Denman Island Community Page

Summer 2023 Service Enhancements Survey

April 22 - May 10, 2024

In May 2023, our teams travelled to Denman and Hornby Island to hear your input on summer service enhancements and the Denman East Terminal Upgrade. We've received many positive comments from staff and passengers on the service improvements. Now, we are looking for your feedback on how these changes impacted your travel experience.

Service enhancements included:

• Two-ship service between Buckley Bay and Denman West, adding an additional 21 standard vehicle spaces per sailing during the peak season
• Doubling the capacity between Denman East and Shingle Spit by replacing the Kahloke with the Quinitsa, adding 23 additional standard-sized vehicle spaces per sailing from May 18, 2023 - January 19, 2024
• Adjusting the vessel shuttling policy to reduce congestion at terminals
• Updating digital boards at terminals, onboard announcements, and website travel tips to encourage travellers to respect the legal speed limit
• Increasing the number of terminal staff to help with marshalling and ticketing

Please provide your feedback in the online survey here. A printable version of the survey can be found here and dropped off at Buckley Bay terminal before May 8, 2024.

This spring and summer we’re getting back out with our Ferry Advisory Committees and the communities we serve. With a focus on resetting conversations, we’ll be looking at what we’ve heard from FACs and communities over the past two years. We’ll work together to:

• Review the list of feedback we’ve received from each community
• Prioritize the feedback we can action
• Establish criteria that will help a new Community Prioritization Panel make recommendations about what’s most important across the ferry system

This work will result in a prioritized list of action items for each community. From there, a Community Prioritization Panel (CPP) will work to consolidate these items into a prioritized list for the whole BC Ferries system.

All FAC chairs have been invited to participate in the CPP and the panel will deliver a final public report by October 31, 2024. This report will help guide how BC Ferries reviews and makes decisions on changes needed to improve service and experience for customers, and also help inform long-term decisions that align with the ongoing Charting the Course vision process.

Timelines

• May: Virtual meetings with all Ferry Advisory Committees
• June/July: In-person community workshops

Dates and details for community workshops will be posted to this page shortly.

New Safety and Security Measures

In order to create a safe and respectful environment for all, BC Ferries has implemented changes based on recommendations made in its safety review, including:

• Establishing safety and security policies for public events that align with WorkSafe BC requirements.
• Rolling out a new mandatory respectful workplace policy and training across the company, including training in Prevention of Violence in the Workplace for all BC Ferries representatives who will take part in community events.
• Establishing plans and templates to support safety and security assessments in advance of FAC and community meetings.
• Establishing new processes for public events, including the request for participants to RSVP ahead of time, new sign-in requirements, and a new Code of Conduct that will apply to all public events. We’ll provide more information on what you can expect to see at events in an upcoming post to this page.
• Updating the Terms of Reference and Code of Conduct to ensure the correct foundations are in place to support a mutually respectful and productive relationship with FACs.

Stay Informed

We’ll be providing updates to this page in the coming weeks, click the ‘Stay Informed’ icon on the right hand side of the page to receive updates to your email inbox.

We look forward to seeing you soon!

The BC Ferries Community Relations Team

As an essential public service, it is our job to keep people moving safely and reliably. We review our capital plan regularly to ensure it’s helping us achieve those goals. Inevitably, that means some tough decisions as we must work within our budget.

During this year’s annual review, we prioritized two main aspects of our capital investment plan:

1. The work required to ensure the maintenance and continued reliability of our infrastructure
2. The delivery of vessels to replace our aging fleet and meet the growing capacity demands of the communities we serve, and the replacement of berths required to support new vessel introductions.

As a result, we have had to defer or adjust the scope of some of our previously planned projects to work within available funds. For more on project impacts for Denman Island and Hornby Island, please read on.

