Comment
Taxi
Why do we regulate taxicabs in Prince Edward County? Is it to enhance accessibility for those without cars? To improve safety? To keep costs within reach to all residents who need it? It turns out our regulations don’t do a particularly good job on any of these fronts in Prince Edward County. All we seem to be doing is protecting one tiny sector of the County’s economy while squelching innovation and competition, and ensuring folks in this geographically dispersed community are barred from affordable transportation. It is time for the County to consider getting out of the taxi-regulating business.
Shire Hall is currently proposing— for the first time in 14 years—to hike Picton taxi fares by 53 per cent from $6.50 to $10. For a Picton resident, this means that a trip to the grocery store and back home will soon rise from $13 to $20. If you live on the Heights a round trip fare will cost in excess of $24.
Compared to everyone else in the County, however, Picton and the Heights residents are getting off lightly. The rate for any trip outside of Picton will be $10 plus $1.80 per kilometre. Taking a cab from Picton to Belleville will cost $60. Each way. If you live in Wellington, however, and need a cab to Belleville it will be more like $85. More from Hillier or Milford. Because every fare begins in Picton. Wherever you live in the County, you must pay the cab fare from Picton before you begin your journey.
What Shire Hall hasn’t done, so far at least, is ask some fundamental questions: Who is being served by this regulation? Is it helping or hurting? Is it doing what was intended? Or, are they doing it simply because they’ve always have done so? Or worse, for the fees they collect.
Deregulating the taxi industry is happening in large cities like Montreal and small communities including Sioux Lookout. Each of these places has concluded that their regulation scheme was no longer serving the aims by which it was established. For some, it is dawning on them that it never did.
With just a handful of taxi services, all clustered in Picton, it is a meaningless and unaffordable service for most County residents. If it costs $32 to start a journey in Wellington and $1.80 for each kilometre, it is largely unaffordable save for the wealthy visitor seeking a night on the town.
What about safety? The County’s bylaw enforcement folks are charged with ensuring taxis are roadworthy and drivers are competent and courteous. Enforcement, however, is triggered by a complaint. That seems a fairly significant loophole.
Furthermore, it is unclear that the County is proactively ensuring standards are met. This isn’t faulting County bylaw folks—they have lots on their plates, from building permit compliance to noise complaints between neighbours, to animal welfare to lapsed parking meters. The County is simply too small and our geography too dispersed, to serve as anything more than wishful thinking. Yet we continue to encumber these folks with ever-expanding regulatory responsibilities. Why? One, because other jurisdictions do. And two, it is what we have always done.
Rarely do we ask, does it still makes sense today? In Prince Edward County? Or, can we afford it?
There are agencies—MTO and Service Ontario come to mind—far better equipped and experienced than the municipality to ensure taxis are safe. As for courteous? Perhaps we could let customers work that out. It seems in a place like Picton, news of bad service will be shared widely and speedily, impacting reputation and business directly. Customers—rather than Shire Hall—are much better placed to sort between who they want driving them and who they don’t.
Which brings us to the matter of competition. Every public transit initiative proposed over the past two decades has faced withering pushback from the local taxi operators who complain that it might infringe on their protected sector. There are enough challenges to moving County residents around, yet council invariably gets bogged down attempting to balance this sector’s grievances with the needs of the community. It is a false equivalency. It is not “either-or”—it is “both-and”.
Furthermore, it isn’t a stretch—in an unregulated taxi market—to imagine folks specializing to serve folks needing a weekly run to the grocery store, and offering a more competitive rate than the $20 stipulated by the Shire Hall. Particularly if this were a regular occurrence. Or getting kids to school. Or work. A frequent-fare discount arrangement.
In a deregulated market, we might see innovation in the form of ride-sharing take root and blossom. We might see services emerge in under-served markets. Milford. Consecon. Demorestville. Or maybe not.
It isn’t necessary, however, to imagine the benefits of competition and innovation to conclude the goals of a regulated taxi industry aren’t being met. Costs will be out of reach for most under the new rate scheme. Access is already limited to a very few folks in Picton. And safety is mostly addressed after the fact.
It seems the only folks being served by this regulation are the cab operators. And Shire Hall, who collect their fees. Before council approves new taxi fare rates, it must answer some basic questions like: Why?
When I heard that Shire Hall was raising the taxi fee limit, I had the same feeling, why should there be a cap on what a private business can charge? I understand that we want to ensure affordable transportation for the less fortunate, but this is not public transit, it’s business owners who need to make money and pay employees fairly and vehicle maintenance for everyone’s safety. Pretty sure that without regulation the taxi companies will offer fare discounts to regular users, for instance, prepaid passes for a specified number of kilometers, especially since there are competing companies in Picton and PEC who all want these passengers. At the very least, Shire Hall could eliminate any regulations around non-residents, so tourists who are probably used to Pearson Airport shuttle rates can subsidize the locals.