District 5 Diary: Take a poll: "Should S.F. make it easier or harder to drive and park in the city?"

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Take the Business Times poll here. "Should S.F. make it easier or harder to drive and park in the city?"

Thanks to Streetsblog for the link.

At 9:14 AM, Anonymous said...: What did the people say? Harder.
At 12:27 PM, Rob Anderson said...: "Harder" is only two points ahead right now, and apparently votes are still coming in.

The problem with this poll is that it includes a third choice that muddies the water: "Neither. Transit vs. cars doesn't have to be either/or."

That provides an option for those who reject the either/or of the first two, but it falsely poses a "transit vs. cars" choice. If you make it hard for cars to drive and park in the city, you're also going to make it harder for Muni to transport its 700,000 daily passengers in the city.

Nevertheless, those "neither" votes can't be counted as "harder," can they?

Of course online polls like this aren't really indicative of much, though they can be entertaining for those of us who're interested in the issue.

The meaningful poll will be the November election, when city voters can choose/reject Mayor Lee's $500 million bond or the Transportation Balance initiative.
At 12:49 PM, Vince said...: "Neither. Transit vs. cars doesn't have to be either/or."

I'm sure most people voting for this option understand transit as MUNI. The city has muddied the water by sneakily redefining transit to include bikes. Taken together, the first and third options are an overwhelming rejection of the city's anti-car, bicycles first policy.
At 10:52 AM, Rob Anderson said...: Easier is now rolling up a big lead over "harder"!