Opinion: Hullo Ferries can turn Nanaimo into Vancouver Island's transit hub

Opinion: How Hullo Ferries can transform Nanaimo into the public transit hub of Vancouver Island

Hullo Ferries (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive | Coach bus (Scharfsinn/Shutterstock)

Written for Daily Hive Urbanized by Denis Agar, who is a transportation planner living in East Vancouver and the executive director of Movement: Metro Vancouver Transit Riders.

Hullo Ferries is celebrating its first full year of operation this week. It is a comfortable, high-speed passenger-only ferry service between downtown Vancouver and downtown Nanaimo, cutting travel time by two hours compared to driving and taking BC Ferries.

It’s exciting that they’ve lasted the year, and now they’re in the early stages of considering a potential second high-speed passenger-only ferry route to Victoria. If this second route does happen, it is still likely years away.

But we have to talk about the glaring issues with a direct ferry between downtown Vancouver and downtown Victoria.

It would be slower and more expensive, and it would overlook the significant potential of a public transit hub in Nanaimo next to their existing ferry terminal.

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A direct Vancouver-Victoria ferry route can’t compete

We just have to look at precedent.

V2V Vacations, which went bust in January 2020, took 3.5 hours to make the journey, and we can expect Hullo Ferries to operate at roughly the same speed. Notice that it had “Vacations” in its name, and that the company referred to its sailings as “cruises.” They knew that the slow travel time and whopping $110.00 economy fare would not be competitive enough to draw locals, so they decided to focus entirely on tourist travel.

It didn’t help that the ferry had to zigzag through the Gulf Islands and then wind around the coast of Victoria to reach its harbour.

By contrast, Nanaimo is the perfect hub for ferry service. It’s the closest Vancouver Island city to Vancouver, and there’s almost nothing preventing the ferry from travelling in a straight line. After all, there’s a reason they call Nanaimo the “Hub City.”

hullo ferries theoretical route options 1

Theoretical route options for Hullo Ferries. (Denis Agar)

But any reasonable observer will notice that Victoria is over three times bigger than Nanaimo and that Victorians are just crying out for better travel options.

Seaplanes and helicopters are eye-wateringly expensive and don’t travel at night. Driving can cost just as much, depending on how many people are in the car, and navigating BC Ferries’ terminals and reservations can be a nightmare. Public transit is affordable but requires you to walk or roll huge distances through terminals and roll the dice on whether you’ll actually get a seat on the bus.

Fastest route from Vancouver to Victoria is through Nanaimo

What if you could get off Hullo Ferries in Nanaimo, and walk directly into a reserved seat on a coach bus just sitting there, waiting for you? You’d have dedicated bus lanes to whisk you through Highway 1 congestion (more bus lanes coming in 2027), and 90 minutes later, you can get off in the heart of Victoria. This would be the fastest way from Vancouver to Victoria, aside from flying. No long walks, no standing-room-only buses.

This is a vision of the future that can be made real in literally months.

And here’s the best part: If designed correctly, the Nanaimo Hub made possible by Hullo Ferries could kick off a public transit revolution on Vancouver Island that would mean frequent, direct connections to Tofino, Comox, the University of Victoria, Langford, and everywhere in between.

Fundamentally, a Nanaimo Hub means we can finally get around Vancouver Island without a car.

Nanaimo terminal of Hullo Ferries. (Hullo Ferries)

Comfort (economy) class seats on Hullo Ferries. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

The thing with networks is that they never grow or shrink in a linear way. This is because networks become more useful when more people use them. When growth happens, it feeds into accelerating growth.

When decline happens, it creates a death spiral.

This has happened with social networks (remember the first days of Facebook?) and transportation networks.

Over the last three years, explosive ridership on the No. 323 bus in Surrey forced TransLink to increase frequency over the last four years, leading to reduced wait times which further increased demand.

Hullo Ferries is BC’s opportunity to create that positive feedback loop for public transit in a huge way, by building up a hub for frequent coach buses across Vancouver Island. Each ferry can feed 350 passengers into a Nanaimo Hub — and that’s enough to fill seven coach buses. Imagine what that could look like in the summer peak season — coach buses to Langford, Victoria, Tofino, Comox, and even all the way up to Campbell River and Port Hardy.

Nanaimo terminal of Hullo Ferries. (Hullo Ferries)

hullo ferries vancouver nanaimo august 16 2023

Nanaimo terminal; Hullo Ferries’ inaugural day of service on August 16, 2023. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Similar to airport hubs in Dubai or Atlanta, all these buses would arrive at the ferry simultaneously. This means all sorts of bus-to-bus connections also become possible. In other words, the Nanaimo Hub doesn’t just facilitate trips to Vancouver; it facilitates trips all across Vancouver Island with travel times that are competitive with driving.

