Taxi strike over Uber could impact NBA All-Star Weekend
With taxi cab drivers planning a massive public strike in the face of income incursions by the ride service, will fans be able to get around Toronto for All-Star Weekend?
By
Matt Moore
•
2 min read
Things could get a little hairy for fans traveling to the NBA All-Star festivities in Toronto this weekend due to a massive strike being planned by the city's taxi drivers in response to the emergence of Uber drivers in the city. Meanwhile, the mayor's office is promising swift action from the police in the face of any obstructions to traffic. From CBC:
Amid threats that Toronto taxi drivers will cause disruptions during this weekend's NBA All-Star Game, Toronto Mayor John Tory said Monday that police will have to take "whatever steps they deem appropriate" in response.
The mayor made the comments one day after the formation of United Taxi Workers Association. The new umbrella group of Ontario-wide taxi industry organizations was formed in response to the presence of the ride-hailing service UberX, which traditional cabbies say is hurting their business while operating illegally. "We're all struggling and dying out there because illegals are killing us," United Taxi representative Paul Sekhon told CBC News.
Sekhon said traditional cabbies plan to cause disruptions downtown with the spotlight on the city and international media here to cover the All-Star Game. "There's going to a be big protest outside and everybody is going to see why we're protesting because we're hurt," said Sekhon.
"We have no choice because we have nothing else to lose."
Traditional Toronto taxis are heavily regulated but Uber — and in particular its ride-hailing app UberX — connects paying passengers with private cars that provide a taxi-like service for a fee. Cabbies have complained they can't compete with Uber, which they say is operating illegally while they're forced to play by the rules. The city's licensing and standards department is working to re-write rules that will encompass Uber and create a level playing field for all cab operators. Tory said he has sympathy for the plight of traditional cabbies but said taxis can't be allowed to block streets as they did during a protest in December. "We can't have the city closed down in that manner and the law enforcement officials will have to take whatever steps they deem appropriate if that sort of thing is engaged in again," said Tory.
He said protest actions won't speed up "by one minute" the process of rewriting the existing bylaws.
All-Star Weekend is always jammed with fans and basketball industry folks all converging for three days of events and parties surrounding Sunday's game. A massive auto show is also going on at the same time, and the convergence of those two events combined with this kind of protest could lead to harmful PR and negative attention in a city that was widely thought to be well-built to handle the traffic flow of people for the event.
The forecast for this weekend calls for snow showers Friday night in the town they call T-Dot, followed by a high of one degree (singular) on Saturday with winds at 20 mph, and a balmy 15-degree day on Sunday. With so many people needing transportation to the events, this kind of protest could have big impacts on how fans experience the weekend of We The North.
