TransLink CEO expects ride hailing services will ‘enhance’ commuter options

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VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Concerns about enforcement, increased traffic congestion and the impact on transit came up during the final day of Vancouver consultations by an all-party legislative committee helping the NDP government usher ride hailing services into BC.

Day 3 included a presentation from the man in charge of Metro Vancouver’s transit system.

TransLink CEO Kevin Desmond, who’s from Seattle which already allows ride hailing, says he’s not expecting transit services to suffer.

“In urban areas, at least, people are less likely to own a car. Ridership in the Seattle metropolitan region is growing at the same rate ours is roughly. It’s booming.”

He says transit services in New York and Los Angeles have lost customers to companies like Uber and Lyft, but that’s not the case in Seattle.

“In New York City, the system’s overwhelmed with ridership and the subway system plagued by delays –hence people are looking for a different way around. Where I come from in Seattle, most recently, in urban areas, it actually improves public transportation.”

Desmond says some regulation is needed, but he doesn’t know if that should include capping how many ride hailing licenses should be allowed in Metro Vancouver.

“It’s a tricky issue. Limiting, capping licenses creates distortions in the market, distortions in behaviour… I probably want to dodge that question. It’s not something that I’ve considered or I think we’ve necessarily given any thought to. We’re all about improving mobility… That’s why setting up a regime that establishes the right types of groundwork and framework, means we can manage around that and the extent to which these new types of service providers that we know a lot of people demand, we can re-balance how we operate.”

He’s also expecting transit ridership here to keep going up once companies like Uber and Lyft are allowed to operate in BC.

“I believe we have such a strong system here that works in so many different dimensions, I personally am not overly worried that it would have a significant or noticeable impact on ridership and revenue… Public transportation’s here for a long, long time. Moving large numbers of people on high capacity corridors, so I don’t necessarily fear that.”

Speakers raise concerns

Another presentation today came from Vancouver Police Sgt. Jeff Rice who admits enforcement won’t be easy because ride hailing operators may be difficult to identify.

“Some way to indicate to that officer that okay, that vehicle involved in this incident was a ride hailing vehicle. Who is the driver? Who is the passenger?”

Rice adds criminal record checks are mandatory for all ride hailing contractors in Calgary.

“The police are the controller of whether or not that is adequately satisfied to get that license to then become an Uber driver, so there should be nobody out there driving an Uber legally who has done the proper criminal record check.”

He was responding to concerns raised by committee chair and New Democrat MLA Bowinn Ma about Uber being fined almost nine million dollars by the state of Colorado for safety violations… including a failure to subject contractors to criminal record checks.

The committee also heard from City of Vancouver engineering boss Jerry Dobrovolny who admits he’s worried about increased traffic congestion if Uber and Lyft drivers are allowed to ‘flood’ the region –much like they have in San Francisco.

“Key thing for us is that we don’t clog our bike lanes, clog our bus lanes, fill up the bus stops.”

The city’s licensing boss Kaye Krishna, who recently moved to Vancouver from New York, says ride hailing enforcement may also be difficult.

“It’s really important for us to really look at the kind of supply and demand, look at this from a regional point of view.”

The all-party committee’s spent the last three days hearing from stakeholders including taxi operators and Uber Canada.

A report containing recommendations is due February 15th.

Potential riders share some concerns

Meanwhile, some people around Vancouver say they’re worried about ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft entering the city.

While many are eager to have a new option to get from point a to point b, some say they’re in no hurry and willing to wait for the committee to finish it’s work.

“I have a lot of concerns with the gig economy and around people having sustainable work,” one person tells NEWS 1130.

“I just, it’s taking too long,” another adds.

And while precarious work and safety was mentioned by many we spoke to, a few also had the taxi industry in mind.

“Taxi licenses are quite expensive and many drivers are counting on the ability to sell that license as part of their retirement plan so if they’re going to get undercut that they probably need to compensate the taxi drivers for that,” one Vancouverite says.

However, almost everyone who said they wanted ride hailing services made available in BC cited negative experiences with taxi’s as their desire for something new.

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