The island tax
In keeping with the title, this post has no links, no names, nothing: it’s an island subject.
The story: I have an opportunity to attend an interesting sold-out event in a very nearby city on “the mainland” (the US mainland, actually). One of the panelists at the event is offering to get me into the event – all I have to do is show up. Would I like to go? You bet – the event itself, the opportunity to network with the people there, and most of all the opportunity to meet the panelist (who happens to be a very interesting person) is enough to make anyone with half a brain want to go.
I think I have more than just half a brain, so…
Yet I won’t be going because it’s too expensive and logistically difficult to get there.
The island-ness of our island-ness is really hitting me hard these days, and I’m not liking it.
When we first moved back here, I scoffed at the notion of a fixed link (that is: a bridge to the mainland) because (I thought), why let everyone else have easy access to this place?
Alas, it works both ways: easy access also means …easy egress.
And that means circulation: entry and egress. I really believe in circulation. Lately, however, I’m at a stand-still. There’s no easy on or easy off here.
If I still lived in Boston and wanted to go to New York City, I could hop in a car and drive there, attend an evening event, and drive back. The stress of driving ~8 hours there and back in a single 24-hour period might take a year off my life, but financially it wouldn’t cost me more than gas. And it would be eminently do-able. (I did it once while studying for my connoisseurship exams at Harvard – I wanted desperately to see an exhibition at the Guggenheim, so the spouse and I set out at 5am for NYC, saw the show, and drove back. Easy-peasy, sort of.)
Here, to go to a city that’s actually closer (in mileage) than the Boston-New York City run, I’d have to figure out complex ferry schedules (and accept fares which run to a couple of hundred dollars, return fare, and otherwise involve many hours of travel time) or consider even more expensive airplane flights – either sea-planes or regular planes. In either case (planes and ferries), it’s impossible to go to a late evening event and come back that same night because the planes and ferries don’t run that late, so now we have to factor in hotel accommodation on top of the already significant travel costs.
If you plan a trip several weeks ahead of time, you can do it for a not entirely painful amount of money, but if it’s something that comes up unexpectedly, you can only do it if you’re prepared to throw money at it liberally. And so, unless you have money to throw at a thing, you don’t circulate. You stay put.
Do this for …oh, seven years or so (as I have) and you start to grow moss. And before you know it, you’re totally and utterly stuck.
Yes definitely feel that too. With so many events going on in Vancouver for design, I wish I was able to make it over without the ferry fee.
Comment by Davin Greenwell — July 8, 2009 #
Yeah, it’s brutal. In my case, I’m not traveling solo, either, so it’s often enough a case of traveling with kids and/or spouse, which means taking a car on the ferry, where they get you for a lot more money – and don’t get me started on that reservation racket that BC Ferries now has. Forget about flying when it’s the family group, too. Oh well, come September (when the daughter starts at UBC) I’ll have to fork out ferry or plane fare on a more regular basis, I guess.
.
Did you see that
Galianocorrection: Gabriola Island residents overwhelmingly declined even to have a study to look at creating a fixed link to Vancouver Island? Do they think the ferries are going to get cheaper?
Comment by Yule — July 9, 2009 #
I hear you — and remember somewhat fondly that back in the early 1980s I used to take the car on the ferry to Victoria often in the morning and return the same day, and I sure didn’t feel a financial pinch. I can’t even imagine the level of stuckness you are experiencing, but I can imagine the frustration. Who would have thought that with all the growth (years of bounty) and technological transformations of so many sort, we’d be putting distances between us by erecting all these hurdles?
Comment by maria — July 9, 2009 #
The prices have really climbed in the past 15 years or so. It’s somewhere around $120 each way if you’re traveling by car with 3 passengers (you can book online, but get charged an additional $17 each way if you make reservations – and if you don’t, you’re likely to end up waiting hours for the next run during popular times/ weekends). You need to be there 1-hr.+ in advance, waiting, even if you have a reservation. The Coho (US ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles) is comparable in price (slightly cheaper, iirc, and less onerous in terms of waiting times, but you have to clear customs, too – which adds to the wait; it’s not too bad, though, and better than at the highway crossing). Then there’s the Clipper, a passenger-only ferry from Victoria to Seattle, which is great downtown to downtown, but can be very choppy depending on sea / weather conditions (it’s a smaller ship than the MV ferries) and also charges a premium for the d/t to d/t connection. The float planes are almost $200 per person each way, once you factor in the taxes, even with various specials that come up occasionally, it really adds up if you’re not traveling alone or aren’t on an expense account. Ferry prices are bound to keep going up, too.
Comment by Yule — July 9, 2009 #
Bad news: it’s only going to get worse. Some 95% of our transportation systems are dependent on fossil fuel, and even if (when) we switch to electric cars we’ll still need increasingly expensive gas for ships and planes.
The solution is teleconferencing. But most events in Vancouver or Seattle may draw sufficient audiences from their own cities to worry about setting up online versions for the likes of us ….
Comment by Ross — July 9, 2009 #