A subsidy for ride hailing service Uride in Prince Edward County is not being renewed for 2024.
During Tuesday’s council meeting, county councillors debated on extending a wage subsidy offered to the ride hailing company. The motion was to extend the subsidy for another year, offering $30,000 in wage subsidy for the 2024 calendar year.
The subsidy was offered to ensure Uride drivers were paid a living wage for hours spent driving. During 2022 and 2023 Uride was offered a $50,000 wage subsidy, while the whole amount was claimed in 2022, Uride didn’t claim the full amount in 2023, prompting a reduction in the subsidy to reflect reduced need.
Uride is a ride hailing company that operates in smaller cities, including Belleville, providing on-demand vehicle service. Since starting their pilot project in Prince Edward County in 2022, 5300 rides have been completed, ridership has grown 68 per cent year over year, and customer feedback has been mostly positive with most riders giving a five star rating.
Uride operates seven days a week from May to October, and three or four days per weeks from November to April. Traditional taxis operate seven days a week year round.
While the service was intended to support tourism, rider data provided by Uride to Prince Edward County showed that 65% of rides were booked between 5 p.m. and 5 a.m., and that the majority of rides did not begin or end at a known overnight accommodation such as a hotel, indicating that residents were using the service.
The subsidy came under debate by councillors who were concerned that Uride was receiving overly favourable treatment compared to established taxi services in Prince Edward County.
Councillor Phil St-Jean was against extending the subsidy to Uride, saying that it wasn’t right to subsidize a new company to the detriment of established local businesses.
“Something we all have to bear in mind is that by the end of this contract Uride will have received $115,000 over three years. For the first two years of your rides operation, our taxi companies have gotten nothing. I think we need to recognize that,” said Councillor St-Jean. “In that two-year period, we lost one of our taxi companies.”
Councillor Janice Maynard wanted to extend the subsidy, noting that having a ride-hailing service helps to prevent impaired driving where taxis may not offer the service customers need.
“We’ll never have a transit system that’s going to go to every road and be an on-demand system and there are some constraints because our taxi services are located not centrally to everybody that’s using them,” said Councillor Maynard. “So I just I think that we should try and find a way of still maintaining Uride.”
After two attempts to amend the motion to reduce the subsidy amount, the main motion failed and the subsidy was not extended.
