A student in one of DriveWise’s Simulator units customized for Toronto’s Vehicle for Hire training. Photo: DriveWise DriveWise Canada is dropping one of its “Mobile Units” in Beck Taxi’s parking lot at #1 Credit Union Drive on Wednesday, July 27th.
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Possibly thousands of Vehicles for Hire were just given a one year extension on their allowable life by Toronto Council. Photo: Nabeel Syed, Unsplash A motion to allow Accessible Taxis to stay on the road three additional years has morphed
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Uber’s gleeful lawlessness is proving to be its Achilles heel. This was obvious to anyone with common sense while Toronto was re-writing its vehicle for hire by-law for Uber last year and SHOULD have been immediately apparent to the politicians we pay to make our laws. It was not.
On June 21, in an article entitled “Uber can’t be fixed; it’s time for regulators to shut it down,” Benjamin Edelman wrote in the Harvard Business Review: “The company’s cultural dysfunction, it seems to me, stems from the very nature of the company’s competitive advantage: Uber’s business model is predicated on lawbreaking. And having grown through intentional illegality, Uber can’t easily pivot toward following the rules.”
“Having built a corporate culture that celebrates breaking the law, it is surely no accident that Uber then faced scandal after scandal. How is an Uber manager to know which laws should be followed and which ignored?” Edelman asks.
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Toronto Council has added a third day to its sitting schedule July 21.
Council rose at 6pm on the evening of July 20th with dozens of agenda items still to be discussed; one of those items, GL32.29, concerns extending the allowable age of Accessible Taxi vans to ten years. Staff have recommended this extension be temporary, until 2025, mainly because the supply chain crisis has made new vehicles very difficult to obtain.
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Taxi News publisher Rita Smith’s Op Ed on the looming disaster in Toronto’s Accessible Taxi service has been published in the Toronto Star today, July 21st. On July 15, the Star ran a modified version of Taxi News’ editorial “Don’t
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Toronto Councillors will consider a temporary extension of the allowable age for Accessible Vans to 10 years today.
Read More Before Uber arrived in Toronto, the City had a viable social contract with the individuals willing to invest $60,000 or more in an Accessible van customized to transport passengers with wheelchairs and walkers.
Now, in 2022, the last fleet of Accessible vans purchased before Toronto shredded its social contract with Taxi drivers is aging out, and many of the owners have no plan to re-invest.
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ICC CEO Daniel Bernhard Photo: LinkedIn Following the release of “The Uber Files,” one Canadian group has announced it will not allow its staff to use Uber any longer. The Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC) issued a statement on July
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“We understand that some clients, and especially clients who require Accessible services, have recently endured stressful experiences including service delays. These unfortunate incidents should not occur, ever, and we are very sorry when they do. Please be assured, these regrettable incidents are the opposite of every single thing we strive for everyday in our businesses.
We truly appreciate it when events like these are brought to our attention so that we can work to improve our systems.
Please recall that in 2015, 2016, and 2017, politicians chose to support businesses that make a mockery of the law and of customer service. Rideshare companies were rewarded for their law-breaking by being allowed to skim enormous amounts of the easiest money from the transportation market while providing ZERO accessible services.
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