British Columbia Circle Route

[paulj]

Yup, long story short, the BC NDP Government had three aluminum catamaran ferries built in the early 1990s. They were budgeted for $210 million ($70 million each), ended up costing $460 million ($153 million each), then were sold to the Washington Marine Group for $19.4 million ($6.5 million each). You do the math. They were also dropped because of its wake problems.

The Wiki article on these fast ferries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Ferry_Scandal
seems to point the finger at the desire of the NDP to promote BC shipbuilding.

By way of comparison, just this last year BC Ferries took delivery on 3 new large boats - built in Germany - for about $300 million. This time they had strong clauses protecting the purchaser from cost overruns. The latest boat for the northern route, the Northern Expedition, cost $130 million (also built in Germany) (wiki source). The Northern Adventurer was bought, used, from Europe for $50 million, plus $18 million in refit. I also read they had to pay 'sales tax' on it.

I wonder if WMG thinks they got their money's worth on the 3 boats. They apparently haven't used them yet.

I find it interesting to compare the cost of these ferries with the cost of a highway bridge. Due to open this summer is the Golden Ears Bridge over the Fraser, which will replace a couple of small ferries over the river. Its cost is about $800 million. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Ears_Bridge). The ferries are free, the bridge tolls will about $4. But when I took the Albion ferry on a Friday afternoon in the fall several years ago, there was a fair wait.