Enderby continues to insist that any move towards ride-sharing shouldn’t be just urban.
Council is writing to the provincial government as part of the stakeholder consultation on modernizing passenger directed vehicle services such as Uber.
“We want them to consider small, rural areas,” said Mayor Greg McCune.
“There is no one from small communities on the panel.”
McCune believes a ride-share service in Enderby could not only benefit people needing to get home after socializing, but it could make it easy for seniors without vehicles to get groceries or visit the doctor.
“There’s definitely an opportunity out there,” he said.
At the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention in 2017, council had a motion endorsed that called for ride-sharing to be considered in small and rural communities.
“More recently, council endorsed sensding a letter to MLA Greg Kyllo, and copied to the Green Party leader, encouraging co-operation around this shared policy goal,” said Tate Bengtson, chief administrative officer, in a report to council.
“The letter emphasized ensuring that ride-sharing regulations must be sufficiently flexible to foster the growth of this innovative transportation solution in small markets. The central concern is regulations will be designed on a one size fits all basis with the intent of ensuring fairness in markets where there are existing, robust, public transportation systems and that, by doing so, it will pose an insurmountable barrier to the establishment of ride-sharing services in smaller markets.”
richard@vernonmorningstar.com
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.