Royal City Taxi Ltd. is seeking to increase its fleet by eight taxis.
At its Oct. 30 meeting, council will hold “an opportunity to be heard” regarding proposed amendments to the commercial vehicle bylaw, which would allow the taxi company to increase its fleet from 54 to 62. A staff report notes that taxi companies wanting to add vehicles to their fleet must seek support from the Passenger Transportation Branch and get final approval from local government.
“A change in the number of taxi permits issued by the city requires an amendment to the commercial vehicle bylaw,” said a staff report.
In addition to Royal City Taxi’s existing 54 vehicles, Queen City Taxi operates 13 taxis in New Westminster.
Coun. Chuck Puchmayr said the requirement for getting additional taxi licences is “pretty well standard across Canada” but is vastly different than how companies like Uber operate.
“I just wanted to highlight the huge difference between what we require for the existing and new taxis and the lack of any real regulations with Uber,” he said. “I am pleased that the new government is talking about making the playing field equal. I would imagine if it does come in there would be situations such as this, where council has a say on how many vehicles are running in the city. I think that would be a start in the right direction.”
Coun. Jaimie McEvoy said Uber talks about wanting a level playing field, but that’s not what it actually seeks, as it wants to be exempted from taxi regulations.
He noted taxis are faced with regulatory processes and expenses, such as maintenance, inspections, fingerprinting and approvals to get to have more cars on the road.
“Taxi companies do have an investment,” he said. “A real level playing field would be that Uber follows the regulations or complete deregulation of the taxi industry.”
