OPAL is listed as a promoter of this survey and we continue to be involved in it’s development, but we also want to continue to be vocal about our concerns over the survey process and current product. We sincerely respect the hard work that many people put into this. But without getting into too much detail, it’s sufficient to say that TriMet effectively vetoed important transit questions regarding satisfaction, coverage, affordability, and community members’ preferred transportation trade-offs (such as creating dedicated bus lanes by removing on-street parking and/or bike lanes and/or etc). The two transit questions that did make the final version of the paper survey are either redundant considering existing data, or quite narrowly framed and therefore limited in their usefulness.
The online version includes slightly more/better questions about transit, but not the questions community members most advocated for. They have also found this version very difficult to use and time-consuming, raising additional flags about how representative online survey responses will ultimately be.
Again, we respect the hard work that so many have put into this effort to collect better transportation data. Projects like this are very important. But we hope that this particular product can be improved moving forward.
This is significant because its even more evidence ( like we need any more evidence when we already have volumes of stuff about Trimet manipulations and lies) that documents the complete and total lack of honesty that comes from Oregon's largest transit agency- TRIMET
