Despite the government saying B.C. won’t see ridesharing until the end of next year at best, ridesharing company Uber says it remains optimistic.
“Our hope is that with legislation coming this fall, there will be opportunity for some quick engagement to be able to outline actually how they can bring ridesharing into B.C.,” says Michael Van Hemmen.
Van Hemmen said there’s no reason for it to take more than a year but they are willing to work with the province.
He said they want to highlight how taxis and rideshares are different.
“You can be fair without giving them the exact same rules — that’s possible and other jurisdictions in Canada have done that.”
READ MORE: Ride-hailing not coming to British Columbia until fall of 2019
“So that people can use their personal cars to drive other people around without increasing the actual number of cars.”
“Ridesharing can be introduced much more quickly than what the province has laid out but we are absolutely committed working with Premier Horgan to fulfill the NDP commitments on ridesharing.”
The government requested a report on modernizing the taxi industry in B.C that was released on Thursday, and it made recommendations including immediately adding hundreds of taxis and laying out a path to including ridesharing.
The Transportation ministry says the earliest ridesharing will come is next fall.