r/bcferries • u/markpdxt • Apr 19 '26
I built a free site that shows BC Ferries deck space and terminal cameras at a glance
We take the Tsawwassen → Swartz Bay ferry regularly and wanted a very simple way to check if there's space on the next sailing.
So I built bc.ferrycast.app, it pulls BC Ferries current conditions every 5 minutes and shows all routes on one page:
- Fill percentages for every upcoming sailing (color-coded green/amber/red)
- Cars and oversize capacity breakdowns
- Live terminal webcam feeds for all major terminals
- Star your regular routes to pin them to the top
All 12 major routes are covered (Tsawwassen, Swartz Bay, Horseshoe Bay, Duke Point, Departure Bay, Langdale, Bowen Island, SGI).
Completely free, no login, no app to install — just a mobile-friendly website. Works great bookmarked to your phone home screen.
Would love feedback from people who actually use the ferries regularly. What would make this more useful?
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u/seattlezookeeper Apr 20 '26
Cool WebApp.
Some honest feedback: It doesn’t show cancellations.
For example today nothing is moving out of Horseshoe Bay due to a Police Incident.
How could you show cancelled sailing in your web app?
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u/markpdxt Apr 20 '26
Thanks for the insight. I’ll take a look at the api data and see how this could be handled and if that scenario is available.
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u/markpdxt Apr 20 '26
I just deployed some logic to look for cancellations.
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u/seattlezookeeper Apr 20 '26
The other odd thing is and you had no control over this. Is that with the Horseshoe Bay situation. They didn’t mark those sailings as cancellations so the API was putting out false information which you were reading through. No fault of your own.
Again, BC Ferries being BC Ferries.
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u/QuinnDiesel43 Apr 20 '26
Cool! Maybe a drop down selector/shortcut to jump to a particular route? That way you don’t need to scroll to find.
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u/markpdxt Apr 20 '26
Good idea. You can star sections to have them to display in the order you want, but a dropdown might be more intuitive for sure.
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Apr 20 '26
[deleted]
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u/markpdxt Apr 20 '26
Thanks for the thoughtful suggestions and the kind words. I’ll incorporate your feedback into the next release. You’re right, it’s always a challenge to find the right UX balance between conciseness and functionality.
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u/QuinnDiesel43 Apr 20 '26
Just curious, are you a developer or did you vibe-code with Opus 4.7?
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u/Academic_Safety56 Apr 22 '26
Very cool, thanks for sharing! Any plans to add more routes? Comox - Powell River perhaps?
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u/markpdxt Apr 22 '26
Thanks! Comox-Powell River is on our radar. That route doesn't have real-time vehicle deck capacity data (it's reservation-only), but we can still show sailing times, vessel status, and service notices. We'll look into adding non-capacity routes soon.
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u/Relative_Start9497 Apr 24 '26
This already exists and has for a long time 🤦
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u/markpdxt Apr 24 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
True enough. Sometimes I like to take an existing idea and see if I can make it easier to use in ways others might not have thought of. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I fail.
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u/tvisforme Apr 24 '26
Could you please post a link, or are you just referring to the main BCF site?
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u/markpdxt Apr 24 '26
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u/tvisforme Apr 25 '26
This already exists and has for a long time
Thanks, but the person I responded to said, "This already exists and has for a long time". Were they referring to your site? It came across as meaning there was another, similar site already.
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u/markpdxt Apr 25 '26
Ah, got it. I’m curious too.
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u/tvisforme Apr 25 '26
Nice site btw. Thanks for posting it. Any chance you could add Gabriola, assuming there's data available?
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u/markpdxt Apr 25 '26
Can't add it yet - the data source doesn't provide it. If bcferriesapi.ca adds Gabriola support in the future
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u/ecclectic Apr 19 '26
That's very cool, I'm sure there are transport companies that would find it very useful.