One thing you can say about these King St. merchants who are complaining so loudly about the streetcar pilot project in downtown Toronto: they have a kind of anti-Midas touch when it comes to PR. Whatever stunt they pull, they succeed in demonstrating just about the opposite of the point they are trying to make.

First it was the ice sculptures. Worried that their business was down because record numbers of streetcar riders were apparently not coming in to eat, they cried out that they needed intervention to save them from bankruptcy. And to demonstrate how desperate for customers they were, businesses such as Kit Kat Bar & Grill displayed giant icy middle fingers in front of their restaurants. This clear, bold f-you to potential diners hinted to reasonable people that the main impediment they faced to continued success in the hospitality industry might not be parking restrictions.

Then, on Tuesday, they hosted a big road hockey game on King St. If you’re smiling and thinking how cool that is — playing in the street, in the middle of a weekday! — you won’t be alone. Yet oddly, those staging the tournament were hoping to make the point that doing this shouldn’t be possible, that without cars on the road, King St. is a “ghost town.” This, we are supposed to think, is a bad thing, as if multiple lanes of cars and trucks speeding by is the very essence of urban vibrancy — as if a sea of cars that make the middle of the road a dangerous place for hockey players or pedestrians somehow keeps the cash registers of the businesses full.

It’s nonsensical on its face, and obviously so. But moreover, those playing road hockey on the street are demonstrating a bit of the possibility that gets opened up when you free up space on the road. There is more room for people, to walk and sit and play and do things. You can have games in the road, performances, demonstrations, festivals. Those things are good for urban life, and they’re ultimately good for business.

I mean, just look around the world at some of the greatest tourists spots where businesses famously thrive: New York City’s Times Square, Old Quebec City, Montreal’s Plateau, Paris’ Rue Mouffetard, Copenhagan’s Strøget, London’s Carnaby Street. The list could go on and on (Tokyo’s Cat Street, Curitiba’s Flower Street, Beijing’s Qianmen Street…). Or even look at the Distillery District or Kensington Market right here in Toronto.

What these thriving commercial streets have in common is that they are primarily pedestrian districts where motor vehicle traffic is either forbidden or severely limited. In these places, you see frequent street festivals. You see vendors and musicians setting up in the road. You can imagine a game being staged there. It’s part of what makes them great urban places.

King St. could develop like that, given the right measures of time and care. A road hockey game? Well, that’s a taste of what could be done now that you’ve decided through traffic is not king of the road anymore. The kind of thing that could make it an even better place for those who live and work and do business there.

That contradicts the point the merchants were trying to make in staging the game. But they must be used to being contradicted by now. As I argued earlier in this space, their premise is contradicted by logic. And as of late last week, it is contradicted by the evidence the city has been collecting to measure the project’s results.

The headline of the most recent release is, of course, that business is up since the project launched. Data gathered from Moneris, a point-of-sale credit and debit processor, shows that sales increased 21 per cent in the pilot area in the months following the launch of the pilot. This was in line with a seasonal expectation — business goes up every year between October and December. In the pilot area, it appears business was down a bit this year compared to last year, but up compared to 2015 and 2014. Officially, the report shows “no change” in the expected level of business compared to seasonal expectations and the business environment citywide.

This may or may not be true of any individual business. But each case varies all the time, no matter what goes on politically or otherwise. That’s why we look at the bigger picture.

And the bigger picture of pilot results is even prettier. For transit users, the streetcar is more reliable than ever. As a result, ridership is up by 16 per cent, carrying an additional 12,000 riders per day, which is astounding. By comparison, the target ridership of the entire UP Express line — what the province has long hoped to achieve with the $456 million route — is 5,000 riders a day. The TTC hopes, meanwhile, that by 2031, the planned $3.5 billion Scarborough subway extension will carry 15,000 more riders than the RT carries there today.

Some people still want to debate whether the project is a success. Data will continue to be gathered, but it seems to point conclusively to a positive answer to that question. The new question is how the city — and the local merchants — can build that success into something even bigger and better for everyone.

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Road hockey tournaments? Who knows, could be a start.

Edward Keenan writes on city issues ekeenan@thestar.ca. Follow: @thekeenanwire