Metro News and Jen St. Denis reports on the B.C. government’s announcement that ride-sharing legislation is coming. Surprise surprise, the announcement is made right before the Provincial election, and you may be able to use these services as early as December.
Transportation Minister Todd Stone states “We know that British Columbians want additional choice and convenience and ride sharing companies like Uber and Lyft present real opportunities to provide new services for consumers through the use of technology.”
I’ve written in Price Tags before about taxi service in Vancouver. As a woman its been an unsettling experience personally-there is no consistency of service, sometimes the cab does not show up and they won’t pick up my senior neighbours for shorter rides to the grocery store. I have also been followed home by taxi cab drivers. And many of the drivers are talking away on their handheld cellphone while they are driving the cab. Sure you can discount my experience and call it anecdotal-but if I had that experience, what has happened to other people who might not know to lodge a complaint with the “Taxi Team”of the Vancouver Police Department?
Of course the Taxi cab companies are upset about ride share coming, and the Province will fund a one million dollar app for taxi companies to compete with ride share, along with ICBC investing up to 3.5 million dollars in the installation of crash avoidance technology. The Province has also said that they would “address” the current shortage of taxis and vehicles for hire, allow drivers to pick up and drop off passengers anywhere and streamline the ICBC claims process.
There is lots of background chatter about this decision, the politics, the lobbying, and the interest groups. Until there is more mass transit in the areas where people want to go, ride share is one way forward. Perhaps this like many disruptive technologies will be here for only a short time. And like many disruptive technologies it will put pressure on taxi cab companies to be more customer based and responsive.
Fortune.com noted that in a study of ride share services in New York City last summer that 11.1 million taxi rides were taken, representing a drop of 9 per cent from a year earlier, while Uber’s use increased by 121 per cent. However taxi drivers had twice as many riders per week compared to Uber drivers. The two million dollar study also showed that traffic in the city was not significantly increased by the use of ride share services.
The most “disruptive” thing about Uber is the depth of the subsidies, where passengers pay only 40% of the actual cost, unlike taxis where they pay 100%. It’s naive to imagine this will continue once taxi companies have been undermined. And as long as there’s this subsidy, we won’t have a competitive market so our market “choices” will be all a sham.
Anecdote doesn’t compete with real experience, and can be overly judgemental. Drive a cab for a week and you’ll see what I mean. You will come out of that week with more respect for what cabbies have to deal with.
Let’s just say the variety of people who ride with you and the many iterations of hard experience that brings is prime fodder for writers. One of my passengers showed me his gun and laughed when I recoiled. Thankfully he put it back in his coat, like it was a joke. Every year in every city there are violent acts committed against cabbies by thieves and those who are unstable or on meth. Subtle and outright racism against brown-skinned drivers is pandemic. Every cabbie also has to put up with the bad behaviour of the public. Vomiting on the back seat is just one example, and that can take a big chunk out of your earning hours to clean up. If the 12-hour night shifts don’t lower your opinion of the human race, then the traffic during the 12-hour day shift will do you in by 45.
I too have had a few bad drivers, but that averages about one in every 20 trips. I’m not gonna get upset about a driver who chats on a hand-free with his kids, or if they are doing 5 km/hr faster than other cars. After driving a cab for two years in another large city back in the 70s, I have always sympathized with the experience most cabbies have, and have no answers for them when Uber arrives and hits them hard by lowering labour standards across the board, especially the immigrant drivers who are supporting families. Ask any Uber driver how much they make or if they have adequate insurance coverage, things that have to be considered while enjoying their lower fees. Cleaner cars? Don’t make me laugh. That is the result of a lack of business and time to polish them up.
Most cabbies move on when better opportunities and education present themselves. Uber isn’t a panacea to what ails the industry; one day Uber drivers will move on to better opportunities too, and then there will be a real shortage. One day, walkable communities and a high orientation toward transit may demolish the car-for-hire business altogether. Until then, we have so much built-in car dependency that cars in all forms are a necessity, and the competition will be stiff among some sectors.
