'Get ready to drive,' Uber tells Calgary drivers

CalgaryHerald.com
Nov. 2, 2016
Annalise Klingbeil

Uber drivers in Calgary are being told to “get ready to drive,” despite rideshare bylaw amendments that must still be approved by city council.

An email sent to drivers Wednesday begins with “Good news!” and states that if recently proposed changes to the city’s bylaw are passed, Uber could return to Calgary.

The latest message comes after Calgarians who signed up to drive with Uber were invited via e-mail and text to information sessions last month to complete their accounts with needed documents like vehicle insurance and a driver’s licence.

The push to get drivers’ accounts in order and build up hype for a potential December launch follows a mid-October Livery Transport Advisory Committee (LTAC) meeting in which taxi drivers blasted rideshare giant Uber and opposed changes administration wants to make to the fee structure of the rideshare bylaw.

LTAC ultimately didn’t make any decisions about the proposed rule changes at that meeting.

Instead, the group asked city administration for more time to consider the options, which they will discuss again at their Nov. 18 meeting before the matter is expected to go before city council. 

“If these proposed changes are brought to city council and passed in November, Uber can launch by early December just before the holiday season,” Uber spokesman Jean-Christophe de Le Ru said in a statement Wednesday.

Coun. Evan Woolley, the lone dissenting vote on council when the new bylaw was passed in a 14-1 vote in February, said once council makes a decision, Uber could “move quite quickly.”

The proposed changes to how fees are paid were pitched by city administration in October, eight months after council paved the way for ride-share companies to operate with a bylaw touted by the mayor as a 21st-century model other cities would emulate, and one Uber labeled unworkable and abandoned the Calgary market over.

Last week, Mayor Naheed Nenshi said the proposed bylaw amendments are “very, very minor.”

“The city has not compromised on any of its core principles on issues of safety, of insurance, of inspection, and so on,” Nenshi said.