Edmonton city council squashes talk of partnering with Uber in transit

Edmontonjournal.com
July 11, 2017
By Elise Stolte

Edmonton officials will not even start a conversation with Uber about partnering to get people from their homes to key LRT stops after a narrow vote Tuesday.

 

Council voted 5-5 against exploring the option, which administration proposed as part of the transit strategy. The tie vote failed, while three councillors were absent.

 

Some of the cities in North America have found an Uber partnership involving subsidized rides is cheaper than running half-empty buses and still gives people alternatives to cars. Instead, Edmonton will investigate creating a public dial-a-bus system, using city staff to ferry people from their homes to the main routes.

 

Coun. Tony Caterina made the motion that defeated the potential partnership.

 

“Would you like private EPS officers? Private firefighters? Private recreation facilities?” he said, commenting afterward. “It’s best handled in-house.”

 

Councillors Ben Henderson, Dave Loken, Bryan Anderson and Mike Nickel also voted against.

 

Mayor Don Iveson voted in favour of getting information on those options, along with councillors Michael Oshry, Andrew Knack, Scott McKeen and Bev Esslinger.

 

Iveson said the No vote was unfortunate, but still leaves officials lots to work with as they find ways to ensure no senior or other resident is left stranded by the transit changes.

 

“It was unfortunately an ideological position,” he said of the opposition, saying people already take taxis and Uber to transit stations, and even leaving a drop-off space for them could be seen as a partnership.

 

Council passed the rest of the transit strategy, including a deadline of January 2020 to implement the changes. The transit strategy will create more high frequency routes and express routes, while reorganizing community routes to run straighter and focus on key destinations.

 

Knack’s motion also commits officials to laying out plans for bus rapid transit, a type of high frequency bus that runs in its own lanes. That’s been proposed as a precursor for LRT.

 

Esslinger said she hopes this new strategy will bring quality transit to areas of the city that are not well served by the current system, such as the northwest.

 

“Everyone can agree our current transit system needs to change,” she said. “I’m really hoping by looking at a new strategy, we’ll be able to improve access through priority routes.”

 

The transit strategy was released at the same time as Edmonton Transit rolled out major cuts to community routes where use was lower. That caused a lot of confusion and angst in communities, leading many to believe the strategy was about cuts, she said.

 

But transit officials said there will be no more cuts while they get ready to implement the new strategy. The cuts, which took effect July 2, are actually part of a reallocation. The bus hours will be added back in September to routes that are overloaded and stuck in traffic.