 68 and BC Transit to invest in a step-free transit bus that can be used for both services. Yes, I know that means there would be no transit service before 9am or for two hours in the afternoon - but by sharing the running costs between BC Transit, School District 68 and Nanaimo Regional District, we could secure a transit service for shoppers, medical appointments and leisure trips at a fraction of the cost of a dedicated transit bus. Once that's established, then it's time to consider whether a second bus - for peak time travel - can be justified.

It's time to accept that it's no longer sustainable to run two separate transport systems in rural communities : it's time to think outside the box and look for an integrated solution to secure transport services for the future. The yellow school bus working for just 4 hours a day is living on borrowed time. And meanwhile, Gabriola walks.