This is sad. I live in Quebec Province, but not in Montreal. Quebec's laws regarding taxis are old and stupid, but they exists. I hope they will change, but in the meantime, sadly, this is their right to execute those laws.
The population (including me) wouldn't be so angry at the taxi industry if they embraced innovation instead of fighting with laws. Please, I want an app to know when my cab will be here, I don't mind that much about saving money, but I do want to pay easily and have a great and easy ride. That's all I want.
FYI, the taxi owners need a licenses, which I think is over $100k, and none were issued in a long time, so price increases. So, if I had one, yes, I would be super angry seeing Uber and stuff like that.
Still makes me very sad that this industry stagnated for so long and is not even trying to adapt now, but getting more laws :(
Hopefully, they'll be some pressure to change the laws. In the meantime it is to be expected that the law will be applied.
What is surprising however is that it is the Taxi Bureau doing this. The article does mention that they want the power to seize cars so its really unclear how it was done exactly since they need to get the police to seize the cars.
If Montreal is like most other cities, people driving taxis do not own their own permit -- they typically rent them from a small number of people who control a large number of permits.
> The population (including me) wouldn't be so angry at the taxi industry if they embraced innovation instead of fighting with laws.
They can't. I don't know the details about Quebec, but I'm willing to bet that an app wouldn't be complaint with taxi meter requirements, surge pricing would be illegal for a taxi company to do, etc.
It baffles me how very little cabs accept credit cards in the city, and even less with an electronic POS. many of them still use paper based forms (if at all) and they'll almost always be rude about it and demand an extra $2-3 on the fare.
Uber's current tactic is to assert that their drivers are insured in Canada, but refuse to provide proof of that to anyone, including drivers themselves and city regulators. This sort of "Russell's teapot" insurance claim is, unsurprisingly, looked upon dimly by the regulators. The laws are quite clear in Canada that personal insurance will not cover Uber drivers.
I'm not sure exactly what this says about the culture and business norms of Montreal, but while there for PyCon, I noticed that the number of police seemed to have increased at least 10x from last year at the same time.
There is a great deal of political upheaval centered at UQAM, apparently mostly related to issues of pension promises broken for public workers. This is the ostensible reason to have so many more police and police substations, but I have to believe that it has other cultural effects as well.
What's particularly striking about this picture, if you'll pardon the pun, is that the cop is wearing stickers that are protesting the same austerity that the students are protesting with their red velvet squares. Cops are not allowed to strike (i.e. not work), so they wear stickers instead.
Howard Zinn's final chapter of his famous book comes to mind: "The Coming Revolt of the Guards". A system that separates people into prisoners and guards and pits them against each other, despite their common cause:
As to what this all says about police in Montréal, I don't know either. I've lived here for nearly eight years and have never had any unpleasant interaction with the police. The students are very leftist, though, and with such a large student population (four major universities, two Francophone, two Anglophone, plus several other research and education centres), the students' attitudes just amplify themselves.
it's worth pointing out that Quebec has no trouble at all living life as an "outsider" with respect to Canadian and north american "norms" ... i.e. no matter how "standard" uber becomes (or not) this will not be an argument in favour of adopting it.
there are a metric ton of examples of how life in quebec is bizarre compared to neighbouring provinces in Canada (and compared to the US)
What are the arguments for a city to adopt Uber? Presumably there were reasons to implement taxi regulations and medallion caps and whatever those reasons were, if they made sense to the city 5 years ago, they probably still make sense today.
> there are a metric ton of examples of how life in quebec is bizarre compared to neighbouring provinces in Canada (and compared to the US)
Quite the prejudicial statement. While some things are different, living in Quebec is pretty similar to any other place except for the fact that we speak french.
When LA or New York banned Uber, did you say how californian and New Yorkers were 'bizarre' and 'outsider'?
If something does not conform to your "standards" and "norms", that does not make it automatically "bizarre" (whatever you mean by that). And as many pointed out already, uber is banned in many cities across Canada and US, which is maybe proof that those "norms" and "standars" you talk about do not actually exist.
