Ride-hailing is on the agenda in British Columbia. And, we must deliver for British Columbians.
The Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations is meeting over two days this week in Vancouver. We are listening to advice from numerous experts and stakeholders. Our task is to prepare a report to recommend regulations in four key policy areas.
- Balancing supply and demand and how the Passenger Transportation Board (PTB) applies their public convenience and necessity test,
- Boundaries,
- Price and fare regimes, and
- Drivers licenses.
It’s time to deliver ride-hailing
We are here because the BC Liberal party did not legislate and regulate ride-hailing when they were in government.
Bill 55, is the legislation put forward by the BC NDP in the 2018 fall session. It generally creates a framework to establish ride-hailing options in British Columbia. But, whether companies will operate in our province will depend on the regulations we recommend, and how the Minister decides to implement them. There is a lot riding on our work.
In addition, the legislation did not remove the public convenience and necessity test. (To learn more about the test see the Dan Hara report starting at p.36). This test is largely responsible for the current shortage of supply of taxi’s in the lower mainland. This is an aspect of the industry that the BC Liberals stubbornly kept in place to protect the value of taxi licenses. During debate on Bill 55, I was able to amend this section to allow for greater flexibility in PTB decision-making. Now it is up to them to deliver different outcomes.
Greens want fair access for ride-hailing
The BC Greens have consistently advocated for the fair entrance of ride-hailing options into the marketplace. My colleague, Andrew Weaver, has put in private members’ bills and has been a strong voice on this issue. Indeed, this is an issue that we have dragged the other political parties to the table kicking and screaming. Thanks to public demand they are not able to ignore it any longer.
One expert witness was very thorough in his criticism of the political culture in British Columbia that has allowed this to continue. He is correct. Important public policy is driven in our province by the desire of politicians to gain and maintain power. It comes down to political interest and votes in swing ridings. This culture should not bleed into our current deliberations.
We have a responsibility to protect the health, safety and well-being of British Columbians. But, hiding behind that, to protect special interests is simply not acceptable. It is time we stop playing the games and get on with it!
As we work our way through the witness list, there are representatives from all aspects of the transportation industry. The only voice that is noticeably missing is the public voice. Your voice should be loudest, your interest should be first, but you are not. You have my commitment, that is going to change!
Thanks, Adam, for discussing this in your blog.
We are counting on the experts to assert that no one in BC wants to make congestion and carbon emissions WORSE by allowing unfettered ride-hailing. The experience in other cities has been sobering: increased congestion as hundreds, even thousands of empty Ubers circle around endlessly waiting to be assigned a customer, and taking up all the parking spots and burning fuel idling. Often the drivers are earning less than minimum wage.
It is easy to bash cabbies – yes, all too often they don’t provide stellar service. Yet cab drivers do earn a decent living presumably, or else the licences to operate wouldn’t have had such value.
I am hopeful that the result of rules, regulations and monitoring can result in less congestion and less carbon emissions. If having Lyft and Uber operating in BC increases VMT (vehicle miles travelled – particularly with one passenger), and doesn’t decrease carbon emissions – as a society we’d be heading in the wrong direction. If ride-hailing pulls people away from using transit, that’s not good because we want volume on transit to make that viable: from a cost perspective and from having the rider volume to justify a high frequency of buses and trains.
Let’s ensure that ride-hailing companies provide full data on every aspect of their operation – in exchange for permission to operate and to use BC’s (expensive) transportation infrastructure.
You and your colleagues have your work cut out for you – it won’t be simple, and the ride-hailing companies will have slick campaigns to mask that they really don’t care at all about the environment or about society or their drivers – it’s just money they are after, and they are eager to extract as much as possible from BC. I wish you courage and wisdom as you bargain on behalf of our environment, economy and society!
Bruce;
As a transit advocate, I agree, “If ride-hailing pulls people away from using transit, that’s not good because we want volume on transit to make that viable: from a cost perspective and from having the rider volume to justify a high frequency of buses and trains.” Once that volume starts waning, it starts creating a spiral that will bottom out with mediocre/average to below-average transit service for only the truly transit dependent. Frequent transit is freedom for both the transit dependent and transit choice riders who can get/use a personal car.
Joe
You know, you could just request Chairwoman Bowinn Ma have a public comment period one Saturday or two about this. That’d be awesome!
Hello Adam,
I like Bruce Bachelor’s comment about the environment and congestion.
It is just another way of doing buisness and while the existing cab system has major flaws let’s not repeat them with the ride sharing.
Is it possible to insist that the cars be 100% electric by 2020? (and put the same on the cab companies)
Chauffeur licensing requirements are still needed in my opinion for safety and vetting of drivers.
Fair wages of course but ridesharing is a system whose time has come.
after that consumer reviews on an independent rating site would be good for both cabs and ridesharing.
Ride-hailing in San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles and numerous other US cities has increased traffic congestion, vehicle miles traveled, and has even increased traffic fatalities. I wouldn’t hang your hat on capitulating to these large scale US backed firms. They do not help reach climate targets and have fallen severely short on their previous claims of doing so.