By Dan Marshall

Ridership up as BC Ferries moves to summer schedule

Jun 20, 2016 | 12:59 PM

BC Ferries summer schedule starts June 21st.

Spokesperson Deborah Marshall says because of higher traffic volume, they’ll have more sailings on the major routes than they did a year ago.

“Just this past spring we’ve seen an increase of about six percent in vehicle traffic.  So we want to make sure we’ve got enough sailings for the summer time.  We’ve actually scheduled over 200 more sailings to our major routes this year over last summer.  Over the summer period we’re going to have about 34,000 sailings,” said Marshall.

Marshall says the fact that ferry fares didn’t go up for customers may have contributed to those numbers, but it’s more likely that other factors have increased ridership.

“The low Canadian dollar.  More Canadians are staying at home and it’s also encouraging more US visitors to come up to British Columbia.  Also the price at the pump for people filling up their RV’s and their personal vehicles, when the gas prices are a bit lower than they were last summer that gives people more discretionary income.”

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BC Ferries has also released its profits for the last fiscal year.

Net earnings for the ferry corporation were $69.6 million dollars, up from $49.1 million the year before.