Taxi drivers plan to converge Friday for a big protest outside the office of transport minister François Bonnardel.
Updates from April, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Despite the quotation below from CTV, Denis Coderre says he’s not returning to politics – even with the federal election coming up.
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Kate
I was president of my kindergarten when I was four years old. It’s part of my DNA.
Denis Coderre -
Kate
A fare grid for public transit adjusted according to ability to pay has strong support in the Montreal area. Considering we already give breaks to students and seniors, it’s not a huge stretch to offer similar deals to the unemployed and to people on disability.
Tim S.
I’m a little wary of this idea. I’m all for income redistribution through direct payments which people can then choose to spend as they wish, but I’d rather have the actual products and services be the same price for all as much as possible. I remember going to a movie in the UK, and they had special prices for children, youths, students, seniors, and people on various forms of social assistance – many more categories than we usually have here. Even though I was a student myself at the time, I could see why people who actually had a job might feel as though they were being charged extra for the privilege, and eventually get a little resentful.
Kate
It also raises the question how someone proves their unemployed or disabled status to qualify – and what happens when the person gets a job, or gets past a temporary disability?
Alex
The way that it works in the UK is that if you are claiming employment insurance you are entitled to the reduced fares, and the disabled status works the in the same way, i.e if you are claiming disability benefits. When you start to claim, you get proof of this. Once those benefits expire then so do the reduced fares
Faiz Imam
This all sounds well and good, but at the end of the day this all depends on government funding.
As the article says, if some people start paying less, other people will have to pay more to keep revenues stable.
Given that ARTM won’t want to raise the base price too much, there is only so much they can cut prices for various groups.
We need new operational funding to meaningfully change how we pay for mobility.
For example many municipalities have programs to allow the elderly to have free off-peak transit. But those exist due to the municipalities themselves providing dedicated funding from their budgets to do that.
Basically, as long as the funding model supported by the Provincial government continues, there is really very little the ARTM can do.
Kate
Note that the coverage has only been about wide acceptance for the idea, not impending implementation.
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Kate
The construction consortium on the new bridge says it should be able to open the northbound side on June 3 and the southbound side two weeks later.
Tim S. 10:24 on 2019-04-05 Permalink
I’m not sure if anyone knows the answer to this, but if the government is planning to pay the drivers 500 million to compensate the drivers, is that basically an indirect taxpayer subsidy to Uber? Or is that how much money the government was collecting from taxi permits in the first place?
Kate 10:41 on 2019-04-05 Permalink
Arguably, it’s a taxpayer subsidy to the ideal of a free market.
Ephraim 11:24 on 2019-04-05 Permalink
Essentially, that’s compensation by the government for mismanagement of the permit business. They shouldn’t have been perpetual permits.
Blork 12:21 on 2019-04-05 Permalink
The permit (medalion) system is pretty weird because the government sets the limit on the number of permits there can be, and brokers their sale, but the permits are issued by the municipal taxi bureaus. And the price is set according to market demand. So when you buy a permit, you’re not buying it from the government, you’re buying it from the taxi person who is selling it.
It’s as if all house sales had to go through a government housing bureau that regulated the supply. So I’m buying your condo for $400,000, but I’m paying you, not the government — but the government brokers the deal. And I’m paying you $400,000 because that’s your asking price (and because you know that’s what it’s worth because that’s the only way to get a condo so people are willing to pay that much). If suddenly a bunch of other condos come on the market that are not governed by the housing bureau and therefore the supply is no longer limited, then nobody’s going to buy that regulated condo for $400,000, so the price drops.
That’s the Uber effect.
Disclaimer: I’m about 97% sure that’s how the taxi permit system works, but there’s a 3% chance I’m mistaken somewhere.
Blork 12:25 on 2019-04-05 Permalink
(More…) So the compensation from the government is because they set up this regulated system that people bought into, then they stopped enforcing it (i.e., you no longer need a permit to drive people around; just do Uber instead).
Following my analogy of condos, if the government artificially inflates the price of condos for many years and then suddenly stops, and condo prices drop, then it’s the government’s fault that you can no longer sell your condo for $400,000. So they compensate you for that drop in value.
Marc 11:51 on 2019-04-06 Permalink
What if it’s more like a degree than a condo? Say you went to school, took out loans to pay for it, and became a professional xyz’er. Then the government decides that you don’t need that education to do that job anymore and offers to refund you the cost of the education. That’s a nice gesture and helps in the short term but now your job situation is fubared because any regular joe can xyz now.