YesFreeTaxi promotes Vancouver taxi industry reform

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      On November 15, after spending several hours at the office covering that election thingy we had, I was driven home by a stranger wearing a rooster costume.

      Loathed at the prospect of an hour-long bus ride late on a Saturday night, I tweeted at @YesFreeTaxi, which I'd heard about several times during the week. 

      After a quick back and forth, I arranged to have the car pick me up at 11 p.m. and was home in under 15 minutes.

      Public transit advocate Kyle MacDonald, the man behind the taxi, is an avid proponent of ride-sharing. He originally ran the cab for a couple of nights in June in order to promote industry reform. 

      MacDonald told me that he started the service up again a few days before the municipal election to highlight transportation difficulties in Vancouver, which has fewer than 600 taxis servicing over 600,000 people. The taxi industry is also actively blocking high-end taxi-like services such as Uber from operating in Vancouver

      Over the week, MacDonald took voters to polling stations, helped deliver furniture, and drove people to catch ferries. 

      It works because it's totally free. "There's no business model around it, there's no money changing hands," he said while driving me home.

      It totally was!
      Miranda Nelson

      The Twitter account links to a 118-page paper by University of Victoria economics student Benn Proctor, which analyzes the state of Vancouver's cab situation. (The conclusion? It's terrible.)

      MacDonald said his free rides don't cost him much. "It's so cheap to run a car like this around town because most of the trips are five or 10 kilometres."

      Miranda Nelson

      As for safety concerns, I had none. As MacDonald pointed out, all of his ride requests come through Twitter, so everything that happens is on the record.

      "The trust factor is very high because we're publicly engaging," he said. On the night I rode, his friend Natalie was riding with him, which helped make me feel even safer about the whole endeavour.

      YesFreeTaxi doesn't run all the time; check the Twitter account to see if there's a car on the road when you need a ride.

      Comments

      2 Comments

      Really?

      Nov 17, 2014 at 4:19pm

      It's safe because it's on the record on Twitter? You're kidding, right?