Mayor against compensating city cabbies if Uber legalized
Coventry Connections president Hanif Patni says City Hall should consider compensating cabbies who would suffer a financial hit with the legalization of Uber, but Mayor Jim Watson isn’t interested in having that discussion.
The values of city-owned taxi plates, which can be transferred on the open market, have increased into the six figures because the city controls the number of plates in the market. Plate owners fear the value of those plates will plummet if Uber can operate in the city without having to obtain such licences.
“If you’re going to destroy the value of these (taxi) licences, somebody should at least talk about it,” Patni said Tuesday.
That’s not the city’s problem, the mayor says.
“I don’t believe it’s a good use of tax dollars to subsidize plates of individuals who may have bought these at a relatively low price and through a number of years seen the value go up,” Watson said. “It’s like anything, whether it’s the stock market or your house or an invest- ment in anything. It’s not up to the government to subsidize a loss in that investment.”
KPMG, the city’s lead consultant on the taxi review, stayed out of the controversy over plate values. The inflated value of the plates on the open market was “neither established by nor under the control of the city,” and so was outside the scope of the review, KPMG decided.
There are 1,188 plates in the market and 755 plate owners. More than half of the owners own just one plate. The largest single plateholder is Marc André Way and his family, with 87 plates, followed by Coventry with 64.
Compensating cabbies for the lost plate value isn’t part of the recommendations politicians will consider over the next week. The community and protective services committee gets the first crack at the plan Thursday.
But Patni thinks the mayor and councillors should give thought to a compensation program, since plate-holders are seeing their investments depreciate.
“That’s a debate the city has to have. There are other places in the world that have tried to compensate the taxi driver,” Patni said. “We think the city council should be debating it and discussing it.”
Patni suggested the city should consider a program recently adopted by one Australian state, where $1 from Uber and taxi rides goes into a compensation fund for cabbies.
But Watson said the majority of people working in the taxi industry don’t own plates, but rather pay plate owners for the right to drive the licensed cabs.
Heavy lobbying by the taxi industry and Uber continued Tuesday at City Hall. There was also a brief demonstration.
About a dozen accessible taxi vans showed up at the end of the business day and clogged a dropoff area so drivers could show their opposition to the city’s plan. The cabbies said the proposed reforms would take business away from them.
Cabbies generally believe the city has written a draft bylaw to accommodate Uber.
“We are giving them the keys to City Hall,” taxi union president Amrik Singh said.
The union voted this week to let its leaders decide what action needs to be taken to oppose the city’s recommendations. The union’s next move depends on the committee vote Thursday, Singh said.
Uber hasn’t said much about what it thinks about the city’s proposed rules, other than it’s “encouraged” by the city’s progress.
Taxi reps and top city officials were to meet Tuesday evening to exchange ideas ahead of the committee meeting.
Watson said he would entertain ideas to tweak the staff recommendations befo re council’s final vote April 13.
“My view is nothing in committee is in stone and if there are sensible and better suggestions to improve the bylaw then we’re open to those,” Watson said.