Another fine mess
The taxi industry has steered Toronto wrong and put a conspicuous dent in Mayor John Tory’s reputation for getting things done.
Instead of accepting a reasonable compromise backed by the mayor, city council voted on Wednesday to delay consideration of new rules designed to regulate Uber, the popular app-based ridebooking service. At the same time, councillors closed a loophole that had left Uber exempt from existing bylaws. Now the company is required to apply to be a taxi and limousine brokerage and work only with city-licensed cabs.
Obeying that restriction would effectively kill the company’s controversial UberX program, which puts riders in touch with one of 16,000 drivers operating unmarked, private cars instead of taxis. Following the vote, Uber indicated it plans to continue to provide this service, citing an obligation to its drivers and its 400,000 riders.
Council’s failure to endorse reasonable reform only prolongs regulatory chaos on Toronto’s streets — with the taxi industry trying to run Uber off the road and the upstart ride-booking service confident that it represents the future. Expect more protests, angry denunciations by cabbies, and more people riding Uber.
The situation is complicated by the fact that UberX will now be operating outside the law. Municipal officials do have the option of issuing charges, and this time they’re likely to stick. This year, a judge denied Toronto’s bid to shut UberX, finding that the service didn’t fall under the purview of the city’s rules. Now it does.
But with an estimated 17,000 riders using the Toronto service each day, Tory acknowledged that it would be difficult for police and bylaw officers to crack down in sufficient strength to entirely curb UberX.
What a mess. It didn’t have to be this way. City staff had presented councillors with a clear, practical road map for regulating Uber while also boosting the competitiveness of traditional cabs. But that wasn’t good enough for the taxi industry which packed the council chamber with cabbies in yellow T-shirts protesting any compromise.
A majority of councillors bent to the pressure in a clear repudiation of Tory’s often-stated support for regulating Uber instead of trying to drive it out of Toronto. The mayor has been fond of saying that Uber and related technologies are “here to stay.” But now their future is clouded.
City staff recommended a process that would allow Uber and other “transportation network companies” to operate provided they bought suitable insurance, conducted criminal record checks, ran mechanical inspections and maintained compliance records.
Instead of endorsing that option, council told staff members to study the matter some more and come back next year. They’ll very likely return with much the same proposal.
The one advantage of this delay is that it gives Tory some time to marshal support on council for necessary reform. It will take an impressive amount of horse-trading and arm-twisting to overcome pressure from the taxi industry and carry the day. Indeed, this may lie beyond the mayor’s ability.
If so it would constitute a blow to Tory, to Uber, and most of all to the growing number of Torontonians who have come to rely on this service.
What the taxi industry should bear in mind is that every one of Toronto’s 17,000 daily riders using UberX could have opted for a traditional cab. Instead, all those riders chose to go a different way.
Efforts to hold back the clock typically don’t end well. And, over the long run, time is not on the side of the traditional taxi industry. Councillors failed to take a bold stand and introduce necessary reform. But the issue is set to return. Torontonians will then see which of their elected representatives is committed to choice for riders and who refuses to adapt to the future.
Popular ride-booking service needs to be regulated not banned