Local stakeholders push for ride-hailing, again

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – A coalition of local business groups demanding ride-hailing come to BC now, rather than later, are holding a call to action event they won’t describe as neither a protest or rally.

For months now, they have been asking the provincial government to approve ride-hailing in BC.

Ian Tostenson with the BC Restaurant & Food Services Association, who is part of the group Ride Sharing Now, says nine members of coalition groups, including the Surrey Board of Trade, will be there on Thursday.

“We’re just going to come out and talk about the benefits to the economy of ride-sharing and send a message to the premier that when he said a couple of weeks ago that he wanted to put us on hold that it’s so incredibly important to the economy of British Columbia.”


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He adds despite what the critics say, he feels the pros of ride-hailing outweigh the cons.

“Talk to the premier, in a nice way, about how he should just move on with this and get this thing going sooner than later. We’ve been in a situation in British Columbia since 2011.”

The previous BC Liberal government had promised to bring ride-hailing by December of 2017, but they were knocked out of power.

The BC NDP had also promised to implement it, but backtracked on that and instead have called for the topic to be studied.

“It’s kind of embarrassment for Vancouver and British Columbia to be the last major area of North America with no ride-share,” adds Tostenson. “It is a tourism issue… tourists come to Vancouver and they’re used to having ride-share all throughout the United States and they come to Vancouver and they don’t find that very convenient. A lot of times they end up waiting to take taxis when they come in on the cruise ships and at the airport — it’s just time for us to get beyond that.”

Thursday’s event is being held at Jack Poole Plaza in Downtown Vancouver at 11:30 a.m.

~With files from Jon Szekeres

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