Who wins with new Uber rules?

New Uber rules diminish taxi industry, writes Royson James.

Thestar.com
May 4, 2016
By Royson James

Taxi!

The stale cabbage at a local grocery has more layers than the utterance of that very word; and is equally susceptible to rot.

Add Uber to the lexicon - made legal in Toronto by a city council vote Tuesday - and the nose burns from the stench of an industry doomed to perpetual funk by our political class.

One is forced to stifle the snicker when listening to the new frontiersmen and women who embrace the app-addled world that continues to destroy jobs and lives. Indeed, today it’s you who bite the dust; tomorrow, it’s me.

As the cabbie who called in to Matt Galloway of CBC Metro Morning Wednesday, said, Uber X has ruined his life and years of investment in the taxi industry. He is quickly followed by a second caller who says, “Life is unfair; life is tough. You have to adjust.” Then, a third caller, a casual 10-hours-a-week Uber driver, said, you “can’t make a living from Uber” and the new rules will only make it tougher.

So, who wins here? Everybody. Nobody. How modern.

Is Toronto’s taxi industry toast?

Not destroyed, but certainly diminished - to the point of despair for many who gave so much and received so little in return from the feudal system fostered and encouraged and enhanced and presided over by the city. It will survive. The core always lives on to re-invent itself. But even the most naive cabbie now knows for sure that city politicians are among their vilest enemies.