Gridlock, emissions could be addressed through Ontario Budget: CTA
On January 30, the CTA submitted a proposal to Ontario’s Budget consultation highlighting the fact that Ontario is subsidizing American corporations at an estimated cost of $3 billion annually by shifting real costs onto public systems, while drawing riders away from public transit and increasing gridlock and emissions.
“Our transit systems are losing riders and revenues, which harms us on the longer term. On-demand Accessible services have been devastated, and are essentially no longer available in cities like Toronto. Gridlock, congestion and emissions have exploded,” says Mark André Way, president of the Canadian Taxi Association.
“Unsurprisingly, Ontario has learned that consumers appreciate fast, inexpensive services. However, most people are unaware that it is now taxpayers and drivers who are subsidizing these cheaper services, while corporate investors like Blackrock and Vanguard siphon money out of Ontario,” Way points out. “These realities are proving a high price to pay, given that no one realized in 2016 that we were agreeing to them.”
When the Ford government announced it would conduct a review of Ontario’s ground transportation framework as part of the Fall Economic Statement on November 6th, the The Canadian Taxi Association worked with a coalition of community partners to offer a new vision for improved ground transportation, including: ride hail drivers: police; environmental groups; and accessibility advocates. These ideas were sent to Premier Ford in a letter on January 19th.
Priority areas for discussion include:
- compliance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities’ Act;
- business being lost to gridlock;
- increased emissions;
- consumer protection;
- passenger safety; and
- drivers’ earnings.
“With the explosion in the number of vehicles for hire (VFH) since ride hail services arrived in 2014, municipalities have found the task is too much for them to handle, and so many towns are simply walking away from the task,” Way says, pointing to a decision by Oakville Town Council on January 26 not to require ride hail drivers like Uber and Lyft to file their police background checks with Oakville.
“It has been a decade since laws were re-written to satisfy these American corporations. We welcome Ontario’s review and the chance to update and re-design a ground transportation system which benefits everyone: accessible users, hard-working drivers, and citizens concerned about safety and protecting our environment.”
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The “Questions and Answers” information below has been shared by RideFAIR TO on its website and titled “The hidden costs of (under-regulated) ride-hailing.”
Exhaustive sourcing and references for each of the questions is available by visiting the site directly.
Q1: Has ride-hailing decreased congestion?
No, unregulated ride-hailing has tended to increase rather than ease congestion.
Studies by the City of Toronto estimate that between September 2016 and January 2019, the number of daily ride-hailing trips in Toronto nearly tripled. City staff estimate ride-hailing traffic made up 8-14% of peak traffic in congested downtown areas in February 2020, and other major cities report similar numbers. Ride-hailing is also most often used in the morning and afternoon peak periods, when city streets are experiencing the most traffic. New York City actively monitors how ride-hailing affects congestion, and uses this information for licensing and regulation.
Q2: Does ride-hailing reduce private car use?
No, it tends to replace more sustainable modes of transport.
Studies in Toronto and other cities suggest that ride-hailing adds traffic to the road that wouldn’t otherwise be there. A 2019 Toronto study found that in 60% of cases, passengers would have chosen a non-car based alternative mode of transit, most often public transit (49%), bike or walk (6%) or no trip (5%), had rideshares not been available. Only 5% would have driven a private car.
Q3: Does ride-hailing complement public transit?
Overall, ride-hailing COMPETES with more than complements transit – particularly in dense, transit-rich cities
In Toronto, ride-hailing companies took an estimated 31 million trips out of our public transit system in 2019, according to data provided by the City and the TTC. This translates into an estimated farebox loss of $74 million. More recently, a University of Toronto study estimated 31% of ride-hailing trips compete directly with transit.
Other cities report similar impacts, including other transit-rich cities like Chicago, Boston, New York and San Francisco. A recent review estimates the introduction of ride-hailing services was the largest contributor to transit ridership decline in US cities between 2012 and 2018, associated with a 10% decline in bus ridership in particular.
Q4: Has ride-hailing lowered emissions?
No, emissions have increased; ride-hailing remains one of the least efficient modes of urban transportation.
The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates ride-hailing trips are currently 69% more polluting than modes of transit they replace. This is in part because they transport low numbers of passengers for only a fraction of the time they operate – in Toronto, just under half drivers’ operating time is spent with passengers. A recent study by the University of Toronto found that one-third of emissions from ride-hailing were generated by deadheading, the period of time when drivers are circulating without passengers and unpaid, seeking their next ride. As the number of drivers grows relative to ride requests, deadheading time can increase.
The volume of ride-hailing activity also matters. In Toronto, the transportation sector accounts for 35% of emissions. The number of vehicles for hire registered in Toronto (including taxis) increased 500% in the five years after ride-hailing was introduced, according to The Atmospheric Fund (TAF). During this time, TAF estimates that vehicles for hire increased emissions by over 40,000 tonnes a year.
In most North American urban centers, ride-hailing trips tend to replace more sustainable modes of transportation (i.e., transit and active transportation; see above); these mode shifts magnify the emissions impact of ride-hailing. Toronto’s decarbonization plan calls for a substantial shift to more sustainable transportation modes in addition to electrification.
A major barrier to the electrification of the vehicle for hire industry remains the fact that ride-hailing drivers, not the platforms they work for, have to shoulder the cost of acquiring and operating their cars. Thus a plan to move ride-hailing drivers to a true living wage must be a central component of every robust electrification plan for the industry.
Q5: Will ride-hailing limits help or hurt drivers?
Without adequate regulations, study after study has shown ride-hail workers often earn below minimum wage, especially once costs are factored in.
A recent Forbes article estimates Uber decreased its US driver pay per trip by nearly 12% in late 2023 compared to late 2022, and overstates by more than double what drivers can expect to be paid per working hour, net of operating expenses.
Likewise, in Toronto, Uber reports that the median driver earns about $34 per “engaged hour.” This figure only considers “engaged time” (when drivers have a passenger in their car), and does not take into account the 52% of time they are not driving someone (including going to pick them up), or the cost of maintaining a car (which can be calculated as roughly $12.28 per hour at typical speeds). This means that the same drivers earning “$34 per engaged hour” are taking home roughly $4 per hour.
The more drivers there are on the road, the time spent with passengers tends to decrease, translating to lower take-home pay for drivers.
