John Strang believes if Ride Share comes to North Bay, that it will destroy 180 taxi jobs in the city of North Bay.
“We believe in the taxi industry that we have made investments,” noted John Strang, owner of You-Need-A-Cab in North Bay.
“We have had to comply by the rules of the police services board to operate taxis in the city, we have had to have taxi plates. There is a value to those which was 37 of them back in 2006 and we made a sizeable investment to our community, bought a building,”
Strang was one of three presenters at today’s Police Board Meeting. The controversy stems from ride share program URide planning to set up in North Bay this summer and at a recent board meeting the Police Board stated it has no authority currently to stop them. However, the board is looking at a way to include ride share business separately or included in a potentially updated taxi bylaw.
“When they changed the wording of the bylaw those plates become valueless,” said Strang.
“It is like buying a house and being told you can’t sell it in 20 years. Who would make that investment? We are simply looking to protect our investment but moreover, we are looking to protect 180 jobs in the city of North Bay.”
Strang along with a pair of presentations from 5-0 Taxi spoke at the meeting. Strang was very vocal about his safety concerns relating to ride share.
“There is no safety with ride share operators, people can sign up and be on call and have somebody else drive for them,” said Strang.
“ A rideshare program like URide could show up here, be governed much like we are but that does not stop the guy in a car that needs to buy drugs the next day from taking his car out and running without any rules and there’s no policing on that so it is a huge safety issue and the industry is standing up for their investments.”
The issue will be front and centre on May 27 at a town hall meeting. Deputy Chief Scott Tod hopes the town hall meeting will help shed more light on the controversy.
See related: Ride Share coming to North Bay. Town Hall planned, hear what you think
“People will be able to come in and see what the issues are and the presentations," said Tod.
“After that, I think the board and the police services have some discussions that we have to make in regards to what the future looks like for the taxi industry within the City of North Bay.”
Tod says the board does not have a timeline as to when they will have the issue resolved but he says there is a sense of urgency.
“We should get this looked at as soon as we can,” said Tod.
