Sidewalk Labs is the new SmartTrack

Sidewalk Labs is employing a set of public relations tactics that Toronto has seen before — and will likely see again.

The current website for Sidewalk Toronto features a list of upcoming events that reads like a mayoral weekly agenda, with lots of photo opportunities at town halls, keynote speeches and community events. It probably shouldn’t surprise us that Sidewalk Labs wants to operate a sustained digital municipal election campaign. The multi-millionaire CEO of Sidewalk Labs, Dan Doctoroff, was basically the right hand man of multi-billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Doctoroff and Bloomberg were virtually the same person, to the point where the New York Times once wrote an article about their interchangeable roles.

When Michael Bloomberg was mayor, he hand-picked Doctoroff to be the CEO of Bloomberg L.P. (Screenshot from New York Times website)

We are about to kick off the 2018 mayoral election season. Toronto residents would be wise to consider the parallels between the current, sustained digital mayoral branding campaign of Sidewalk Labs and another recent mayoral branding campaign that pundits, journalists and activists are calling a waste of time, money and energy in city building circles: “SmartTrack”. Doctoroff and John Tory are using the same political playbook to curry favour with the public for their pet projects.

1. Both campaigns tap into an existing hope, fear or insecurity.

If you’re going to start a branding campaign to win favour, the best place to start is with a concept that captures the politics of an idea that is popular at the moment.

In the case of “SmartTrack”, Tory tapped into a constant public appetite for one simple, quick, concise solution to Toronto’s messy transportation, infrastructure and mobility problems.

Sidewalk Labs has done something similar, tapping into two insecurities in Toronto that germinated under the mayorship of Rob Ford and have festered under Mayor John Tory: 1) that government is slow, unresponsive and incapable of meeting modern challenges, 2) that Toronto lacks the imagination of world-class cities like New York City.

2. Both campaigns sell benefits as the silver bullet.

From the beginning, Tory claimed “SmartTrack” would be the silver bullet for our transit needs, as explained by Toronto transit activist Steve Munro:

“[Tory’s] election campaign promoted “SmartTrack”, a single city-wide project that would solve every problem and magically be funded through taxes on new development the line would bring. A “surface subway” would speed riders from Markham to Mississauga via downtown with frequent service at TTC fares.”

John Tory’s proposed SmartTrack (Image courtesy JohnTory.ca)

In the run-up to the 2014 election, John Tory touted “SmartTrack” as the solution to every problem in the city. Slow transit? SmartTrack. Traffic congestion? SmartTrack. Urban suburban divide? SmartTrack. It was simple, concise and effective.

Sidewalk Labs has done something similar in the last several months. Affordable housing crisis? Sidewalk Toronto. Traffic congestion? Sidewalk Toronto. Catastrophic climate change? Sidewalk Toronto. Again, simple, concise and effective. Never mind that no one is quite sure what tangible product or service Sidewalk Toronto is building, how it will be delivered and how it will be paid for.

Type “Sidewalk Labs” into Google images and you get a ton of carefully designed images like this.

3. Both campaigns ignore existing plans, empirical evidence and legitimate concerns from citizens.

From the day “SmartTrack” was announced, Toronto transit activists pointed out gaping holes in its logic:

The most feasible elements of “SmartTrack” was just a renaming of GO track electrification, a Metrolinx project that was in development for 6–10 years before “SmartTrack” was proposed.

Some elements of “SmartTrack” were physically impossible to build, operate and maintain as promised.

The upfront and ongoing costs of “SmartTrack” were far, far higher than promised.

The network integrations required for “SmartTrack” were more expensive, less reliable and less feasible than promised.

These gaping holes have parallels to the major gaps in logic within Sidewalk Labs’ transit proposal, which features a grab-bag of futuristic transit technologies that purport to represent innovative mobility solutions. These ideas range in quality and status from “good and already under consideration” (self-driving car infrastructure) to “bad and terrible use of limited funds” (taxibots) to “downright silly due to high cost, low feasibility, high risk and low priority” (gondolas).

When an informed group of residents, activists and public policy experts compile a list of gaping holes in the project’s logic, Sidewalk Toronto is noticeably, continuously, completely silent.