Maple Ridge could be adding its voice to the cry to bring ride-sharing to B.C. cities.
Council, next week, will consider a resolution proposed by Coun. Gordy Robson to ask the provincial government to put the legislation process into high gear.
Minister of Transportation and Infrastruture Claire Trevena introduced the legislation last week, promising to bring ride-sharing within a year.
Robson wants to tell the province that Maple Ridge needs ride-sharing, “in the worst possible [and] quickest way,” he said at council’s Tuesday workshop.
“Our restaurants, our bars, are hurting and getting around the community is a problem,” Robson said.
The exact resolution will be considered council’s Dec. 11 meeting.
A Vancouver councillor is also asking that ride sharing be available by next spring.
Mayor Michael Morden supported the idea.
“It’s high time that it’s here. We’re trying to be a global city … we’re just simply behind the times. The world has gone Uber, why not Vancouver?” Morden said Wednesday.
The legislation introduced in the B.C. legislature in the last week of November, calls for Uber drivers to have a Class 4 driver’s licence, for the Passenger Transportation Board to decide on the number of Uber drivers, and it’s hoped, dissolve the boundaries that currently ban taxi drivers from picking up customers in cities outside their home base.
Trevena said late last month that most cities across Canada are requiring drivers to have a Class 4 licence or equivalent, which requires a medical exam and a criminal record check.
She defended the Passenger Transportation Board limiting the numbers of Uber drivers, where needed, because of the experience in other cities, such as New York, which is in the process of setting limits on the number of Ubers.