Top 5 reasons Toronto is allowing its Accessibile on Demand program to collapse

1) Toronto would have to admit it made a mistake in allowing open-entry and unregulated fares for 80,000 plus Uber, Lyft and other app-based Vehicles for Hire. It’s understandable that John Tory was never going to disavow his beloved policy inventions; but Olivia Chow should be smarter and braver. She’s not.

2) No one is listening. On September 10, 2025 all of Toronto’s largest Taxi brokerages told the City they would be happy to be part of a centralized dispatch system and also that no new centralized dispatch program needs to be invented because the TTC already has one; staff and councillors were not listening our didn’t care enough to act.

3. Given that Ontario has decided it can simply ignore the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, Toronto figures everyone can ignore it now. It’s simpler and cheaper to just ignore the AODA, and there is ostensibly zero downside to doing so.

(Even Ontario’s March 20 “Northlander Pilot Summary Proposed Operating Requirements” notes under Accessibility:

“PTCs with more than 500 vehicles may be required to provide accessible transportation.”

Not “will be required.” “May be required.”)

4. Taxi operators are experimenting with setting up separate companies under the 2016 by-laws intended for app-based American corporations, and finding ways to make them work at a flat rate. This business model also involves crossing municipal boundaries; its easy to predict that Toronto will just look the other way if it sees these Vehicles for Hire taking the pressure off of them to enforce its own laws.

Law-abiding Taxi operators working in good faith get crushed in this scenario.

5. No matter what program Toronto invents now, it is too late. Taxi operators lost their shirts purchasing converted Wheelchair Accessible Vehicles only to see Uber legalized and permitted to operate without providing any WAVs (staff even laughed about this during the 2024 Review, noting “Uber and Lyft might have one Wheelchair van between them, and it’s unavailable.”)

Toronto’s credibility as a business partner is shot to smithereens. No one being asked to invest their own money believes a word that comes from Toronto; anything it says, does, announces, prints, posts, shares, or releases is likely to be the opposite of what is actually true.