The world keeps turning and Uber will keep moving

At the very least, all vehicles allowed to pick up passengers must be licensed, have commercial insurance, be subjected to regulation and minimum safety standards, writes Royson James.

Thestar.com
Oct. 1, 2015
By Royson James

I’ve always had a soft spot for cabbies.

They are too often treated like scum - underpaid chauffeurs who work long hours under trying circumstance, driving cars often rented from money-grubbing middle men.

They are, of necessity, regulated to the hilt and must show up at city hall en masse to beg for fair fares, safe cabs, relief from stiff rules and other benefits, and protection from scurrilous citizens who would scam them of a fare, or worse, steal the day’s haul, and stab or shoot them to boot.

There they were again Wednesday, crammed into the city hall council chamber, fighting for their livelihood, underdogs in the political dog-eat-dog arena.

A lovely constituency in search of a little love.

This time, the person standing between cab driver and job oblivion is Tracey Cook, Toronto’s executive director of municipal licensing and standards.

Cook is a credit to the civil service - the kind of unheralded, tough-minded, credible, praise-worthy government worker who toils day and night to improve life in our city.

We say this because Cook and civic workers are regularly disparaged on talk radio and at dinner tables - lumped together in some stereotype of the lazy, incompetent, overpaid government worker.

Yet, for more than three hours Wednesday, she took on one of the toughest and most ticklish issues facing city politicians and answered every question from the partisan politicians with aplomb and a sense of humour.

At times, the cabbies groaned. Other times they gave the jazz hand silent applause (vocal outbursts were banned for fear the meeting would deteriorate into chaos if the overflow crowd of cabbies was allowed to vocalize their feeling). And through it all, Cook was firm and clear.

Bottom line on Uber or Uber X, UberBlack, UberPool or whatever offshoot application exists or will exist, is this: the taxi industry is forever changed. Technology has turned everything on its ear, and transportation tools are not immune.

Instead of calling Beck, Diamond, Co-Op, Royal or others, wait for the dispatcher to send a taxi over, wait 10 or 20 or 30 minutes for one to arrive, and, at destination, dig in the pocket for the fare as we have for years, our kids just run out the door into an unmarked car and off they go.

“Whose car is that you travelling in?” I shouted at my daughter last week, concerned at the stranger who pulled up at the driveway.

“Uber.”

The public is voting with their feet. They love the service. It’s cheaper, more accessible, free of restrictions. Like the total disregard for the fate of the music industry, Blockbuster or centuries-old newspapers, the public has no qualms about assigning a service or industry to the Dodo-bird dustbin.

The world has changed right in front of us. Suddenly, instead of 5,000 cabs, we have a gush of 13,000 (yesterday they claimed 16,000) drivers added to the mix. Uber claims 500,000 Torontonians a month are travelling in Uber-aided cars; and the numbers are growing at a rate of 15,000 to 20,000 a week.

Predictably, cab companies which carry about four times that base number of passengers, are reporting lost revenues. Drivers are watching their daily minimum wage dwindle. The court has said Uber is not covered by the city’s rules. Cabbies, used to being gouged by middlemen, are now being robbed by a new adversary.

Can private mini-bus service and mini-van service be far behind? Jitneys? Will the TTC and GO, in the midst of massive multi-billion-dollar expansion, be overtaken by ride-sharing technology that moves commuters more freely, at lower costs, more efficiently?

When faced with that reality, city hall will move heaven and earth quickly to protect that franchise. By then it might be too late.

In fact, will it be long before Uber is eclipsed by the latest technological or other advancement?
Cook’s job now is to craft some blueprint that satisfies the past (taxi industry) and accommodates the near-future (online-based ride sharing technology). Is there some magic bullet that frees drivers from the shackles of the current system and still protects them from the vagaries of Uber?

At the very least, all vehicles allowed to pick up passengers must be licensed, have commercial insurance, be subjected to regulation and minimum safety standards. How to guarantee this, within reason, is Cook’s task.

Across the planet, some 300 cities are facing this challenge to the traditional taxis. Several of them are looking to Toronto to provide a workable regime.

Wish Cook luck as she reports back in January.