“We know the city better than they do”: Toronto taxi drivers on what makes them better than Uber

Uber is in court this week defending its right to flood Toronto’s streets with semi-pro drivers, who use its UberX service to hire out their private cars to smartphone-wielding passengers. The app-maker has the support of mayor John Tory, but still faces opposition from city bureaucrats, who argue that Uber is essentially an unlicensed, unregulated taxi brokerage. The stiffest opposition, though, is from taxi drivers, who understand the so-called “sharing economy” as an existential threat to their business model. On Monday, for the second time in three weeks, dozens of angry cabbies clogged the streets around city hall and Queen’s Park with their cars in protest. We asked them what they offer that UberX can’t.