“Communications campaign” won’t fix issue of 86,000 vehicles Toronto still has approximately 86,000 Vehicles for Hire cruising the roads, with no cap in sight. However, Mayor Olivia Chow’s motion to launch a “communications and intergovernmental campaign focusing on raising the
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“I can’t tell you how surprised I was when I read that” Toronto-Danforth Councillor Paula Fletcher was unpleasantly surprised to see that 14 per cent of traffic in the downtown core are Private Transportation Company (PTC) vehicles. “The research indicate
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Having 82,000 Vehicles for Hire (VFH) on Toronto streets is an irrational idea, Co-op Cabs’ representative Glenn De Baeremaeker to Mayor Chow and Executive Committee on December 10th. “Councillor Colle moved a motion about a year ago for a a
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All every Uber driver wants, is what every Taxi driver once had. Everything Taxi drivers ever had and fought for – a living wage; some job security; transparent dealings with regulators and customers; and traffic congestion that is at least
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“Those recommendations were a dumpster fire.” –Kristine Hubbard, Beck Taxi “Finally, one year after the City realized how bad things were, they really listened.” One year after Mayor Olivia Chow sent staff to review the Vehicle for Hire system and
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“Let’s give it another try…let’s see if we could do better” Uber’s influence in the Mayor’s office is not what it was when John Tory presided, it appears. At the close of the December 10th Executive Committee meeting, half of
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I dragged myself to the Committee meeting room and took my seat in the row of speakers. Everyone was there for the same reason: to ask for funds for their program from the limited Tourism budget. My group, Taxis on Patrol, was asking for $7,000 to help fund an annual program which presented awards to cab drivers that had helped improve safety on Toronto streets. It also had a strong impact on improving the often-tenuous relationships between the cab industry, the city, and police.
My favourite Taxis on Patrol (“TOPS”) story was of a driver who saw a woman being beaten by a man on the street. He swerved to the curb and threw open his front door: the woman jumped in, he auto-locked the doors and just kept driving.
In our most famous file, a driver had a mother in the back seat whose fevered baby had gone into convulsions. The driver contacted dispatch who contacted 911 who walked the driver through every step to restore the baby to consciousness – we actually got permission to release the dramatic 911 tape of that event, and when it was played for Metro Council, several of the councillors were crying at the end of it. The baby lived.
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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
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Centralized dispatch, $55,000 conversion grant, March 2026 launch The information below represents a concise summary of the Accessible Taxi elements of Toronto’s 2024 Review of the Vehicle for Hire. Access the report which is going to Executive Committee on December
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