Sisters says yes to Uber on eve of C.O. launch
In a week, on May 4, Central Oregonians will be able to open up their smartphone’s Uber app and request a ride under regulations recently adopted by the city of Bend.
The Sisters City Council also adopted a city code for taxis and transportation network companies on Wednesday evening, and Redmond took similar action recently.
“If one of the smaller cities like Sisters wants the option of putting their own code in place, then they will just need to do that based on Bend,” John Isaacs, Uber’s public relations manager for Oregon, said Wednesday. “Sisters is essentially adopting the Bend code.”
The Uber representative said the company hopes city codes will stay fairly consistent in Central Oregon ,so transportation between towns will stay fair and smooth.
Sisters Mayor Chuck Ryan said the city wanted to update the code to keep up with what’s going on today.
“Bend kind of took the lead on this, and I think Redmond also, and it clearly meant we need to do something,” said Ryan. “What happens is if you have your neighboring cities and towns and they’re not all connected with the same type of agreement? Then Uber would have difficulty delivering passengers from Bend to Sisters, or from Redmond and vice versa.”
Sisters also looked into insurance requirements, background checks and licensing for Uber drivers. Eventually, they decided to accept similar rules. Other towns can adopt a city code as well, but they don’t need to.
“It works best in a metro area like this where you have the major city, which is Bend in Central Oregon, adopt a set of regulations,” said Isaacs. “Then we just operate within the whole metro area.”
The service will be available to people in the entire Central Oregon area under the Bend regulations. Within the first week, the organization expects to have hundreds of active drivers in Bend alone.
Bend Mayor Casey Roats and Redmond Mayor George Endicott are expected to take the ceremonial first Uber ride on the morning of May 4, outside Deschutes Brewery.
