Burnaby city council is holding off at least until its next regular meeting before voting on whether or not to join the regional ride-hailing licensing program.
Municipalities from around the region have agreed on a framework for the inter-municipal business licence (IMBL), and city councils are expected to be voting on whether or not to ratify the agreement locally and participate in the licensing program.
The use of a regional licensing program would ease the regulatory burden, and therefore cost, on individual cities by cutting down on red tape, according to a Burnaby city staff report.
The framework came before Burnaby’s council recently for a vote on whether or not to participate in the program, and staff recommended a vote in favour of it. But Coun. Sav Dhaliwal asked council to hold off, citing concerns around wheelchair accessibility.
“I recognize the report works partly to that, but it’s very vague in terms of when and what will be accomplished. I wanted to make sure that as we move forward that there’s some way of us trying to work back to see how we’re going to protect that,” Dhaliwal said.
Unlike taxis, ride-hailing services are not required to include wheelchair-accessible vehicles in their fleet, but they do need to pay a 30-cent per-trip fee that goes toward supporting accessible transportation.
How that money will be allocated, however, is unclear. The province has begun negotiations with the taxi industry to look at using the fees to support its accessible fleet, along with other industries with accessible modes of transportation.
But that could take upwards of two years to properly develop a program, according to a city report.
“I’m not very comfortable with that,” Dhaliwal told council. “I want to see what else is available, what’s happening.”
Coun. Colleen Jordan said the issue of accessibility was an “additional issue” to the licensing issue, saying the city could approve the bylaw and still work on accessibility.
Mayor Mike Hurley, however, countered holding off for two weeks likely wouldn’t make much of a difference.
“Uber is already operating in our city without a business licence, and I’d really rather they be paying us,” Jordan replied.
Despite Jordan’s objections, council voted in favour of tabling the discussion until the next council meeting.
