BC Ferries warns of potential 30% fare hike as costs rise

The caput of BC Ferries is informing of immense fare hikes connected the skyline arsenic request continues to turn portion its fleet is being pushed to the limit.

Nicolas Jimenez said the approximate summation is 30 per cent successful bid for the publicly-owned institution to support up with ostentation and negociate operating and superior costs.

The ferry institution has plans to regenerate portion of its aging fleet with 7 larger caller vessels, the archetypal of which they’re aiming to person successful work by 2029.

However, Jimenez said the estimated outgo to physique vessels has risen by astir 40 per cent since 2020, adding that with the existent fares, they inactive don’t bring successful the gross to screen their operating costs and superior needs.

“The pressing request to regenerate aging assets requires further concern beyond what our existent exemplary allows for,” helium said successful a statement.

There is simply a headdress connected fare increases implicit the adjacent 4 years acknowledgment to a $500-million publication from the provincial authorities successful 2023.

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“We’ll enactment with BC Ferries and volition guarantee that affordability is maintained for British Columbians,” Premier David Eby said connected Wednesday.

“There is an onus and determination is simply a work connected BC Ferries to bash what they tin to bring down their operating costs arsenic well.”

A 30-per cent hike would construe to astir $30 much for 1 idiosyncratic to instrumentality a standard-sized conveyance from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay, bringing that summons to $130.

Any imaginable fare hike would not to into effect until 2028.

–with files from Troy Charles