Some flaws in public participation

BLOG #560: From time to time city council asks for your opinion in advance of a decision it is about to make. Often this is done when there is a wholesale bylaw revision. And, sure, it’s nice to be asked but there are some serious flaws in what happens next.

Friday, Dec. 2, 2011 – London

If you were to judge solely on the basis of what was learned at this week’s public participation meeting on the proposed new Vehicles for Hire Bylaw for London, here’s what you would conclude are the two most important things city council should do.

First, it should remove the right of limousines to pick up hailing passengers.

Second, it should prohibit the transfer of any taxi or limousine license under any circumstances.

Also, according to a majority of the 32 people who made five minute presentations to the Community and Neighbourhoods Committee on Tuesday night during a well-attending meeting at Centennial Hall, these would be the consequences of those actions.

First, if you couldn’t hail limousines in London there would be a sharper distinction in the public’s mind between the two services. Taxis, which charge by a metered rate, would primarily be for casual or unscheduled trips. Limousines, which are usually larger, operated by uniformed driver and charge by zones, would primarily be for scheduled or destination trips. Taxi drivers would stand to make more money; limousine drivers would know their place.

Second, a prohibition on license transfers would mean instead of plates changing hands at private prices allegedly up to $120,000, all would revert to the city when an owner left the business. Those returned licenses would then be available for the next person on the taxi plate waiting list to buy at the regular city fee of about $500. Then instead of drivers having to pay off high bank loans they could afford to put more money into upkeep of their vehicles or into their own pockets.

London’s taxi and limousine business, as I wrote earlier this week, is a black hole. So it’s a safe bet someone will find serious flaws in those two steps. Indeed, the two main protagonists in the vehicle for hire battles in London, Jim Donnelly of Aboutown Transportation (which runs Aboutown Taxis, limos and buses) and Perry Ferguson of Voyageur Transportation (which runs Checker Limousines, buses and non-emergency transfer vehicles) disagree with each other on what needs to be fixed, ore doesn’t.

For starters Mr. Donnelly, obviously, wants hailing banned. Mr. Ferguson, obviously, does not. Many of their respective drivers, however, don’t share the views of their bosses.

And therein lies one of the several flaws in the city’s public participation process – who gets to speak and how should we evaluate what any speaker says? If we are counting votes, the drivers would win. If we were measuring clout, Mr. Donnelly and Mr. Ferguson have that covered.

But there’s nowhere in the process to challenge points speakers make. Serious questions, in fact, are discouraged in the interests of getting speakers heard and the meeting over.

For the record, the new bylaw would prohibit transfer or leasing of any new plates issued, but also suggests there may not be any issued for some years to come. The new bylaw did, originally, limit hailing to taxis only. City council has already, without debate, struck that clause.

A second flaw pertains to getting representative public opinion. There are at least three sides to the vehicle for hire debate – operators, drivers and customers. Obviously in a city of 370,000 people there are far, far more customers but only three of them spoke up at Centennial Hall. Based on what they said everything is fine except rates are too high. Is that what everyone thinks?

Were there other customers in the audience of 200 or so? Who knows. If there were others, did they agree with the three speakers? Who knows. If you took a poll in London what would it show? Who knows.

A third flaw relates to the community values city council wishes to reflect in its examination of this (or any) bylaw’s contents. London is now, officially, a City of Opportunity according to our new strategic plan. Whatever that means, how does the bylaw reflect this point of view?

You might argue that allowing any licensed vehicle, cab or limo, to pick up customers off the street reflects the gung ho attitude City of Opportunity suggests. But restricting the number of cab plates suggests the opposite. Limo plates, by the way, are not restricted.

(If the City of Opportunity mantra had been applied in the recent public participation meeting on allowing residents to raise a few chickens in their backyard, would council still have disallowed this?)

As it turns out, the Community and Neighbourhood Committee decided to defer a decision until next year and to a new committee. Perhaps by then city council will have figured out how to fix some of these flaws in the way it gathers and evaluates the information it asks citizens to present.