According to the man who worked to bring Uber to Chatham-Kent, the company has now said it has little interest in bringing its peer-to-peer ridesharing concept to the municipality.
This after Chatham-Kent council recently voted to repeal the municipality’s Taxi Bylaw and implement a Vehicle-For-Hire Bylaw.
Florin Marksteiner, the local champion for Uber, said the firm will not come to C-K, despite the changes.
He believes the regulations council put in place essentially pushed Uber away, as well as finances.
“It looks like this is a decision based on economics,” he said. “Until now, Chatham-Kent was under Windsor. It was functional and it was working. But people got fined for driving for Uber in Chatham-Kent, so there was little interest in driving here.”
Marksteiner hopes either Uber reconsiders, or another ride-sharing company opts in, such as Lyft.
“I don’t care who is coming. It doesn’t matter the name of the company. It’s the service. It was for the people of Chatham-Kent. It was for 100,000 people,” he said.
Marksteiner believes there is a way to get Uber to reconsider, and suggests people download the app and “start pounding on it looking for rides in Chatham-Kent. I don’t know if the people of C-K want to work together or not, but I would love to show them (Uber) we have people looking for rides right now. Let’s do this. We need to show them there is demand.”
