Toronto-Danforth Councillor Paula Fletcher is concerned about PTCs "doing 180s, stopping in bike lanes" which are not marked or identified in any way. “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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Co-op Cabs’
Glenn De Baeremaeker
speaks at the December 10, 2024 Executive Committee meeting in Toronto. 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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A chance to rebuild the Vehicle for Hire industry feels like watching the sun rise on a new day. Photo: Taxi News 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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Mayor Olivia Chow presided over the Executive Committee meeting on
December 10th. Photo: Alexander Zdravko for Taxi News “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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Toronto's Hockey Hall of Fame. Is a city judged by the grandiosity of its buildings, or the industriousness of its workers? Photo: HHOF 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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Health warning label: attempting to read the VHS Review in one sitting may cause dizzy spells and blurred vision. Image: Taxi News 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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Jesse Coleman (Manager of Transportation Data and Analytics) and Carleton Grant (Executive Director Municipal Licensing and Standards presented the 2024 VFH Review at Toronto City Hall on December 3, 2024. Photo: Alexander Zdravko 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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Image: TTC Among the changes being suggested as part of the 2024 Vehicle for Hire Review is allowing Wheelchair Accessible Vehicles (WAVs) now under contract to Wheel-Trans be allowed to service on-demand calls and to receive the proposed $15 or $25 incentive.
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