SUMMERSIDE, P.E.I. — Rules surrounding how the city's taxi stands can operate are a few decades behind, the owner of Air Cab Summerside said.
"These taxi bylaws are from, like, the '50s," Chris Pye said. "And we're all operating as it should be in 2020."
Following months of review, amendments to modernize Summerside's taxi bylaw were proposed during a regular council meeting recently at city hall. Pye also operates Air Cab out of Charlottetown where the rules aren't nearly as limiting, he said.
For example, these days more and more taxi stands are choosing to operate mobily as owners like Pye can simply dispatch cabs using their phones.
But under Summerside's current bylaw, any stand that has cabs on the road 24-7 must have a customer waiting room and washroom facilities available for the same amount of time – which Pye notes other businesses aren't subjected to, such as convenience stores.
"We shouldn't have to either."
Coun. Carrie Adams, chairwoman of the city's bylaw committee, said that – if amended – the bylaw would better consider how the industry currently operates, it'd be open to modern trends such as ride-sharing, and it'd put more trust in the city's taxi companies to regulate themselves and their employees.
"We don't tell other businesses how to run their business," she said.
AT A GLANCE:
- The amended taxi bylaw was read a first time by Summerside council during its regular meeting in October.
- The final decision will take place during council's November meeting.
- "We thank members of the industry for their input," Coun. Carrie Adams said. "And their urge to work together."
Other sections of the current bylaw outline a strict level of cleanliness that must be maintained for each taxi cab, and that city staff are required to regulate cab vehicle inspections on top of their provincial inspections.
It's the rules like these the bylaw committee determined are unnecessary for Summerside to be monitoring, Adams said.
"(And) we don't have the staffing to monitor that."
It was important to her that Pye and other industry representatives in Summerside be consulted before proposing the amendments. While the coronavirus (COVID-19 strain) pandemic forced the review process to take longer than hoped, a meeting took place this summer with owners of the city's taxi stands to discuss what changes were needed.
"They were all in agreement with the changes that were proposed," chief administrative officer Rob Philpott said.
The Guardian reached out to three of Summerside's taxi stands, but most owners said they hadn't seen the proposed amendments. Pye said as long as the changes are the same as those discussed he will be onboard because most of the city's taxi stands are technically operating outside of the current bylaw already.
"The bylaws gotta catch up with us."
Daniel Brown is a local journalism initiative reporter, a position funded by the federal government.
