Uber argues for non-restrictive bylaw in Hamilton
City does not have to reinvent the wheel, manager says

TheSpec.com
Oct. 5, 2016
Mark McNeil

A restrictive city bylaw for ridesharing services will not only nix UberX in Hamilton but it will undermine future services such as UberPOOL and maybe even driverless Uber cars of the future.

That was the argument put forward by Chris Schafer, the public policy manager of Uber at a presentation Tuesday night called the Future of Transportation.

Hamilton is currently putting together a draft bylaw to deal with Uber that will be discussed by councillors in November. The service officially launched a year ago in Hamilton and continues as the city figures out how to regulate it.

"What is important to think about is that Hamilton does not have to reinvent the wheel," said Shafer at a low-keyed meeting Tuesday at CoMotion on King Street East that attracted about a dozen people.

"Toronto passed a pretty progressive bylaw. So did Ottawa, Waterloo, and the Niagara region."

In July, Uber pulled out of Calgary after that city came forward with a bylaw that among other things called for a $220 annual licensing fee and police background checks for drivers.

However, more recently there has been discussion about resuming Uber service in Calgary.

Shafer said the company is hoping Hamilton passes a bylaw that recognizes Uber is selling a "fundamentally different" service than the taxi industry. The company is also generally opposed to driver licensing fees, and other requirements such as training courses.

In his presentation, Shafer said, Uber data has shown that customers who use the service tend to be different than those who use taxi drivers, who do most of their business in downtown areas and at airports.

Uber users tend to start or end their journeys outside the urban core of cities. As well, commuters use ridesharing extensively to get from their home to public transit hubs.

He argued UberX, and especially UberPOOL — that turns ridesharing into carpooling — will be especially useful if and when Light Rail Transit arrives in Hamilton. Uber would provide an affordable way for people to use LRT who do not live on the line.

They could use Uber to reach the LRT stop and not have to worry about the parking costs associated with using their own vehicle. As well, he said, regular Uber service is 30 to 50 per cent cheaper than a cab and UberPOOL is 80 per cent less expensive, so it would offer an incentive to use public transit.

"If car pooling is an important goal for the city of Hamilton — to get more people in fewer cars — we have proven we are doing that in a massive way. If that is important to Hamilton councillors, they need to get the regulations around UberX right because without UberX there is no UberPOOL. We can't introduce UberPOOL if we can't have UberX."

As well, he said, numerous other Uber services will be developed in the future for cities that are accepting of ridesharing. Self-driving cars, he noted, are already being tested in Pittsburgh.