ABSTRACT
While many say they catch this ferry to avoid traffic, Victoria’s traffic patterns are rather unique. Car traffic in Victoria has only one bottleneck that the Mill Bay-Brentwood Bay ferry users can dodge: the so-called “Colwood Crawl,” which chokes Victoria’s northern periphery from 7:15am to 8:30am, on the southbound lanes. But the earliest morning sailing out of Mill Bay is 8:05am. A driver opting to leave Mill Bay at 8:00am would hit the “Colwood Crawl” at about 8:25am, as the crawl is beginning to loosen up. Should that driver need to go south toward Victoria’s city center, opting to sail across the Saanich Inlet would mean going in the wrong direction and thus wasting a lot of time getting back into the city. Should that driver need to go northeast, then the ferry would save her five minutes at the most, and at a higher cost than driving.
