Having 85,000 vehicles for hire IS the problem
Ensure eternal angst by freezing the number exactly where it is
Let’s be real: 85,000 VFH represents no ‘cap’ at all; it’s just a language game…You could permit 500,000 or a million licenses and call that a ‘cap,’ too, if it makes you happy.
“Toronto’s going to SUE cab drivers?” my caller exclaimed in astonishment.
“This is where we’re at now – this is what City officials are in business for, to sue cab drivers trying to earn a living picking up people in wheelchairs? Really? How did we get here?”
Co-op Cabs CEO Abdul Mohamoud was referring to page 30 of the 2024 Review of the Vehicle-for-Hire By-law and Industry tabled November 24th. This is not to be confused with the Report on the 2024 Review of the Vehicle-for-Hire By-law and industry, which was submitted to the Mayor’s Executive Committee and released December 3rd.
The Review is longer and contains more worrisome detail than the shorter Report does. It is on page 30 of the Review document you can find the idea that Taxi operators who accept Toronto’s proposed $55,000 “upfront grant” to a wheelchair accessible van (WAV) could be subject to legal action of referral to a collection agency if they fail to meet the program’s parameters:
“The application form would also outline potential consequences for breaching grant conditions, such as:
• Refusal or cancellation of any future funding (if any);
• Ineligibility to apply for future funding for a specific period of time;
• Taking legal action (for example: commencement of civil claim); and
• Taking collection action (for example: referral to a collection agency).”
My demoralizing conversation with Abdul capped off three long days of interviews on Toronto’s new Vehicle for Hire review, and his weary voice seemed to encapsulate all that I have heard consistently:
- No one trusts Toronto anymore.
- The operators who got stung purchasing Accessible vans in the past are finished; they’ve moved on.
- The proposed licensing of 85,000 vehicles for hire means that even grants and trip fees can not guarantee drivers enough revenues to stay afloat.
As if the financial obligations of a $100,000 vehicle and thousands of dollars in commercial insurance payments were not daunting enough, now operators can worry about accepting a grant which could result in collections stress or legal action if their business fails.
What if, for example, Ford Motor Company dumps 10,000 or 20,000 fully electric vehicles in Canada and Uber buys them to lease to drivers? EVs are exempt from the cap. Then, Toronto could have 100,000 VFH instead of 85,000. The 2024 Review also suggests allowing WAV’s currently contracted to Wheel-Trans to be allowed to pick up on-demand calls, too; how much business will that hive away?
Let’s be real: 85,000 VFH represents no “cap” at all; it’s just a language game to call 85,000 a “cap.” You could permit 500,000 or a million licenses and call that a “cap,” too, if it makes you happy, but a million licenses would not be a real “cap.” 85,000 licenses is not a “cap” either.
Given a year to identify a workable number, Toronto decided to FREEZE THE NUMBER AT EXACTLY THE NUMBER THAT IS CAUSING THE PROBLEMS. You can’t make this stuff up.
Toronto could have solved almost every problem facing the Vehicle for Hire industry by “right-sizing the fleet,” to borrow a phrase from George Wedge. Congestion, emissions, driver earnings, and lack of Accessible Taxis are all problems that result of having exponentially more vehicles than Toronto needs to have clogging downtown streets.
Instead, taxpayers, members of the disabled community and frustrated drivers got thousands of words covering everything from “enabling verification of AFP incentive eligibility” to “Approve Trip Meter vendors in accordance with the established criterias.”
Instead of addressing the obvious issue, staff have submitted a review document which is 48 pages long and needs 21,077 words to avoid stating the plain truth: oversupply of vehicles for hire is causing all the problems, and no amount of words is going to fix the problems until we get the number of vehicles right.
*****
Comments from Taxi and Rideshare industry members
I asked Beck Taxi’s Kristine Hubbard if the $55,000 subsidy would make a difference to Taxi drivers who need to replace their vehicles soon:
“You can buy a standard plate and a brand new hybrid Camry for that price, and by the time the ‘centralized dispatch’ is supposed to be ready, all of the vehicles will be expired even with the 10 year life span. It’s over.”
Neil Shorey at City Taxi and Allen Matrosov at Checkers Taxi were more cautiously optimistic, with Allen calling the proposed $55,000 subsidy “a step in the right direction.”
Both men acknowledge that even increasing the per-trip Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle (WAV) bonus to as much as $25 would make the business more attractive to drivers, but the fact that these drivers will be competing with 85,000 other Vehicles for Hire for every other fare will give experienced drivers pause.
“Basically, Toronto is telling the Taxi industry ‘Your business is medical appointments and wheelchair runs now. Your bar-hopping days are over – Uber is getting all of that business,” Shorey points out. “Taxi will have to make its money between 9am and 5pm.”
Marco Ferrara of Universal Motion, which converts stock vans to Accessible vehicles, is also hopeful that the upfront lump sum of $55,000 plus increased per-trip fees will encourage operators to re-invest when their aging vehicle dies.
“It is good news, it will help go a long way, but the devil will be in the details,” Ferrara points out. “No new regulations will make a difference without enforcement, real enforcement.”
George Wedge, president of the Rideshare Drivers Association of Ontario, went into his meetings with Toronto with three asks: “right size the fleet” by implementing a cap at 40,000 VFH; having the City create one single, transferrable license for all VFH drivers so that any driver could driver for any company; and for the City to establish a “rate card” for rideshare drivers, to get their earnings information out of the black box of algorithmic pay and make them transparent.
“We didn’t get a City-managed license, or a transparent rate card, but at least they are using the language of ‘a cap,” Wedge points out optimistically. “Our hope is that Councillors will agree to the idea of a cap, and cap it at a smaller number.”
