BC Ferries says a repair to the Langdale terminal ramp could take up to 10 days.
“This is a complex piece of terminal infrastructure, right?” Ritinder Matthew, director of communications for BC Ferries, told Global News on Monday morning.
“And so while it’s still early in the repair process, our initial estimate is that repairs could take up to 10 days. We’ll have a better understanding of the timeline as the work progresses today, and we’ll continue at keeping customers updated through service notices.”
Berth 1 at the Langdale terminal suffered a mechanical issue on Sunday afternoon, restricting vehicle traffic to the main car deck of vessels.
The same issue happened on May 16, which caused a major backlog on the route to and from Horseshoe Bay and left people behind.
It also forced drivers already on board the Queen of Surrey to back off on the Vancouver side on Sunday night.
“So we identified a mechanical issue yesterday that was affecting the upper loading ramp at the Langdale terminal,” Matthew said.
“And so while our maintenance crews are working on the repairs, we’re loading vehicles using the main deck, the main vehicle deck only. So our sailings are continuing to operate but with reduced vehicle capacity. And so because of that, there’ll be no standby traffic between Horseshoe Bay and Langdale while the repairs are underway. So travel will be by advanced booking only in both directions for at least the next week.”
Matthew said that BC Ferries knows the recent disruptions have been frustrating, especially for Sunshine Coast residents who rely on this route daily, but she said they are keeping the route operating and working to restore full service quickly and safely.
Eric McNeely, provincial president of the BC Ferry & Marine Workers’ Union, said this infrastructure failure reinforces the challenge that BC Ferries has, which is deferring investment.
“So if we look back a couple years ago, BC Ferries did an assessment of their terminals and there’s 30 to 50 per cent of the terminals were in a state of needing significant repair, so in poor condition or needing significant repair,” he said.
“Langdale has, especially the upper ramp in Langdale … had challenges for basically its entire duration and what we’re seeing certainly through Sunday and going into this week looks to be more of that, where folks on the Sunshine Coast who already had one of the busiest routes in the summertime now have less capacity due to less access for that upper car deck, and I think that’s going to lead to some real challenges.”
McNeely said the dissolving of the ferry advisory committees means people living there have less of an outlet to highlight any concerns they have, whether that’s infrastructure, sailing frequency or vessel delays.
He added that the issue in Langdale is leading to frustration in Powell River as people tried to travel from that terminal, leading to backlog and delays for passengers.
McNeely said crews on board the vessels are trying to do what they can to get as many people across.
“But even as late as last night, there was crews that the vessel had to stay in Horseshoe Bay, and that meant that crews were taking water taxis back and forth, which is not sort of the normal process and when you consider there’s people travelling from around the province to support that second vessel, I think what it says is the system isn’t running at full capacity because of deferred investment,” he said.
Matthew said that BC Ferries has a robust maintenance program and regular check-ins.
“That’s actually how issues like this are found,” she said.
“And we always close, you know, in this case, we shut the ramp down so that we could continue assessment and we could line up repairs as quickly as possible.”
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