City Committee Favours Easing Taxi Regulations, Seeks Public Input for Uber

640toronto.com
March 31, 2016

City Councillors voted in favour of changes to London’s taxi bylaws, while also moving one step closer to a public consultation on how to deal with Uber.

During Wednesday’s Community and Protective Services Committee meeting, councillors endorsed allowing taxis to offer 10 per cent discounts to students, a demographic Uber is popular with, and they’ve allowed companies to sell ad space on their taxis.

In regards to the ride-sharing app, councillors voted in favour of moving forward with public consultations on a staff report that lays out 5 possible ways forward in the struggle to regulate Uber’s local activities.

“I’m very glad to see that as part of this review, there’s going to be a major public consultation to it, and I think’s extremely important to our decision making on this,” said Councillor Jared Zaifman.

“Community meetings, surveys, and online consultation, that’s all going to begin in a week or so.”

Uber’s operations are currently illegal under London’s taxi bylaws and city councillors are urging those engaged in their activities to by the rules.

“I think it’s important that for those people who are operating in our municipality outside of bylaws right now, I think it’s important for them to respect those bylaws as we figure this out, and to recognize that we are working as best we can,” said Councillor Mo Salih.

Public discussions through community meetings, surveys and online consultations are scheduled to begin in April, and will run through June.