The federal government could make it illegal to drive a taxi in Vancouver except while wearing a pink tutu and singing Christmas carols. The provincial government could make it illegal to charge taxi fares which are not a prime number of cents.
Yes, it's perfectly constitutional to set a minimum price for private hire cars. Whether a law is dumb is orthogonal to whether it is constitutional.
> The federal government could make it illegal to drive a taxi in Vancouver except while wearing a pink tutu and singing Christmas carols.
As a former frequent user of that particular mode of transportation, that would be 'business as usual', which makes me wonder if such a law (or at least one like it) is already in effect.
It's because you need to be regulated to be allowed to operate a taxi or limousine service. That's because of the history of horrific things people do to each other when taxi's aren't regulated.
As to what logic is behind this other than protecting their members against the new guy I have no idea.
Most common is fare scams (driving in circles, pricing scams and various types of extortion), assault and sexual assault.
Then you have things like all the types of discrimination you can think of as well as safety issues (having seatbelts, having tires with tread on them) and so on.
Fare scams still occur on metered taxis, and these scams are any more widespread in taxis than any other industry.
Nothing distinguishes transportation, from say, overpriced crappy old model cameras on Fisherman's Warf, Dead Sea cosmetics, or any other scam - other than that it's easy for the city to claim it needs to regulate.
A simple licensing and complaint system is all that is necessary.
These things don't occur in a vacuum. Taxi's are more highly regulated because people demanded that "somebody do something" because things were pretty bad.
I definitely agree a better regulatory system is possible but pretending it would be easy or simple is silly.
A simple licensing and complaint system is all that is necessary.
That doesn't work very well for tourists, who are the most likely to be scammed, and whose money is highly desirable as it represents an input to the local economy.
And regardless, creating a communist style fixed price centrally managed system is not the solution to tourists being scammed. It doesn't solve the problem, raises prices, and limits supply - it's a lose lose for everyone (except monopolists and city hall).
The regulatory framework is outdated and unnecessary.
Yes, I have been in taxis in Mexico City at night. Many times in many different parts of the city I have procured the services of taxis of all kinds for decades. All of my experiences have been fine and I've never been terrified, scared, concerned, attacked, robbed, worried, or kidnapped in any way.
I have been overcharged, though. It happens less now that I speak the language fluently but I can't change the fact that I'm an obvious foreigner. The city does not regulate nighttime fares.
If you are concerned, get a "sitio" taxi from one of the thousands of convenient taxi stands that check on and track their drivers and cars. It costs a little more but provides rock solid security.
You should never have any trouble with Mexico City transit of any kind except personal cars; driving yourself is insane in a city of 24 million. The transit system, from taxis to subways, is clean, cheap, innovative, reliable, and efficient with an excellent worldwide reputation.
That is accomplished with a network of private regulations (taxi sitios), fully public systems (subway, bus rapid transit), minimal public regulation (taxi licensing), cooperatives of private contractors (minibuses), privatized toll roads, and public streets. As an operators, you can choose the level of regulation you want to operate under and then operate the corresponding kind of transit you want your business or career to involve. Diversity works much better than monopoly of the type being mandated in Vancouver or NYC.
How does regulation make taxis safer? As cars, they need to have a license plate you can write down and give to the police. I can't imagine what aspect of regulation offers protections beyond that.
IMO taxi regulation in North America is generally designed for no other purpose than to purposely protect incumbents, so saying those are different things is a false dichotomy. Of course, since that might look bad to the voting public, sometimes they pretend there are other benefits.
I'm not a libertarian btw, I have no problem with the concept of regulations, I just call rent seeking when I see it.
Right. And the attitude that results in a taxi passenger bill of rights (http://www.taxirights.gov.bc.ca/) is what makes Canada so clearly not Mexico City.
People who have read the Reglamento de Transporte del Distrito Federal would be astonished to learn that a taxi passenger bill of rights makes the difference between Mexico City and Canada.
Especially astonished would be those who've read Chapter 5 Articles 33 and 34.
"the attitude that results in a taxi passenger bill of rights"
Those extra words do actually make quite a difference in what was meant. I was unclear in another way though, it's the attitude that results in both the laws being written and the laws being effectively enforced. That is an important part of the equation.
Many cities regulate taxis as public utilities, in a similar fashion and logic to the regulation of telephone, power, water and public transit companies. We don't see much discussion of it anymore, but if you look to the early-20th century, you'll find many examples of granting monopoly licenses in exchange for universal service and non-discrimination.
To the extent that you think this is unconstitutional, unprecedented or inherently destructive, I encourage you to look at US economic history before 1970. AT&T's monopoly and rate regulation included transfer pricing which allowed them to subsidize rural services and connect the last mile to (almost) every home and business across North America. (Most of Europe accomplished the same with state-owned telephone companies.) The AT&T monopoly came with the mandate to provide services even where they were unprofitable (and sometimes for free), with the guarantee of profits elsewhere. That regime ultimately extended Bell Labs' $0 transistor licensing, which made the semiconductor industry possible. Similar requirements were made of power utilities, and that's also the logic behind taxi regulations.
Vancouver's taxi laws require at least 6-days/week service, for a minimum of 10hours/24hours. Taxis are (basically) required to accept all fares and serve all areas at all hours, without discrimination. In return for providing universal service (and to keep monitoring practical), the licensed providers were guaranteed a monopoly (and kept small in number). Of course, as soon as you grant a monopoly, you set the stage for price gouging, which is (as with AT&T) where the government-fixed rates come from.
In short: the prices aren't fixed arbitrarily, technocrats use them to advance designated public policy objectives.
The federal government could make it illegal to drive a taxi in Vancouver except while wearing a pink tutu and singing Christmas carols. The provincial government could make it illegal to charge taxi fares which are not a prime number of cents.
Yes, it's perfectly constitutional to set a minimum price for private hire cars. Whether a law is dumb is orthogonal to whether it is constitutional.