FERRY CUTS - The Sweet Spot
While the Ferry Advisory Committee Chairs have
not yet succeeded in figuring out how the provincial government's ferry cuts
will safeguard the coastal ferry system, they do think they've found the sweet
spot for the least painful possible service cuts.
"If the government's goal
is to find the biggest savings for the smallest traffic loss and least hardship,
then we suggest it looks harder at the major routes, and at the big money-losing
route hiding behind the profit-makers," says Brian Hollingshead of the Southern
Gulf Islands.
The three major routes
(from the Lower Mainland to Vancouver Island) are the giants of the system. Yet
they're facing the slimmest of cuts compared to the 22 smaller
routes.
|
Operating costs
|
Percentage of total operating
costs
|
Cuts
target
|
Cuts as
a percentage of operating
costs
|
System
|
* $ 522
million
|
100 %
|
$ 18.9 million
|
3.6 %
|
3 Major
routes
|
$ 294
million
|
56
%
|
$ 4.9 million
|
1.7
%
|
22
Smaller routes
|
$ 228
million
|
44
%
|
$ 14.0 million
|
6.1
%
|
Operating costs: BCF report to the BC
Ferry Commission
The three major routes are
considered the ferry system's profit makers. Yet one of those routes is one of
the system's biggest money losers.
The Tsawwassen-Duke Point
route has been losing money for at least ten years. In each of the last five
years it has lost somewhere between $24 million to $30 million a
year.
The route has an average
capacity utilization of 48%. It could stand to lose one of its four shifts on
weekdays for ten months a year and still have room for all its traffic. A
combination of consultation and a revised reservation system could produce a
schedule to accommodate the freight and commercial carriers who use the route
heavily.
These cuts to
Tsawwassen-Duke Point alone would save $9.6 million. The two profit-making major
routes also could be trimmed more. With their massive scale, they can absorb
cuts without the drastic impacts and community hardship that will be felt on the
smaller routes
The government could
use these savings from the major routes to buy time: to develop a business case
for cuts to the smaller routes; to conduct social and economic impact
assessments on the communities for which they're lifeline transportation; and to
reverse any cuts that don't make sense.
While the government
considers this suggestion, the FACC will continue to ask them for the detailed
information they have used to develop the current cuts plan.
The FACC also continue to
ask Transportation Minister Todd Stone to explain to ferry-dependent communities
how the current cuts plan will fix the current barrier of the high fares, and
how it will advance the government's goals for jobs and the economy.
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