Uber expands in Fraser Valley with addition of Mission, Agassiz
Posted September 25, 2023 12:24 pm.
People needing to get around the Fraser Valley will be able to include ride-hailing as an option, with Uber announcing it’s expanding to more cities in the region.
The company says it is now offering service to Mission, Kent, and north of Chilliwack. Previously, Uber’s service only reached the Abbotsford area.
“There’s been a lot of demand in the Greater Vancouver area,” Keethena Rang, a spokesperson for Uber Canada, told CityNews Monday. “There’ve been a lot of trips where people, their destination is in the Fraser Valley, so drivers could drop them off but, unfortunately, drivers weren’t able to pick up new trips when coming back into Vancouver. So, now, drivers who are making those trips … can also pick up trips.”
In June, Uber added three more cities to its coverage area, offering rides in Chilliwack, Kelowna, and Victoria.
Since then, Rang says pressure to expand has only continued to rise.
“Since (the expansion in June), we’ve seen residents across the Greater Vancouver area, deep into the Fraser Valley, looking for rideshare and we thought now is the time to expand,” she said.
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For those in the new coverage areas, Rang says it may take a little time to grow the driver base and get wait times down. However, she doesn’t anticipate that being a major issue, given how things are already running in other parts of the region.
“We always say when we launch rideshare to give us some patience. Sometimes ETAs are a little bit longer as we get supply-ready, in terms of the number of drivers on the road. That being said, because this is an extension of the Greater Vancouver area, drivers in the Greater Vancouver area can now drive, also, in Mission, Kent, and north Chilliwack. So we do expect there to be a good amount of drivers on the road,” she explained.
Earlier this year, Uber launched a service for teen riders in B.C., with those 13 to 17 years old able to have their own accounts.
The ride-hailing company got the green light to operate in B.C. in 2020. At the time, service was only available to parts of Metro Vancouver.
Uber says it is operating in over 140 municipalities in Canada, along with thousands of other cities in the world.
-With files from Martin MacMahon
