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“As we see progress elsewhere, we’re sharing with political parties here how that progress is made and the outcomes and the benefits that are resulting from that,” said Van Hemmen adding the company had met with all political parties as well as TransLink.

Van Hemmen encouraged citizens to approach their local government, and to continue lobbying for Uber in B.C. He credited a group of taxi drivers in Edmonton as being part of the active lobby effort that helped successfully bring Uber to that city.

In response to pushback from B.C.’s taxi industry, Blinick maintained Uber was not looking to cut into their business, but that it sees itself as a complement to the multiple transportation options in the region.

He cited examples in other Uber markets, both in North America and overseas, where riders frequently use the ride-sharing service to get from the outer edges of suburbs to central transportation hubs where they’re able to hop on a bus or a train. Blinick called it a “first mile, last mile” solution.

“We want to really compete with car ownership and work with public transit to actually drive more people away from using their personal vehicles to using — not just Uber, because we know that alone won’t be a perfect substitute — it’s car shares as well … and public transit,” said Blinick.

“What we’ve seen in any market is, we’re growing the pie and what we haven’t seen is there be an exit of the market of taxis.”

Should the B.C. Government give Uber the green light anytime soon, Van Hemmen said the company would work quickly to get things in place and comply with whatever criteria and regulations are introduced.

“We’ve been hoping for this day in British Columbia for quite some time so we’d be looking to move fast,” he said.

sip@postmedia.com

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