City councillor hails decision to licence 175 additional taxis

A unanimous vote Tuesday by Vancouver city council will pave the way to get another 175 taxis on city roads over the coming months.

Vancouver council voted Tuesday afternoon in favour of lifting a moratorium on issuing new taxi licences, which had been in place pending a decision from the provincial Passenger Transportation Board.

That PTB decision was announced Friday with a news release from the Ministry of Transportation.

Vision Coun. Geoff Meggs, who put forward Tuesday’s motion that mentioned “an urgent need for additional taxi capacity in the City of Vancouver,” said the new licences will mean a roughly 25-per-cent increase in the city’s taxi fleet over the next few months. He said he wasn’t sure how quickly the new cabs can be on the road.

“We’ve been waiting for a long time for this, because it includes 26 wheelchair-accessible taxis,” he said. “What this decision does is it adds to the taxi fleet while we wait for those later decisions on ride-sharing, which are now postponed until after the (provincial) election.”

Technology-enabled, ride-hailing services are still unavailable in B.C., making Vancouver North America’s largest city without the operation of companies such as Uber and Lyft.

The B.C. Liberal party announced last month they’ll green-light ride-hailing services before the end of this year if they win the May 9 election.