Vancouver, B.C. – The Supreme Court of British Columbia has invalidated a key City of Vancouver bylaw that charged ride-sharing companies a fee for every pickup and drop-off in the downtown core. In a decision released August 8, 2025, cited as Uber Canada Inc. v Vancouver (City), 2025 BCSC 1534 (CanLII), Justice Ormiston ruled that the city’s “congestion and curbside management permit” bylaw was an unreasonable overreach of municipal authority that improperly encroached on powers reserved for the provincial government. The ruling is a significant victory for Uber Canada Inc., which brought the legal challenge against the city.
The dispute centered on section 21.8 of a Vancouver bylaw enacted in December 2023. The measure prohibited application based ride-share providers, which are legally classified as transportation network services or TNS, from stopping to pick up or drop off passengers within the downtown Metro core between the peak hours of 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. without a special permit. To obtain the permit, companies like Uber were required to pay a fee for each stop: $0.50 for standard vehicles and $0.25 for zero-emission vehicles. The rule applied exclusively to TNS vehicles and not to other commercial vehicles like taxis or to private cars.
Uber Canada launched its legal petition to have the bylaw declared invalid, arguing it was ultra vires, a legal term meaning it was beyond the City of Vancouver’s legislated powers. The company’s legal team presented three core arguments to the court. First, they contended the bylaw illegally regulated the number of ride-share vehicles allowed to operate in the city. Second, they argued the per-trip fee amounted to illegally fixing rates for their service. Third, Uber asserted that the fee functioned as a toll on the use of city streets, something the city is prohibited from imposing without specific provincial or federal authority.
In its defence, the City of Vancouver maintained that the bylaw was a reasonable and valid exercise of its established powers. City lawyers argued the measure was designed to manage traffic congestion and regulate how vehicles stop on city streets, powers granted to it under the Vancouver Charter. The city asserted that the bylaw did not limit the total number of TNS vehicles licensed to operate in Vancouver, nor did it directly set the fares charged to passengers. Instead, the city framed the charge as a permit fee paid by the corporation for the privilege of stopping to conduct business on busy downtown streets during peak times, distinguishing it from both a fare and a toll.
A central element of the case was the major shift in ride-share regulation that occurred in British Columbia in 2019. At that time, the provincial government passed a series of amendments to the Passenger Transportation Act and the Vancouver Charter. These changes were designed to end a patchwork of local rules and create a single, centralized regulatory body: the provincial Passenger Transportation Board. This Board was granted exclusive jurisdiction over the TNS industry, including the authority to issue licenses, determine the number of vehicles a company could operate, define their geographic operating areas, and set the rates they could charge. The amendments explicitly restricted Vancouver’s ability to regulate TNS vehicle numbers or fix their charges.
In his detailed analysis, Justice Ormiston found the City of Vancouver’s decision to enact the bylaw was not reasonable when measured against this clear legislative framework. The judge concluded that while the city does have powers to regulate traffic, it could not use those powers to accomplish what the provincial government had expressly forbidden. The ruling hinged on the purpose and effect of the bylaw, which the judge found was intended to regulate the supply of TNS vehicles and influence their rates, placing it squarely in the Board’s exclusive jurisdiction.
Justice Ormiston pointed to the city’s own internal documents, including a 2019 report titled Adapting to Provincial Legislative Changes Related to Passenger Directed Vehicles. The report stated that the permit was recommended to “temper the demand for vehicle-based transportation during this already congested window.” The judge found this revealed the city’s true intention was to control the availability of TNS vehicles as a form of supply management, the very power the province had centralized under the Passenger Transportation Board. By prohibiting the essential TNS functions of pickups and drop-offs across the entire downtown core during peak hours unless a fee was paid, the city was effectively regulating the number of vehicles in operation.
The judge also agreed with Uber’s argument regarding rates. He reasoned that the bylaw was only logical if the city expected the permit fee to be passed on to customers, thereby influencing consumer choice. The city’s own report acknowledged an expectation that ride-hailing companies would incorporate the fee into their mobile applications. Justice Ormiston determined that this fee functioned as a “minimum charge … based upon zones or districts,” an action the City is expressly prohibited from taking under the amended Vancouver Charter. The judge noted that the province’s definition of a “rate” is broad and includes any fees or charges collected for transportation, which would cover the city’s per-stop fee.
The City had argued that the 2019 provincial amendments were specific, only restricting its powers related to business licensing, and that it could still use its general traffic management authority to achieve its goals. Justice Ormiston rejected this interpretation, finding it would create the exact “regulatory duplicity” the provincial reforms were meant to eliminate. He wrote that the provincial legislative history showed a clear intent to create a seamless, province-wide system for ride-sharing, removing the ability of municipalities to create their own conflicting rules about supply and pricing. The city’s bylaw did not just regulate traffic on a specific street, like placing a taxi stand, but imposed a broad operational boundary in the highest-demand area for TNS services, frustrating the provincial system.
To illustrate the point, the judge offered a hypothetical scenario where the city imposed a fee of $1,000 per stop. In such a case, he reasoned, it would be undeniable that the fee was controlling the number of vehicles and setting a minimum rate. He concluded that the actual amount of the fee was immaterial; it was the mechanism itself that was an unreasonable overreach into provincial jurisdiction.
The only argument on which the court sided with the City of Vancouver was the question of whether the fee constituted a toll. Uber argued that charging for the use of streets in the downtown core was effectively a toll. However, Justice Ormiston found that the city could reasonably distinguish between a fee for stopping on a street and a toll for transiting along it. Because a ride-share vehicle could drive through the downtown core without stopping and without incurring a fee, the judge concluded the permit charge was not a toll in the legal sense, comparing it to a fee for on-street parking.
Ultimately, Justice Ormiston concluded that the city’s bylaw could not be reconciled with the text, context, and purpose of the governing provincial legislation. He found the decision to enact it was unreasonable because it attempted to defeat the purpose of the 2019 amendments that gave the Passenger Transportation Board sole authority over TNS supply and rates. The bylaw was declared invalid and Uber’s petition was granted.
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