Uride’s approval upsets Moose Jaw cab owner

Lack of licensing for individual vehicles offering rides called ‘double standard’

REGINA While the City of Moose Jaw is excited to see ride-sharing company Uride launch in the community, a local cab company says the City has not created a level playing field for their new competitor.

In June, Moose Jaw City Council passed a ride-share bylaw, opening the door for any interested ride-sharing companies.

Shortly after the bylaw passed, the City began reaching out to ride-sharing companies to see if they would consider setting up shop in the area, said Mayor Fraser Tolmie.

“One of the barriers we had was that we’re a population of under 50,000, so a lot of the companies wouldn’t come to us,” he said in an interview on Friday.

“When you travel to other cities, you recognize that this is just such an easy way to travel and you want that for your own community, so when you are told that you’re restricted because of the population size, you feel somewhat disappointed.”

But Uride — with its focus on preventing impaired driving in smaller Canadian communities — saw an opportunity where the big companies weren’t willing to go and applied for a license.

Two weeks after the ride-share bylaw passed, a taxi bylaw was also passed, requiring taxi companies to license each of their vehicles with the City and for each driver to get a City-issued photo permit.

Tim Krimmer, owner of Universal Cabs in Moose Jaw, said this change cost him thousands of dollars.

“We complied to what they wanted and then all of a sudden ride-share comes in to Moose Jaw and they have no licenses,” he said.

“We’re quite upset about the double standard.”

Under the ride-share bylaw, companies like Uride do not have to license each vehicle individually or get photo permits for its drivers. Instead, Uride COO Skye Volpi said the company collects documentation on all its drivers and then submits that information to the city as part of its application.

When Uride received its license to operate in Moose Jaw, Volpi said that covered all the drivers it had listed on its application.

Krimmer said he had expressed his concerns of cab companies being at a disadvantage at public city council meetings before the bylaws came into effect.

“They just said that we would be on the same playing field. (Ride-sharing companies) would be required to get the same licensing that we had to get,” he said.

Uride received its license to operate in Moose Jaw on Thursday, said Volpi, and on Friday it began offering rides for the first time as part of its soft launch.

The soft launch ran Friday and Saturday nights from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. — a schedule Volpi said will continue every weekend until the company has more drivers and is able to expand its hours.

Krimmer said it’s hard to know what the long-term impact will be once Uride has more drivers and more hours.

“It’ll definitely impact us. I mean, there’s only so many customers out there, right?” he said.

“It’s hard to say how popular they’re going to be.”