Although some adjustments have been made, our plans continue to include $356 million in capital investments this year, and approximately $2.2 billion over the next four years (Performance Term Six). We also plan to pursue additional funding opportunities that would allow us to re-evaluate capital expenditures before the end of the next performance term (March 31, 2028). We will keep you updated as we continue to re-evaluate.

What does this mean for Denman East and Shingle Spit terminals?

As we note above, we have prioritized the work required to ensure the maintenance and continued reliability of our infrastructure for Denman and Hornby Island residents. As a result, the terminal upgrades planned for both Denman East and Shingle Spit have been deferred for the foreseeable future.

We’ve heard from the community the importance of safe vehicle travel across the islands. For that reason we will continue to stay connected with our partners including Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, Islands Trust, and other stakeholders to work on operational improvements for vehicle staging, traffic control and communication.

In addition, the intention is to provide year-round increases in service beginning in 2026, once a vessel is available to be deployed full-time to route 22 (Denman East – Hornby Island). In the interim, we will continue to provide increased peak-season service as we did last summer; utilizing the Kahloke alongside the Baynes sound connector on route 21 (Buckley Bay – Denman West), and positioning the Quinitsa on route 22. These adjustments showed considerable improvements in service and decreased wait times last summer. We remain interested in the community’s feedback on changes to summer service and will provide an online survey in the coming weeks.

At Shingle Spit terminal, we continue to work with K’omoks and Qualicum First Nations on remediation measures for the archeological site. We will continue to keep the community updated as these efforts progress. In addition to this remediation work, we are aware of the hatching on the trees surrounding the Denman East terminal and have contacted an arborist to explore means to ensure that the ecosystem remains healthy.

We thank you for your understanding as we make the challenging decisions required to ensure the maintenance and continued reliability of our infrastructure. We will reconnect as plans for these terminals evolve should funding become available.

Denman Island West – Vancouver Island (Buckley Bay)

April 2, 2024 – April 11, 2024

As part of our summer readiness planning, the Quinitsa will be providing service for the Denman Island West – Buckley Bay (Vancouver Island) route between Tuesday, April 2 and Thursday, April 11, 2024, while the Baynes Sound Connector undergoes annual maintenance.

During this period, the sailing schedules will remain the same, but maximum permitted gross vehicle weight (GVW) will be reduced to 39,500 kilograms due to load limits of the berth infrastructure.

We recognize some customers will be impacted when travelling on this route, and we thank the community and local businesses in advance for your patience as we complete this necessary work.

For up-to-date sailing and departure information, visit bcferries.com or follow @BCFerries on X.

BC Ferries is removing a dead tree that poses a risk to the cistern building at the Denman West terminal. In the interest of safety, and given the arrival of winter storm season, BC Ferries has contracted an arborist to safely remove the tree. No other trees will be removed.

Now is the time to shape the vision of the coastal ferry service in BC.

Transportation, transit and ferry systems around the world are under pressure resulting from the pandemic, population growth, climate change, inflation and other factors. BC’s coastal ferry system is no exception, and BC Ferries is responding with actions to address current operational issues. We are also embarking on a long-term transformative journey to reshape our coastal ferry services in response to the evolving needs of the communities we serve.

We invite you to participate in Charting the Course, an initiative that aims to define what is needed to keep people, goods, and services in coastal communities connected and moving through to 2050 and beyond.

Hearing from you is an important part of this initiative to help us build a more sustainable and resilient ferry system. The first phase of engagement is open until November 28. Learn more and participate here: https://www.bcferriesprojects.ca/bc-ferries-charting-the-course

The engagement summary report is now available for the Denman and Hornby engagement sessions held in late May.

• View the report HERE.
• View verbatim comments from the online survey HERE.

Once we are able to resume in-person engagements, we'll be back out to the Denman and Hornby Island communities to continue our discussions on both the Denman East terminal upgrades and the evaluation of this summer's increased service. Stay tuned to this page for more details.