I forgot to mention the dead hours. You can always tell when that is when there are 20 cabs lined up at their stands. These are times when driver’s hourly earnings are zero. These times are frequent from a cabbie’s point of view, which is the opposite of the predictable peak times when cabs have multiple calls to deal with, and the public has to wait.
If you want a cab instantly whenever you call, then you are being unrealistic. The same peak hour demand and road congestion applies to cabs the same as it does to buses.
Some commenters are saying that this announcement is purposely being made just before a provincial election. As though this is an example of cynicism by the Liberal government in Victoria.
Those commentators obviously think that this move by the government is popular and will win votes.
Since the taxi industry association contributed many thousands of dollars to the Vision Vancouver civic party, one must expect criticism of this move from some people that work at City Hall.
Taxi companies give much more to the provincial liberals. Lets see how Uber actually rolls out.
From the link above: “Fassbender constructed an emergency hatch into the reform package Tuesday, saying there’s still nine months to make changes to the plan if he hears a convincing argument from taxi drivers.”
I though the same thing, you can tell its an election year by the promises
Author
Reblogged this on Sandy James Planner.
From the article:
ICBC will invest up to $3.5 million in taxis to install crash avoidance technology.
The BC Cycling Coalition has asked the Province to insist that if ride share is allowed, that only cars equipped with crash avoidance technology be allowed to be used as ride share vehicles. This will improve safety for all road users.
This government has moved to balance the introduction of taxi on-call minicab services by offering funds so that the present taxi industry can upgrade and compete with the new, lean app-driven competitors. This, and the fact the minister also said that he is amenable to adjustments and modifications before the new rules take effect shows balance and fairness.
Metro Vancouver, 2014
Emily Jackson
The month before Vancouver’s 2014 election, city council voted to put a six-month freeze on issuing taxi licences so it could figure out how to handle, among other things, ride-sharing services like Uber.
It was a move welcomed by the Vancouver Taxi Association, which donated a total of $83,500 to the election campaigns of the three parties on council, according to Elections B.C. disclosure statements released this week.
That’s nearly 17 times more than the taxi association donated in the 2011 election, where it gave $5,000 to Vision Vancouver.
The cash came in a year where Uber made moves to enter Vancouver and shake up the traditional taxi business model. At the Oct. 1 meeting, the Vancouver Taxi Association said it would fight Uber “every step of the way” if it tried to operate outside of the regulatory framework.
In the subsequent weeks, it donated an extra $17,500 to Vision Vancouver, $15,000 to the Non-Partisan Association and $2,500 to the Green Party.
But Coun. Geoff Meggs rejects any suggestion that the taxi lobby would get special treatment from city council based on the donations.
Any company that wants to operate merely has to follow the rules and go through the approval process, Meggs said Wednesday.
“Uber hasn’t applied. They’re welcome to apply and go through the rules like anybody else,” he said, adding he has no doubt some form of ride-sharing technology will hit the streets in the next four years.
***
Today, CBC reported Meggs:
“[The taxi drivers] have worked hard. They’ve done what they had to do. They’ve got their entire life wrapped up in this license, and they don’t want to be crushed by the arrival of this foreign corporation that’s going to take all the money out of the system.”
Next week? Who knows?
@ Eric, thank you for using an accurate citation on the Taxi Association’s multiple political donations. We will await the same on creating a level playing field on all car-hire licensing, insurance and safety requirements when the time comes.
Meanwhile some of us will continue to advocate for walkable communities linked by a frequent transit network.
… and safe and convenient cycling networks.
I have no idea what B.C.’s draft legislation on ride-sharing services will cover, but here is an issue on safey where a woman was assaulted by a driver who claimed to offer ride-sharing services. Incident in Calgary: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/sex-assault-ride-sharing-driver-calgary-minivan-1.4017492
I think the big issue is labour laws and minimum wages and where profits ultimately end up. This isn’t really a transportation issue since a bunch of Uber drivers takes up the same space as a bunch of taxis.