Uber drivers will soon be hitting the roads in Chatham-Kent now that a new transportation bylaw has been approved.
Chatham-Kent council voted unanimously to approve the Vehicle for Hire Bylaw at Monday night's meeting. This means the current Taxi Bylaw has been repealed.
Final approval will be given by the Ministry of the Attorney General’s office for the set fines in the bylaw. The User Fee Bylaw has now been amended to include fees as well.
The bylaw covers:
1. Vehicle for Hire (such as taxicab, limousine etc.) 2. Private Vehicle for Hire 3. Private Transportation Company (such as Uber, Lyft etc.)
Some highlights of the bylaw include:
- Fares will not be regulated
- No zones
- No plate limit
- Accessible vehicles for hire and private accessible vehicles for hire have been added
- A dispatch office, along with 24-hour dispatch service, would no longer be required
"I like that it's been approved," says Marksteiner. "I know a lot of the members of the community are going to want to drive Uber or Lyft because some of them want to make a living, some of them want to supplement their living, and some of them just want to serve the community."
Marksteiner says it's time to improve the municipality's transportation and ignite the nightlife in Chatham-Kent.
"It's going to benefit a lot of businesses starting with the hotels that we have here with the guests that have already used Uber and starting with businesses like restaurants and bars and every other business that needs traffic," he explains.
Before Uber drivers can legally start picking customers up, Marksteiner says they'll need to go through the application process with the company and get the green light to start driving in the municipality. He expects this process to take about a week.
"For the Uber drivers the process is you upload the vehicle documents and your documents and you get approved," he says. "Then you have to visit a Greenlight Hub for the background check. This is something that Uber introduced last year."
Chatham-Kent's Manager of Licensing Services Nancy Havens says she spoke with Uber before the meeting and the company said it was interested to hear the outcome of the council's vote on the bylaw.