City tweaks new taxi bylaw, adds three-cent surcharge to Uber rides

WinnipegFreePress.com
Dec. 11, 2017
Aldo Santin     

Mayor Brian Bowman offered additional amendments to the proposed bylaw to regulate taxis and ride-hailing services, but whether it’s enough to placate the angry industry is yet to be seen.

Bowman held a news conference Monday afternoon to detail the package of amendments that will go to council for the regular Wednesday meeting. The amendments include:

— Taxis will be allowed to use bus-only diamond lanes on a one-year trial basis. The administration had previously rejected this request from the industry.

— Both taxi and ride-hailing drivers will have to provide the same background checks: criminal, driving records, vulnerable persons and child-abuse registry.

— Ride-hailing drivers will have to pay a three-cent-per-ride levy, with the funds earmarked for a driver safety campaign.

— Issue 60 new taxi licences effective March 1, with another 60 licences issued at the end of 2018. The original proposal called for all 120 additional taxi licences to be issued effective March 1. The new licences will be issued on a lottery basis.

"Over the last two weeks, I have been listening intently to the feedback received from many different industry and public stakeholders on the draft Vehicle For Hire bylaw," Bowman told reporters. "The changes I’m proposing are a further refinement and improvement to what I believe was an already balanced starting point."

The package of amendments had been hammered out earlier in the day by Bowman and members of his executive policy committee.

The three-cent-per-ride charge for ride-hailing drivers was seen as a compromise by those EPC members who wanted safety shields in ride-hailing vehicles.

"There was a lot of give and take," said Coun. Brian Mayes, chairman of council's environment committee and a member of EPC, who had stated publicly last week that he would insist on shields for ride-hailing vehicles but backed down following the closed-door Monday meeting.

Mayes said he didn’t believe there was enough support on council for the requirement for shields to be mandatory in ride-hailing vehicles.

"The compromise was to bring in the (three-cent-per-ride) safety levy, which I think is unique in Canada and which I think we can use to encourage some of these ride-share services to bring in shields," Mayes said. "It wouldn’t be mandatory, but it could be something that would encourage the use of shields."

Scott McFadyen, spokesman for the lobby group Winnipeg Community Taxi Coalition, which represents Unicity and Duffy’s taxi services, said the amendments are an admission the bylaw is flawed.

McFadyen declined to comment on the merits of the amendments, adding that the taxi partners are meeting Monday night to discuss the implications and would comment later.

City hall unveiled new rules Nov. 29 that will allow ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft to operate beginning March 1 and loosen the rules on traditional taxi operators.

The bylaw was prompted by the provincial government's decision in March to bring more competition to the industry by disbanding the Manitoba Taxicab Board and turning over regulation, at least within Winnipeg, to city hall. Other municipalities already regulate taxi industries in their own communities.

The legislature passed the enabling legislation Nov. 9 and set a deadline of March 1 for Winnipeg to take over regulation of the industry.

Edmonton was the first city in Canada to authorize ride hailing in March 2016, and that has been followed by Calgary, Ottawa, Toronto, London, Hamilton, Waterloo and dozens of other communities.

EPC had made two amendments to the proposed bylaw last week: the requirement for a review in 24 months was deleted and replaced with annual reviews for the first five years. There was also a wording change to terms that offended the city's disabled community in how those individuals who use wheelchairs are described.

Representatives from Uber and Lyft had endorsed the provisions of the original bylaw.

The latest amendments fall far short of what the taxi industry had been calling for: higher fees for ride-hailing services and making taxi safety requirements — including safety shields, panic buttons, interior security cameras and roof-top strobe lights — mandatory for ride-hailing vehicles.

Bowman said he didn’t know how the taxi industry would react to the latest amendments, adding that he hadn’t talked to them about it.

There is little likelihood of enough votes on council to support any further amendments, including the installation of safety shields on ride-hailing vehicles, he said.

The three-cent-per-ride levy is expected to generate about $45,000 annually to promote safety measures for ride-hailing services, Bowman said.