Grand Bay-Westfield has become the second community in Greater Saint John to approve a ridesharing bylaw.
The unanimous approval comes just weeks after the City of Saint John passed its own bylaw in early May.
However, the town’s bylaw differs slightly from the city’s, which sets out driver, vehicle, technology platform and licensing requirements.
According to the bylaw approved in Grand Bay-Westfield, any ridesharing company can operate within their boundaries as long as they are “in good standing and licensed by any New Brunswick municipality.”
“We do not have the organizational capacity to licence an agency to offer it here for a number of reasons: enforcement, collections, inspections, the whole thing,” John Enns-Wind, the town’s chief administrative officer, said during Monday’s meeting.
“We’re just saying if the agency is licensed in Fredericton or Moncton or Saint John and you want to come back from a concert, you can just hop in and get here.”
Ridesharing is a service that uses a mobile application to match passengers needing a ride with a vehicle owner. These services have become a popular transportation option for many years in larger communities.
To date, there are currently no ridesharing companies operating anywhere in the province, according to Enns-Wind.
However, he said the town’s new bylaw will enable those agencies to set up shop and make the market larger.
Amendments to the province’s Motor Vehicle Act introduced in 2020 paved the way for ridesharing services.
But each municipality is required to create its own bylaw to allow ridesharing services to operate in their communities.
That concern was raised by councillors in Saint John as they deliberated passing a ridesharing bylaw for the city.
“I don’t know if a company would come here knowing it’s restricted to the city,” Deputy Mayor John MacKenzie said during an April 18 meeting.
Michael Hugenholtz, commissioner of public works and transportation for the city, said city staff had contacted outlying municipalities and asked them to consider passing their own bylaws.
In May, Quispamsis council directed town staff to explore the idea of having a ridesharing bylaw for their community. No timeline was given for when staff might come back with a draft bylaw.
