More taxis will be plying the streets of Vancouver soon, if city council’s application to add 99 cabs to the fleet during peak periods is approved by the province.
The larger taxi fleet would ease the frustration of customers looking for a cab after the bars close on Friday, Saturday and at other high-demand times such as the Celebration of Light, New Year’s Eve and when cruise ships are in port.
The Vancouver taxi industry paid for a study to see how adding cabs on busy nights would affect the overall economics, Coun. Geoff Meggs told The Province on Tuesday.
Meggs said he expects the provincial Passenger Transportation Board (PTB) will approve the city’s request, passed at Tuesday’s council meeting, possibly within two weeks.
The 99 licences would be allocated to the city’s four cab companies on a proportional basis. Meggs said many cab drivers are upset that the new licences would go directly to the cab companies, not to individual drivers.
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“They want a complete overhaul of the licensing system,” he said.
“Leases of these licences go up to huge numbers – $650,000 for a two-shift licence.”
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Drivers pay about $140 a shift to lease a cab and also pay for the fuel, making it hard for them to make much money on a slow night.
Meggs said the current dynamic between taxi owners and drivers “is tense.” He set up a meeting recently between the Vancouver Taxi Association and the Pacific Coast Co-op Taxi Association of drivers to see if they could solve some of their differences.
“The customers will notice there will be more cabs than there have been on the nights when we’ve had a real shortage,” said Meggs.
The city makes only “a few hundred dollars” on each licence fee, he said.
Once a licence is allocated to a company, it can’t be transferred. A cab’s owner can sell his car, but the licence remains the property of the company.
“That’s what drives the drivers crazy,” said Meggs.
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