This is probably an example of your own prejudice actually.
Montreal has a taxi driver union? That would be unusual if true...
Taxi drivers are somewhat exploited under the present system. Someone else usually owns the medallion and puts the boots to the driver. It's the sort of thing that causes a union in the first place and there have been some efforts in Canada to create a taxi driver union.
And people joke when startups are considered "disruptive." This is disruption in action. Uber is changing the face of society. (When it comes to cabs.)
And society is resisting. Any other company, in any other market, would just give up. But a San Francisco tech company is different: it can KNOW that progress is right, and push, push, push it through throughout society.
This is a story that repeats again and again. Idealistic disruptive startups actually change the face of society, while everyone else poo-poos and wrings their hands, until they don't.
This is NOT a Montreal-only phenomenon: UberX cars have also been sized in Toronto and Vancouver. Edmonton is calling to ban UberX and the service has been shuttered in Calgary...
We have a few of these here in Brazil (i.e. http://www.99taxis.com/). The apps work just fine, it's the taxis that lack quality in their service. Cars are usually beaten down, dirty. Drivers are impolite, almost never use Waze or some other GPS app and the fare at night rivals Uber's.
There has been some drama regarding Uber v. Taxi around here as well (São Paulo, Brazil). One thing I know for sure is that as long as Uber's around I'll never call a taxi again.
Flywheel in SF is in use by all the cab companies I think. Same features as uber (hail from the app, pay with your phone, etc) but only for the taxis. One cool feature is that if you get in a cab off the street without the app you can pull up the app while riding and they figure out which taxi you're in and you can pay via the app automatically.
In Manchester, UK (I don't know if it's like this in the rest of the country), uber is a normal registered taxi service, it's not normal people using the app to give people rides. It works really well
The unions, the politicians, the construction companies. These groups steal from the population for decades (Charbinneau commission).
Who cares what the govt thinks in Quebec. The Quebec govt is out to steal and cheat for their own benefit, not the benefit of the population of Quebec.
Speaking English in Quebec is illegal in certain situation.
Ignore laws in Quebec. Choose what laws you follow, just like the unions, politicians etc.
If you get caught just say sorry. Quebec society loves apologies and forgives immediately so you can get back to stealing and scamming people.
Not a single person from 40 years of corruption we say at Charbonneu will even get a fine.
Uber, keep going! Fuck Quebec laws. It doesn;t matter.
jipiboily|11 years ago
The population (including me) wouldn't be so angry at the taxi industry if they embraced innovation instead of fighting with laws. Please, I want an app to know when my cab will be here, I don't mind that much about saving money, but I do want to pay easily and have a great and easy ride. That's all I want.
FYI, the taxi owners need a licenses, which I think is over $100k, and none were issued in a long time, so price increases. So, if I had one, yes, I would be super angry seeing Uber and stuff like that.
Still makes me very sad that this industry stagnated for so long and is not even trying to adapt now, but getting more laws :(
Edit: fixed typo.
igrekel|11 years ago
What is surprising however is that it is the Taxi Bureau doing this. The article does mention that they want the power to seize cars so its really unclear how it was done exactly since they need to get the police to seize the cars.
nostrebored|11 years ago
rayiner|11 years ago
They can't. I don't know the details about Quebec, but I'm willing to bet that an app wouldn't be complaint with taxi meter requirements, surge pricing would be illegal for a taxi company to do, etc.
angryMontrealer|11 years ago
laurentsabbah|11 years ago
jellicle|11 years ago
http://globalnews.ca/news/1678342/city-to-announce-developme...
