An eye taken off the transportation ball?

Much has been made over the last few years about the importance of tourism to the local economy, the city has invested much in the way of money and time to develop a cruise industry hoping to attract visitors into the city from May to September.

But with the recent revelations about the Alaska Ferry dock and its need for a million dollars in repairs, you have to wonder if perhaps the city, dazzled with cruise visitors in their eyes, didn't take its eye off the more relevant and financially rewarding of the tourist destinations in the city.

We've heard many tales of the push in Alaska to bring an end to the Rupert connection to the Alaska Marine Highway System.

The most recent one a half hearted thought, that maybe docking in Hyder would be of more benefit to the service, keeping it completely on American soil. It's an argument that Prince Rupert has successfully countered in the past using the aspects of the convenience of our location and our access to Highway 16 and the many amenities for travellers.

But, as we dodge a bullet over the now all but condemned Alaska Ferry dock and route traffic through the BC Ferries facility during the rebuild, you have to wonder if we'll be able to use those arguments of convenience and long built upon ties, with a straight face.

That the city dropped the ball on the ferry dock is a given, in a Northern View editorial, Shaun Thomas rightly points out that Prince Rupert was lucky this time that things worked out, and that there will little in the way of inconvenience for travellers through Fairview on their way to Alaska.

One wonders what the result might have been had the BC Ferry dock not been a usable solution for the Alaska Marine Highway vessels, requiring the service to find an alternative way to transit those travellers.

For a city that has been busy trumpeting its ties to Alaska and how important the ferry is to the economy of the region, we've certainly shown a rather laissez faire attitude about the whole operation and its impact on the city.

Less than a year ago in the Northern View ironically, the Mayor explained just how important the service was to the city.

“This is a transportation link that means a lot to Prince Rupert and has the potential to be really substantial to Prince Rupert as we move forward with expanded retail shopping and the gaming centre opening up. I think people would be surprised to know how many Alaskans come down here every year,” he said.

“We have done a lot of work building relationships to keep people informed about what is developing here in Prince Rupert and we have some strong allies that see the tremendous advantage of coming here, but we have to do a lot of work and form a lot of alliances to make sure that nobody takes that for granted.”

A spokesperson for the Alaska Marine Highway System confirmed that Hyder is pushing for the ferry to come there and listed issues with Prince Rupert such as the poor maintenance of the dock and cross-border operational concerns. However, he noted that Hyder is more costly to go to, has no dock infrastructure and lacks supports like hotels and motels.

That was from an article in July of 2007, so one has to wonder how things evolved as they did. With an obvious realization that there were issues with the ferry service over the dock and facilities in the city, we managed to let things get to the now million dollar situation we find ourselves in.

Somehow, by wasting a year (and really the problem goes back much longer than that) we seem to have taken the service for granted after all.

While the Mayor makes a valid point about the dock being a gateway to the province, perhaps worthy of joint funding, he's really bringing the issue up at the eleventh hour, almost a desperation move to do what should have been done years ago.

A more proactive council might have been fighting that argument long before the dock had to be closed.

When it comes to the disrepair of the Alaska Ferry dock, accountability should rest at city hall, that it seems is where the ball was first dropped.

If the call to pull the service from Prince Rupert should begin to be heard again, there really will be nobody but ourselves to blame...

In case the link to the Northern View editorial becomes dead one day, here's the editorial as it appeared in the paper today.

Alaska ferries dock should be a lesson
Shaun Thomas
The Northern View
April 01, 2008

Prince Rupert city council should count themselves lucky that not only is B.C. Ferries willing to help out with berthing the ships of the Alaska Marine Highway system, but that those vessels are able to fit into the current B.C. Ferries configuration.

Fortunately it looks like things will work out in the end, but I can’t help but to shake my head at how the city let the situation at the dock get to the point where it is no longer usable, because I would hate to think about the long-term impact to the city if the Alaska ferries had to look elsewhere for service for any amount of time.

Yes the city has suffered some financial hardships, to say the least, but when you have an agreement in place to provide a facility or service to another group in a safe and efficient manner, you need to ensure that you are doing just that. Particularly when that agreement brings thousands of tourists into your city and serves to strengthen an important bond with another country. And yes, the Alaska ferry system has an agreement in place with the city for the use of the dock, but that agreement expires in the next 10 years - letting the dock get into such a state of disrepair that sailings had to be cancelled does not speak well of the importance being placed on that agreement or the service.

And now, rather than spending $250,000 this year for repairs, the city is on the hook for $1 million. And while there are rumblings of cost sharing to fix the dock, because of the benefit the rest of the province derives from the ferry system, the fact is that the rest of the province didn’t allow the dock to fall into an unusable state. The city did.

Much like the cruise ship industry, there are other ports in British Columbia that I’m sure would jump at the chance to welcome the Alaska Marine Highway. The city and local businesses managed to dodge a bullet this time around thanks to the cooperation of B.C. Ferries, as there is no need for Alaska Ferries to look at or consider another port of call.

Prince Rupert is not the only choice for ships looking to stop in B.C. and we need to do everything we can to be competitive. We cannot simply rest on our laurels. Hopefully this week’s incident serves as an important lesson in the future.