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Some quick math from data on @BCFerries Twitter account: At least the equivalent of 2,939 cars were transported between the mainland and Vancouver Island on Friday. The equivalent of 204 more cars came onto the Island than left it. Here& #39;s one example of how full the ferries were.
I say "equivalent" as there& #39;s no way to know with the data I have the size or type of vehicles and how many were actually carried. This also doesn& #39;t account for the number of people in each vehicle or any foot passengers.
On the Vancouver to Sunshine Coast route, two @BCFerries sailings for Friday are already booked solid.
On Monday, there is already one sailing back to Vancouver from the Sunshine Coast that& #39;s fully booked, but no full bookings for Sunday. This suggests that people are going there for the long weekend.
Update: There& #39;s already four full @bcferries sailings to the Sunshine Coast today from North Vancouver.
Three out of four @bcferries sailings from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay today are already full.
All @bcferries sailings today, except for one, are already fully booked from Vancouver to Nanaimo.
Okay, more context, "fully booked, standby only" means that 40-70% of the deck space is reserved. Here& #39;s what the 9:45 sailing to the Sunshine Coast looks like right now.
Here is the line of vehicles going to Victoria from Vancouver on @BCFerries 11a.m. sailing. Ship is 80% full.
Next ferry to Nanaimo from Vancouver is 100% full. https://twitter.com/BCFerries/status/1248687299820433412?s=19">https://twitter.com/BCFerries...
MP for Nanaimo-Ladysmith @paulmanly is calling on the Prime Minister of Canada @JustinTrudeau and BC Premier @jjhorgan to immediately restrict all non-essential travel on @BCFerries. https://twitter.com/paulmanly/status/1248762644309225478">https://twitter.com/paulmanly...
For anyone following this, Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry& #39;s response to the question about the ferry traffic to Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast this weekend was that @BCFerries said traffic was down compared to previous years—when there was no pandemic.
I heard back from the @BCFerries media contact. They asked me to check back with them on Tuesday about the number of passengers the ferries carried this weekend compared to last week& #39;s numbers. They also said the traffic numbers for March 2020 are not yet available.
Just to tie up this thread, I did hear back from @BCFerries about my request for last weekend& #39;s numbers. They told me "on a system level, passenger traffic was 14% lower this weekend (9-12 Apr), than the previous weekend (3-5th Apr) & Vehicle traffic was 18% lower."