Uber's current tactic is to assert that their drivers are insured in Canada, but refuse to provide proof of that to anyone, including drivers themselves and city regulators. This sort of "Russell's teapot" insurance claim is, unsurprisingly, looked upon dimly by the regulators. The laws are quite clear in Canada that personal insurance will not cover Uber drivers.
jMyles|11 years ago
There is a great deal of political upheaval centered at UQAM, apparently mostly related to issues of pension promises broken for public workers. This is the ostensible reason to have so many more police and police substations, but I have to believe that it has other cultural effects as well.
jordigh|11 years ago
http://i.imgur.com/IHIOxLK.jpg
What's particularly striking about this picture, if you'll pardon the pun, is that the cop is wearing stickers that are protesting the same austerity that the students are protesting with their red velvet squares. Cops are not allowed to strike (i.e. not work), so they wear stickers instead.
Howard Zinn's final chapter of his famous book comes to mind: "The Coming Revolt of the Guards". A system that separates people into prisoners and guards and pits them against each other, despite their common cause:
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncomrev24.html
As to what this all says about police in Montréal, I don't know either. I've lived here for nearly eight years and have never had any unpleasant interaction with the police. The students are very leftist, though, and with such a large student population (four major universities, two Francophone, two Anglophone, plus several other research and education centres), the students' attitudes just amplify themselves.
plg|11 years ago
there are a metric ton of examples of how life in quebec is bizarre compared to neighbouring provinces in Canada (and compared to the US)
this may be just another one
foobarqux|11 years ago
pothibo|11 years ago
Quite the prejudicial statement. While some things are different, living in Quebec is pretty similar to any other place except for the fact that we speak french.
When LA or New York banned Uber, did you say how californian and New Yorkers were 'bizarre' and 'outsider'?
raquo|11 years ago
napopa|11 years ago
SG-|11 years ago
plehoux|11 years ago
jbob2000|11 years ago
[deleted]
olalonde|11 years ago
upofadown|11 years ago
Taxi drivers are somewhat exploited under the present system. Someone else usually owns the medallion and puts the boots to the driver. It's the sort of thing that causes a union in the first place and there have been some efforts in Canada to create a taxi driver union.
jipiboily|11 years ago
logicallee|11 years ago
And society is resisting. Any other company, in any other market, would just give up. But a San Francisco tech company is different: it can KNOW that progress is right, and push, push, push it through throughout society.
This is a story that repeats again and again. Idealistic disruptive startups actually change the face of society, while everyone else poo-poos and wrings their hands, until they don't.
bayesianhorse|11 years ago
kyriee|11 years ago
Toronto: http://globalnews.ca/news/1914064/11-toronto-uberx-drivers-f...
Ontario: http://metronews.ca/voices/your-ride-toronto/1345960/queens-...
BC: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/taxi-co...
Edmonton: http://metronews.ca/news/edmonton/1331675/edmonton-taxi-asso...
walterbell|11 years ago
gilini|11 years ago
There has been some drama regarding Uber v. Taxi around here as well (São Paulo, Brazil). One thing I know for sure is that as long as Uber's around I'll never call a taxi again.
kjjw|11 years ago
https://www.hailoapp.com/
Nursie|11 years ago
Do you mean an app where an end-user can request a cab, or do you mean an app allowing you to become a cab?
If the former then there are at least two I know of in my small-ish south-coast city in the UK. And one in Perth, Australia.
If the latter, no idea.
dougmccune|11 years ago
pnathan|11 years ago
mrbig4545|11 years ago
igrekel|11 years ago
stormqloud|11 years ago
The unions, the politicians, the construction companies. These groups steal from the population for decades (Charbinneau commission).
Who cares what the govt thinks in Quebec. The Quebec govt is out to steal and cheat for their own benefit, not the benefit of the population of Quebec.
Speaking English in Quebec is illegal in certain situation.
Ignore laws in Quebec. Choose what laws you follow, just like the unions, politicians etc.
If you get caught just say sorry. Quebec society loves apologies and forgives immediately so you can get back to stealing and scamming people.
Not a single person from 40 years of corruption we say at Charbonneu will even get a fine.
Uber, keep going! Fuck Quebec laws. It doesn;t matter.