The B.C. Ferries commissioner has given the green light for increases in some fares by up to 27 per cent over four years, starting next spring.

B.C. Ferries commissioner gave the approval Tuesday to a plan to hike fares by up to 27 per cent.

The final price-cap decision by Martin Crilly adjusts his preliminary ruling from last March on coastal ferry prices.

Starting April 1, fares for the major routes will increase by 6.4 per cent. In each of the subsequent three years until March 2012, the major-route fares can't increase by more than three per cent if annual inflation holds at two per cent or less.

The cost of passage on other ferry routes will rise by four per cent April 1, with increases capped at 7.1 per cent over each of the subsequent three years, assuming a similar inflation rate. Compounded, that means non-major routes face a 27-per-cent hike by 2012.

Crilly says he approved the hikes because of vessel and terminal renewal, recovery of deferred fuel costs, taxpayer funding not increasing as quickly as costs and general cost inflation.  

David Hahn, president of British Columbia Ferry Services, warned last week that fuel costs and the need for new ships would drive fare hikes. 

He said the company's fuel bill will be more than $90 million next year, compared to just $45 million in 2002.
  
New vessels under construction in Germany are much more fuel efficient and should help save some money.

The ships will cost $542 million, with the first arriving this fall and going into service early next year.

B.C. Ferries is also having the German shipyard build a replacement for the Queen of the North, which crashed into Gil Island — located in the Hecate Strait — and sank last March, killing two people.

Equipped with 36 vessels, B.C. Ferries is the primary provider of coastal water transportation in British Columbia.