Today marks National Indigenous Peoples Day, a day we celebrate and recognize the diverse cultures, traditions and immeasurable contributions of First Nations, Inuit, & Métis across Canada. Indigenous Peoples are the traditional stewards of the rivers, lakes, land & sea where we are privileged to live and work.

#NIPD2023 serves as an opportunity to learn and deepen our understanding of the Indigenous cultures throughout Canada.

• Learn more about Indigenous Peoples land, languages, history and culture: https://maps.fpcc.ca/
• The First Peoples’ map highlights BC's Indigenous language regions, artists & artworks, place names & landmarks: https://native-land.ca/
• Native Land is an app that allows users to map Indigenous territories, treaties, and languages: https://ow.ly/1pUt50OPX10
• Use the @BCGovNews map to find events happening in your community celebrating National Indigenous History Month: https://ow.ly/fif850OPX4l
• Learn more about the history, cultures, and experiences of Indigenous Peoples in Canada: https://ow.ly/mJ4250OPX91

Learn about National Indigenous People’s Day and how you can participate in celebrating their culture and heritage.

#BCFerries remains committed to fostering meaningful relationships with the Indigenous communities we serve. We recognize the importance of collaboration and partnership as we work toward a future of mutual respect, reconciliation and inclusivity.

Thank you to everyone who participated in our engagement sessions and online over the past several weeks. We heard from:

• 170 people at our round table conversations on Denman Island
• 90 people at our round table conversations on Hornby Island
• 399 people through our online engagement

Our online engagement is now closed and our third-party facilitators are busy compiling all the feedback we’ve received into a comprehensive report. You can expect to see it in a few weeks’ time.

The team has already started to review the feedback, and while we explore longer-term changes, we’re working on some immediate changes in response to what we’ve heard, including:

Supporting safe travel on Denman

In the coming weeks, you will begin to see messaging on our digital signs at the Buckley Bay and Hornby Island terminals, in BC Ferries’ social media feeds, and in the travel tips and advisories we issue for routes 21 and 22 asking all our customers to please drive safely and respectfully while on Denman Island. This is just one way BC Ferries can support safe travel on Denman, and we are exploring other opportunities to work with partners and stakeholders in the longer term.

Getting ready for the busy summer season

We clearly heard about the challenges of peak summer season for Denman and Hornby travellers. Here’s what we’re doing this season:

• We have enhanced sailing schedules with two-ship service on Route 21 Monday-Friday, and have placed the Quinitsa on Route 22. During the round-table conversations you asked us look at the Monday to Friday schedule for two-ship service, more on that below.
  
  
• We have doubled the support staff available at terminals this summer season to improve traffic management. We need to ensure our staff are safe and in compliance with WorkSafe BC regulations, so traffic control off of BC Ferries’ property will occur only during daylight hours and from the shoulder of the road/passenger side of the vehicle as much as possible.
  
  
• We will not shuttle between Hornby and Denman when there is only one ship sailing between Denman and Buckley Bay. This is to help prevent major back-ups at the Denman West terminal.
  
  

Planning our next conversations with you

Denman East terminal project. We will be back later this year to discuss options for the Denman East terminal design. We will look at these options together and discuss the benefits and tradeoffs involved with different terminal layouts, including how designs will impact the environment and terminal safety. You can expect to hear more detail about these sessions later this summer.

Hornby Island terminal project. We are looking ahead to upgrades at the Hornby Island terminal and would like to walk the site with community members as a starting point for this work. We will be using the Terminal Development Plan that was created for the Hornby Island terminal as an initial guide, however we need to better understand how these plans fit with current community needs. The site visits at the terminal will bring us together to discuss plans and how to adjust them to mitigate impacts and preserve community character in the work we do. You can expect to hear more about this work in the fall.

Answering your top-of-mind questions

Once again, we thank everyone who has taken the time to participate. The changes above are initial steps, and there is more work to be done. We look forward to being back out with the Denman and Hornby Island communities this fall to continue our conversations.