Editor: For decades, BC Ferries has allowed people with their vehicles to ride on certain ferry routes for free. This has always been a poor decision on the corporation’s part. Any time a person walks on or drives on any ferry, that person should pay for that service.
When people move to Victoria or Nanaimo, they understand that it is their choice to move to these areas. With that comes the cognitive decision to pay for the use of a BC Ferry when travelling to the mainland.
If anyone should be able to say that this service is an extension of the highway, it should be those at the Horseshoe Bay terminal. That is where the Trans-Canada truly ends, hence an extension of the highway.
I choose to live in Langley. In 2013, the ministry of transportation started to toll the new Port Mann Bridge. For the last 33 years, I have been using the bridge without paying a toll.
So if the new Port Mann Bridge is an extension of the highway as the people living on the smaller islands have stated the ferry service is, I should not have to pay a bridge toll to cross to the north side of the river to get to Vancouver. When the Coquihalla Highway was a tolled highway, everyone knew it came with a price, and folks for the most part didn’t mind paying for the privilege of using it. And that was an extension of the highway.
Like it or not, times change and not always for the better. For far too many years, the taxpayers of British Columbia have been subsidizing the corporation for riders who use the service without paying. People who chose to purchase homes on these islands must understand that a taxpayer in Langley or a taxpayer anywhere in the province should not have to pay for the choices made by those living on islands which require a service that costs money to run.
In a few short years, we will have another bridge (replacement of the Deas tunnel) which will be tolled. In order for our province to be debt-free, everyone must know that services have to be paid for by people that use such services. So to that I say “nobody rides for free.”
Rob Gaw,
Langley