Whether a local or tourist, you would have access to Vancouver Island in a way you’ve never had before. Forget about BC Ferries’ enormous ferry lineups and car rentals. With Hullo Ferries feeding hundreds of riders per vessel into the Nanaimo Hub, major destinations like Victoria would get frequent service, and less busy places like provincial parks might finally get one bus a day. You would be able to throw together a simple weekend trip to camp on Cowichan Lake, or to stay at a luxury resort in Parksville. Vancouver Island’s tourism economy could grow without dumping more cars onto its narrow, winding highways. Those of us without a car could finally access the beauty this province has to offer.

Restart the Vancouver Island train

This kind of ridership could even make a strong case for fast, frequent rail service on the abandoned Esquimalt & Nanaimo (E&N) rail corridor, which still has tracks just metres away from the Nanaimo Hub.

While trains involve a significant upfront cost, they can offer higher capacity, speed, comfort, and reliability. Some argue that bus service on the Malahat Highway isn’t viable due to weather and collisions, but IslandLink Bus reports that closures affect service only about six days per year — roughly 1.6% of trips. This cancellation rate is comparable to that of Horseshoe Bay-Departure Bay BC Ferries trips. While a train would ideally be more reliable, a 1.6% cancellation rate is not a reason to delay action until the train is operational.

It goes without saying that if we spend the money on a train service, it should be better than the bus.

vancouver island rail corridor route map

Map of the Vancouver Island railway corridor. (WSP Canada/Government of BC)

The most recent proposal for passenger rail service on this corridor would be at least 30 minutes slower than the bus, and it would terminate in Victoria West, requiring a transfer or a 10+ minute walk to get to major destinations and public transit connections in Victoria. Vancouver Islanders deserve better than that.

Making it happen

Who will run these buses?

Well, IslandLink Bus already covers many of these corridors but doesn’t yet offer seamless connections with Hullo Ferries.

These two companies could come together to offer timed connections, through ticketing and reserved seating, and both would benefit enormously. They could even pilot it in the off-season (ie. as early as Fall 2024) when there are many unused buses around and the risk of losing money is lower.

Alternatively, Hullo Ferries could operate the buses themselves, as they already do with their extremely successful free shuttle bus service between their ferry terminal at the Port of Nanaimo and downtown Nanaimo. Helijet also demonstrates the power of bus connections, with a shuttle bus from their Nanaimo terminal to the resorts in Parksville.

Hullo Ferries free shuttle bus. (Hullo Ferries)

As another option, perhaps the provincial government could run these buses. Washington state, Oregon, and Virginia all offer examples of how a tiny amount of public funding could kick off a provincial bus public transit network that would literally transform British Columbia. Groups like the BC Federation of Labour and Better Island Transit have been calling for this.

Saskatchewan had an incredible bus network, linking every remote small town with not only passenger bus service, but also cheap freight, which supported small rural businesses. A right-wing government dismantled the entire network in 2017 to save a measly $17 million per year. Here in BC, we have far greater tourist traffic than in Saskatchewan, so we can expect far higher ticket revenue from out-of-province visitors.

stc saskatchewan transportation company bus route map 2015

2015 bus route map of the Saskatchewan Transportation Company. (STC)

When Canadians visit Europe or Asia for the first time, they’ll often come home with a serious case of public transit envy. In these countries, buses and trains are frequent, and they’re integrated in a way that makes everything simple.

Meanwhile, in Canada, we have a simple integrated network for the two most expensive ways of getting around — driving and flying — and we make buses and trains a complicated maze. This makes domestic travel out of reach for too many Canadians, seriously hampers our tourism sector, and unnecessarily clogs our highways.

Cars take up a lot of space, meaning they can’t scale up.

You only have to look at Lake Louise to see where car-only tourism leads. Enormous parking lots carved into pristine forests, traffic jams seemingly out of nowhere, scare tactics from the government, and a bad experience for everyone. On Vancouver Island, let’s chart a different path.

Perhaps the best thing you can do to make this a reality is to reach out to Hullo Ferries. Let them know that you would love to see a seamless bus connection to whichever city you care about. Tell them how it would affect your life, and how much you would ride it. If you’re feeling really keen, you could also reach out to your MLA and let them know that we deserve an intercity transportation network that isn’t a laughingstock.

If you live in Nanaimo, it would make sense for you to reach out to your Mayor and City Council, because the Hub City’s economy could gain a lot from being at the centre of this new network.

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