As a seven year-old train enthusiast, I would beg my dad to take me on the non-stop GO train from Oriole Station to Union for fun. I studiously followed transit developments in the city, including the Sheppard Line’s seemingly interminable and ultimately disappointing construction.
Then SmartTrack came along during the last municipal election promising relief without the quagmire of construction – more trains, fewer Sheppard Lines. I was entering Dundas West station one morning when a woman handed me a navy pamphlet with green and white lettering. It proclaimed that if I voted for John Tory, I would soon be able to reach Union Station in less than 10 minutes, instead of the minimum 30 I knew I was about to spend balancing in a crammed subway car and staring at a system map bearing a black void where the much-discussed Downtown Relief Line was supposed to be.
Fast-forward and a much scaled-down version of SmartTrack has now been approved.
If SmartTrack was as flawed as some observers claimed, how did Tory win?
Students and practitioners of innovative design suggests that Tory won because voters wanted innovation, and Smart Track seemed to offer it.
Innovation doesn’t simply mean “new technology.” Designers define it as a process that starts with defining a challenge and identifying possible solutions and then putting these ideas to the test by creating low-fidelity prototypes that they try out, discard, and rework over and over again. With each iteration, they learn what works, what doesn’t, and how they might get it right, failing many times, cheaply, to eventually get it right is better than getting it wrong after spending big.
The Tory campaign produced a novel solution and an intriguing lo-fi prototype of sorts: an attractive, interactive trip planner. This proposed solution challenged the prevailing wisdom that relief required building subways, and that therefore we’d have to wait decades for it. The prototype cost very little to produce and could be tested immediately on commuters. To voters it seemed idealistic, but plausible enough that it might work.
If we think of SmartTrack in these terms, it makes sense that it caught voters’ attention and helped Tory win.
First, Tory framed the transit challenge skillfully. As his rivals debated whether to build subways in Scarborough or downtown, Tory asked not what the best transit plan was, but what solution could arrive soonest. If you live in Toronto and have experienced the rush-hour crush on the TTC you will understand why this framing was well-received.
Yet SmartTrack as we knew it is now dead.
Innovators can explain this result, too. SmartTrack went wrong where so much rapid prototyping does: the process fails when prototypes are too big to be tested, and when we become too attached to them to move on when they prove deficient.
SmartTrack, saddled with the weight of its prominence in Tory’s platform, went from being an intriguing lo-fi prototype to being the plan.
Instead of holding dear to the plan, Tory could have broken SmartTrack down into smaller components and applied rapid prototyping to the highest-priority sections.
To find new ways of solving old transit problems, we need to test big ideas in small ways that won’t break the bank if they fail.
For example, why not prototype SmartTrack’s western portion on the Union-Pearson Express by putting up temporary platforms and running the UPX local for a week? Or close Queen Street for a day and run an express streetcar to Broadview Station to see what eastern relief looks like? Foolish ideas, perhaps, but innovating requires us to question the prevailing wisdom, sometimes in radical ways.
Some might argue that Toronto needs long-term plans that are poorly suited to rapid prototyping. But that cannot stop us.
We must at least apply the principles of rapid prototyping to more localized transit challenges, like the east Gardiner rebuild and the Scarborough subway extension, projects that will cost billions and with which nobody seems happy.
Wherever it is applied, rapid prototyping would allow commuters to try out ideas that planners could study and refine. Good ideas would show themselves so plainly that politicians could not afford to stand in the way.
Indeed, rapid prototyping for transit is underway in many cities around the world. It not only leads to innovation, but gives commuters a chance to offer insight and feedback on possible solutions.
Salvator Cusimano is Innovation Fellow for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
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