GGL Committee to discuss $1 Taxi fare increase and 16-person pedalcycles today
“Pedalcycles” are promoted as a way to get exercise with friends, while sight-seeing and possibly partying. Photo: The Pedalcycle, New Jersey
April 30, 2022 Update: GGL voted to approve up to 8 “pedal cycles.” The item will now go to Toronto Council for debate on May 11th.
Toronto’s General Government and Licensing Committee meets today, and among the items on the agenda to be discussed are a $1 fare increase for Taxis in order to help them deal with rising fuel prices; and consideration of licensing “large, multi-passenger pedalled vehicles with a maximum of 16 passengers, for one year.”
Apparently, two operators have approached Toronto looking for permission to put the “multi-passenger pedalled vehicles” on the street downtown. The vehicles, which resemble something of a cross between a spinning class and a long bar full of happy patrons, are promoted in other cities as “Party Bikes” or “Pub Cycles.”
Toronto’s staff recommend that Committee wait a year, pending completion of a report on the issue, and that Council be prepared to amend the Municipal Code to require that they maintain a minimum of $2 million insurance.
Beck Taxi’s Kristine Hubbard says that Councillors taking the time to discuss pedalcycles while the City’s Accessible Taxi program is imploding is “crazy” in a related article, here.
Click to read Staff recommendation on 16-person “pedicab”
| Recommendations |
| The Executive Director, Municipal Licensing and Standards and the City Solicitor, recommends that: 1. Council direct the Executive Director, Municipal Licensing and Standards, to: a. refuse the issuance of pedicab licences for large, multi-passenger pedalled vehicles pending completion of the consultation and report referenced in recommendation 2 below; or b. issue no more than two pedicab business licences to large, multi-passenger pedalled vehicles, with a maximum of 16 passengers, for one year and amend Toronto Municipal Code, Chapter 545, Licensing, Article III, Licensing of Pedicabs, section 545-21, to add a new section that will require that each owner of a large multi-passenger pedicab to maintain a minimum of $2,000,000 in insurance. |
