[URBAN NOTE] Two notes on the Beck Taxi protests against Uber in Toronto

[rfmcdonald]

blogTO noted that, while Beck Taxi formally came out against the anti-Uber protests, it claimed to sympathize with the strategy. As James Bow noted, this strategy--if it can be called that--is not very smart.

I get that Toronto's taxi drivers see Uber as a threat to their livelihood, but all these protests serve to do is communicate to Toronto voters that cabbies are angry, and nothing more. It fails to communicate to Toronto voters why they should themselves be angry at Uber. In that vacuum, Toronto voters are almost certain to come to their own conclusions, and assume that Toronto's taxi drivers have had a monopoly of operations for years and are reacting like spoiled brats at having it threatened.

This is not my sentiment, personally, but it's easy to see how many Torontonians could come to think this way, and it is why downloads of the Uber app have skyrocketed after similar protests by taxi cab drivers in other cities.

Toronto voters are not going to react positively to what they perceive as people shouting "I! Me! Mine!" because, like all humans, they're kind of selfish themselves. Taxicab protests that inconvenience commuters at the height of a stressful rush hour aren't going to curry favour. Instead, taxi companies need to use their protests to communicate why it's in the average Toronto commuter's interest that Uber be regulated, just like the other taxi companies.