Yahoo Finance Opinion: Capping ride-sharing licences in Toronto a public safety nightmare
By David Clement
Earlier this month Toronto City Council voted not to issue any new ride-share licences until at least the end of 2024. The effect will be to limit supply and drive up prices for Toronto’s ride-share consumers. But beyond being a huge irritant for consumers, the cap on licences is a public safety nightmare.
The freeze couldn’t come at a worse time, given that the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) can’t seem to go a month without a serious public safety concern making headlines. In January, a woman was stabbed multiple times in the face on a TTC streetcar. In August, a 69-year-old man was attacked at the Bloor-Yonge subway station and later died in hospital. In September, a man brutally knocked a woman unconscious and later strangled another person in broad daylight. Four days after that a man was being sought by police for throwing bricks at passengers on a TTC bus. There are many other horror stories like this, which is probably why a recent poll found that 40 per cent of TTC users felt the transit system was either “pretty unsafe” or “very unsafe.”
Restricted ride-sharing, combined with unsafe public transit, is a recipe for increases in drunk driving and the accidents that go with it. If ride-sharing apps like Uber and Lyft have fewer cars on the road and can’t meet demand, prices and wait times will rise, which will cause people to make the stupid decision and drive drunk, especially as we approach the holiday season.
That’s only common sense, but it’s also supported by the academic literature on ride-sharing’s effect on impaired driving. In Houston, for example, researchers at the University of Texas concluded that “ride-share volume had a significant negative correlation with the incidence of motor vehicle-associated trauma, and this was most evident in those younger than 30 years.” Analyzing 24 million Uber rides in the city, they found that access to ride-sharing reduced motor vehicle collisions by 23.8 per cent — a remarkable reduction that should be celebrated from a public safety perspective.
Economist Jessica Lynn Peck found that in New York City the introduction of ride-sharing services reduced motor vehicle collisions involving impairment by 25 per cent to 35 per cent, with the highest reduction taking place in densely populated Manhattan. This well-established negative correlation presumably is one reason why Mothers Against Drunk Driving Canada (MADD) issued a statement in opposition to a 2021 attempt to freeze licences in Toronto.
Other research finds that ride-sharing “leads to a significant decline in arrests for both physical and sexual assault,” which is likely why 81 per cent of female riders say safety is their primary motivation in opting for ride-sharing rather than the alternatives. Digital tracking of the driver and being able to share your route with a family member or friend in real time are big safety pluses.
On the other side of the ride-share debate is an organization called RidefairTO. Their goal, as their website makes clear, is to pressure City Hall to restrict services like Uber and Lyft. That, on its own, is perfectly fine and a legitimate part of civic discourse. So is the fact that they are almost exclusively supported by taxi companies and the TTC’s union. What doesn’t seem fair, however, is that one of their co-founders is employed as a policy director in Mayor Olivia Chow’s office and was still, as of Nov. 1, a registered lobbyist for RidefairTO in the city’s lobbyist registry.
From a consumer and public safety perspective, increasing the options available for travel is the right policy direction. Unfortunately, city councillors and Mayor Chow’s office want to decrease them. Torontonians will be worse off because of it — some of them worse off in the worst imaginable way.
David Clement is North American affairs manager with the Consumer Choice Center.
