Vancouver Board of Trade argues there's a desperate need for more transportation options in the region

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – A new report from the Vancouver Board of Trade is urging politicians to allow ride-hailing services, like Uber, into the region. It’s arguing there is a desperate need for new options across Metro Vancouver.

The board claims our infrastructure is under pressure, and the economy is being hurt by people on the roads, on SkyTrain and buses.

“Vancouver’s the only major, metropolitan community in North America that doesn’t allow for ride-sharing at this point. We’ve seen from studies in New Orleans that in fact when ride-sharing options and choices are presented to the public, the overall demand goes up, it does not hurt the taxi industry, which is a really important consideration,” explains President and CEO Iain Black.

“There’s also the element of congestion. We’re going to have over another 1 million people living in the Lower Mainland within another 10 years. Right now, congestion is costing about $1.4 billion a year to our economy, so the more people we have not owning their own vehicles and taking those vehicles out on the road all the time, that can do nothing but help the congestion and help the overall economy and the livability of our region,” he adds.

The board is calling for four specific actions.

“To change the regulations around taxis, to make them more competitive and remove some burdens from them. [And to] create some new regulations specifically for the ride-sharing type companies, to get ICBC to produce some insurance offerings that’ll make the whole thing work, and then finally to update the legislation to harmonize the requirements on the taxi industry across municipalities.”

The board would also like to see the provincial government and municipalities work to cut red tape for the companies that want to launch their service here.