A winning experiment
King Street showed the value of cities and tech companies experimenting together
King pilot a model for how cities should work to attract tech firms,
There’s a lot of talk about what elements are needed to attract and keep the technology companies that can unleash economic prosperity, create the jobs of the future and propel cities forward: strong universities and colleges, talent ecosystems, investment capital, tax incentives, innovation districts, cosmopolitan culture and coffee shops, and on it goes.
It’s true that a tech company looking to launch or expand its offices will be interested in many of these amenities. And, yes, it feels like a home-team advantage when your city has everything you need to win. But there’s another critical thing that’s often overlooked. It isn’t a policy, a tax incentive or the perfect latte — it’s a willingness to experiment.
An experimental mindset is a critical attribute for startups and innovators. Nearly all tech companies and disrupters experiment, both by design and by necessity. To solve big problems, they reconsider old assumptions and existing solutions. They beta test innovation. They make measured and strategic investments on pilot projects that can be tossed or scaled up depending on the outcome.
Twitter tests new functions regionally and observes user behaviour to inform bigger product decisions, as does Instagram and many of the other tech startups. An experimental mindset is distinct from the infamous “move fast and break things” ethos. It shouldn’t feel like a burden on society or create adversarial relationships and ugly headlines. Most importantly, it should always be evidence-driven with society’s interests at heart.
Toronto is that kind of city, and it shows. This summer, the city partnered with MaRS Discovery District, George Brown College, Fitzrovia Real Estate and an innovative startup called ReMAP to create a new urban manufacturing space and incubator for entrepreneurs as part of a residential development. It’s a fascinating test case for a city with plenty of startups and not enough housing.
It also followed on the heels of the permanent implementation of the King Street transit pilot, which New York is now attempting to copy.
Wait — what does a transit pilot have to do with digital technology? On the surface, not much. The transit pilot restricted car traffic on a busy downtown corridor to prioritize the movement of streetcars, which have been plying Toronto’s streets since the 1860s. But it’s a great example of what can come from an experimental mindset gone right.
While politicians and transit agencies at multiple levels of government locked horns over region-wide solutions and billion-dollar transit expansions, the King Street pilot was a simple, $1.5-million beta test in the better use of existing transit infrastructure. The city could try it with no commitment and abandon it if it failed.
With this experiment, ridership grew 12 per cent in one year, travel times dropped and streetcar reliability shot up. After 17 months of study, council voted overwhelmingly to keep it in place.
When restaurant owners expressed fear that the reduced car traffic could hurt their businesses, the city partnered with Ritual on a two-week pilot within the pilot — a promotion that used our app to bring new customers to restaurants in the King Street corridor. It was inexpensive and easy to implement and the city jumped on it. Decisions and approvals that would have normally taken weeks or months were fasttracked in hours or days.
It was a relatively small amount of money for the city to spend — $164,000 — so the risks were limited. But the project boosted spending in the pilot area by $426,000, just on the Ritual platform alone. But more importantly, it immediately started returning actionable data for the city to evaluate. This was the experimental mindset in action: small investments to understand the outcome rather than upfront spending on a predetermined outcome.
Another area that is currently a hotbed for regulatory experimentation is escooters. While people love them, cities like San Francisco, Austin, Texas, and Paris have been plagued with the littering of app-based dockless e-scooters with minimal infrastructure like parking and storage to support them. Meanwhile, cities like Chicago, Portland, Ore., and Calgary have judiciously planned rollouts and anticipated fixes.
Technology has a positive role to play in solving some of our challenges and there is a way to constructively work with civic leaders when we adopt an experimental mindset. We live in a world where Silicon Valley’s brand has been damaged because its ethos and the arrogance of some companies came into conflict with the interests of its citizens: it turns out that moving fast and breaking things can actually break things.
Tech will not be a panacea to all of society’s issues, but it’s far better to get ahead of a changing world by cultivating an experimental mindset and working with people who are looking for solutions. Any city that wants to have this kind of meaningful conversation will inevitably find willing partners among all kinds of innovators — in tech and beyond.