[martinishaker]

The all in cost is way more on BC Ferry, if you consider time and ancillary costs, 4 vs 8 sailings doesn’t mean much to anyone. Maybe you feel like an idiot in Vancouver with no disposable income.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

They’d be either local tourists, yes, or visitors; either way, there aren’t that many of them, because total bus ridership for the buses to Horseshoe Bay is 8,540/day (including everybody who disembarks in West Van and downtown long before the ferry terminal, or is headed to the Sunshine Coast or Bowen Island), taxi ridership can't be much higher, and I highly doubt that anybody’s biking or walking all the way there. Granted, Coal Harbour is much closer than Horseshoe Bay, but it's still over an hour away, $33 is not $20, and 4 sailings/day is not 8 sailings/day.

We get it. You really like Nanaimo, and you’d really like it to have a ferry that takes people straight to/from the downtown you never want to go back to - doesn’t change the fact that the last four attempts to create such a ferry have burnt out within three years of operation or less. BC Ferries disruptions and warm summers don’t last forever, so only time will tell whether there’s enough demand for an all-year viable service. History says otherwise.