Vancouver still not ready for Uber ride sharing service, councillors say

There’s bad news for Vancouverites fed up with long taxi waits on weekends.

On Thursday night, city councillors reiterated their view that Vancouver still isn't ready for ride sharing service Uber, while also rejecting a proposal to give out 38 additional cab licences to suburban taxi companies to help clear out Friday and Saturday night crowds.

Coun. Geoff Meggs said there are outstanding licensing and regulatory issues around ride sharing that need to be worked out by the provincial government before the city can embrace Uber and similar services.

“What council decided unanimously is we should stick with what we know and are doing well, which is providing quality taxi service,” Meggs said.

“The ride sharing issue… really belongs at the provincial level.”

After the vote, there were cheers in City Hall, where a crowd of people from Vancouver’s taxi industry had gathered for Thursday’s meeting.

Council also shot down a staff recommendation to give 38 licences to suburban taxi companies so they could help deal with the weekend cab crunch, arguing rules are too varied across municipalities.

“To bring in cabs that are not licensed the same way would cause very serious enforcement difficulties for us,” Meggs said.

The city is working to decrease weekend wait times, Meggs added, pointing to the addition of 99 part-time licences for Friday and Saturday nights.

Vancouver voted last October to put the brakes on Uber, arguing more research was needed on what the app-based service would mean for the taxi industry.

Around the same time, B.C.'s Ministry of Transportation warned the company not to launch without first obtaining a license – a requirement made of all taxi or limousine companies in the province.

The ministry said if Uber started operating illegally, undercover agents would be sent to dish out $5,000 fines