Taxi stands will cater to downtown bar crowd
Getting a late-night taxi in downtown Kamloops will soon be a matter of waiting in line.
In about two weeks, the city will announce a series of measures aimed at getting people out of the downtown core after bars close.
Among these measures are four new taxi stands, which will operate between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m.
Jon Wilson, community safety and enforcement manager for the city, told KTW the locations for the stands have already been chosen, but he wouldn’t release them before the full strategy launches.
Wilson said the stands, which won’t be located directly in front of evening hotspots, will be well-lit and will be easy for cabs to enter and exit.
The city’s co-ordinated enforcement task force has been working on the bar-flush program for several months and hopes to cut down on after-hour property damage and violence in the core.
Wilson said taxi stands have worked well in other communities, but are just one of several initiatives to be unveiled in the coming weeks.
“Right now, what happens is people are hailing the cabs or stopping them and the cabs aren’t actually getting to the destination they need to be in order to pick up people and move them out of the downtown,” he said.
“It’s trying to make sure everything’s centralized, so people can catch a taxi when they want to get out of Dodge, versus hanging around and being part of the problem.”
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