Uber Canada executives have been haunting several city council chambers lately, including Vancouver.
Coun. Geoff Meggs will introduce a motion on September 30 or October 1, calling for city staff to study and later report on a range of taxi issues.
What is clear is that some sort of expansion of taxi service is needed, Meggs said. Whether or not ridesharing services should be allowed to operate in Vancouver, and under what rules, is one of the topics Meggs would like to see included in a report.
Representatives of Uber Canada are currently scheduled to speak to the motion.
“I met with Uber representatives a week and a half ago and they emphasized their intention to start up at some point in Vancouver,” Meggs said.
Uber last briefly operated in Vancouver in the summer of 2012. The car sharing service exited both Vancouver and Calgary after separate rulings determined the rideshare service was the same as a limo service and had to comply by the same rules, such as charging a minimum $75 per ride.
In Canada, Uber currently operates in Montreal, Toronto, Mississauga and Halifax. Uber executives were recently in Ottawa meeting with city staff.
Uber has clashed with city officials in Toronto, who are concerned that Uber drivers are operating without the same kind of licenses and training required of taxi drivers.
Meggs said he also has concerns about the quality of employment created by the ride-share company, which uses casual, self-employed drivers and usually takes a cut of 20%.
“I put a lot of questions to [Uber public policy lead Chris] Shafer about this,” he said. “I would prefer that this expansion provide, as much as possible, full-time jobs.”
Uber is not the only taxi issue Meggs wants city staff to study. While the province’s Passenger Transportation Board made a decision months ago to allow suburban cabs to pick up passengers in Vancouver on Friday and Saturday nights, Vancouver’s council has not yet updated its bylaw to allow the rule change.
With all of the changes happening in the industry and with the November municipal election looming, Meggs believes a review of all the issues is needed now.
“We would maintain the status quo in licencing until we had a chance to get a report to the incoming council about the implications of a number of very important decisions that are unfolding and changing in the industry,” Meggs said.
Staff would meet with affected stakeholders, including the taxi industry, people with disabilities, the hospitality and tourism sector and the police, he said.
@jenstden
