The topic of how and where Ride Share services fit in the city of North Bay was front and centre this morning at the Elks Lodge.
The North Bay Police Services Board, which manages taxi licenses in the city, is looking at a way to regulate Ride Share when it comes to North Bay.
As part of that process, the board decided to create a town hall meeting to get a pulse from the community about ride share, its impact on the community and the taxi industry.
“Our first big step is to understand what is going on in the public and the community,” said Police Board Chair Dennis O’Connor.
“We got feedback from the stakeholders, which are the taxi industry and feedback from the hospitality industry and other people in our community that wants something different.”
While representatives from two cab companies talked about blocking Ride Share from coming to North Bay, Chamber president Peter Chirico supported the taxi industry by asking for fairness.
“From the Chamber’s perspective we are just looking at levelling the playing field,” said Chirico.
“If this service, and the consumers will dictate, they want this service. They are asking for it, so all we are saying is competition is good but make sure the playing field that they all play on is all level and we are advocating deregulation of the industry.”
Anthony Campigotto attended the meeting but did not do a presentation. The ride share advocate who has created the “North Bay needs Ride Share” Facebook page, was worried initially that the meeting was taking a negative turn against ride share.
“I feel pretty confident it is not a conversation about ‘is it allowed here’ it is a conversation about how do we make this fair so that the taxi industry can continue to work and evolve with ride share,” he said.
Meantime cab brokers like Cary Lafontaine from 5-0 Cab had a simple message.
“My only point is there is not enough pie to go around,” said Lafontaine.
“We limit the plates for a reason. If we put 85 cabs on, the drivers are not even making minimum wage, it’s simple as that.”
Frankie Dumont, who represented the local hospitality industry at the meeting, believes the demand is there and North Bay needs ride share.
“I believe ride share would help during peak hours. I think there is an opportunity here for a side-job, so people can make some money on the side, the liability is on themselves, the taxis are on themselves,” she pointed out.
“I think if cab drivers wanted they could do ride share on the side themselves and have more work if they wanted to, so I do not see where the job loss lies. I think they have that freedom to expand.”
The Police Board has hired a consulting company that has looked at taxi bylaws across the province. The Board hopes the consultants, along with the public feedback, will help them make a fair and informed decision which will likely result in a new bylaw that will include taxis, ride share, and limousine services all under one bylaw.
"We are going to take that into consideration, check with other communities about the size of us like Belleville, Brockville, Cornwall and of course northern Ontario like Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury, and see how they implemented the bylaw with the taxi industry, the ride share and the limousine business," said O'Connor.
