Council gave initial approval this week for the town to enter into a new service agreement with Collingwood’s only taxi provider to provide accessible door-to-door transit service.
During council’s development and operations services standing committee meeting on March 13, councillors gave preliminary approval for the town to enter into a two-year agreement with Ace Cabs to provide accessible taxi service, which will cost the town $63,000 for 2023 and $84,000 in 2024.
The change comes on the heels of community members with disabilities calling on council to extend transit hours since the town moved to their TransitPLUS model in mid-December.
Currently, both regular and accessible transit options operate from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Under the previous accessible transit contract with Ace Cabs, accessible service was available 24/7, although rides after 9 p.m. were required to be pre-booked.
On Monday night, councillors were also presented with other options recommended by staff to extend service hours for TransitPLUS until 11 p.m., which would cost between $10,255 and $39,500 depending on how many days per week the hours were extended, or to extend municipally-funded transit service for all users, which would have cost just shy of $200,000 per year.
None of those options made it to the floor.
“This option... addresses the biggest number of concerns of the public, mainly the times of accessibility and the ease of being able to book,” said Coun. Brandon Houston. “It also seems to be the most financially reasonable one.”
“It checks all the boxes in my mind in supporting accessibility in this community,” he said.
Although the town will be spending $84,000 per year to subsidize the service, users will still have to pay regular fare rates through Ace Cabs to use that service.
During public commenting, Norm Sandberg, who also ran for mayor in the October municipal election, suggested that a town only providing services that are legislated is a low bar.
“May I be so bold as to suggest that the continuance of providing $80,000 annually for on-demand door-to-door accessible transportation service is not a sound business decision,” said Sandberg. “However, it is the opportunity and responsibility of a municipal council to go beyond dollars and consider services that make sense. On-demand accessible transportation makes sense.”
The funds for 2023 will be coming from the town’s operating contingency reserve in 2023. The $84,000 for 2024 will be included in the 2024 budget.
In previous discussions between the town and Ace Cabs, the town says Ace Cabs confirmed they are not able to support or deliver an accessible taxi service that only operates during the hours of 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. and the company was only willing to offer an accessible taxi service to the town under the two-year contract with full hours of operation.
Coun. Deb Doherty expressed hesitation to spend so much money on a sole-sourced procurement due to a lack of other options.
“It’s been politicized by Ace and I don’t like that,” she said.
Mayor Yvonne Hamlin expressed frustration that Ace Cabs was not able to provide concrete numbers on exactly how many riders they’d had using the late-night service prior to Dec. 2022.
“I guess this is one of the problems with having a private company doing part of our business – we don’t really know all the information to help us make a decision,” she said. “If we were providing this service for 14 or 16 people at a cost of $84,000 a year, maybe we’d think about how to differently do it.”
“It just puts a different light on it,” said Hamlin. “I’d like to go ahead with the taxi option for the two years just so we can get the numbers to make a better judgment on how best to serve this small but important segment of our community.”
Also as part of discussions, due to the high ridership seen on the new TransitPLUS system overall, an additional bus will be added to that service between the hours of 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. to accommodate the increased ridership at no additional cost.
To read the full staff report outlining all the options considered by council and their associated costs, click here.
At the end of discussion, council voted 5-2 to proceed with a non-standard procurement contract with Ace Cabs to provide individual accessible on-demand taxi service, with Coun. Christopher Baines and Coun. Doherty opposed. Deputy Mayor Tim Fryer declared a conflict on the matter and did not vote. Coun. Kathy Jeffery was absent from the meeting.
The decision will need to be ratified at the next meeting of council before going into effect.
More to come.
