Usually when a government agency puts out a survey, they want as many responses as possible. That’s why my eyebrows raised a bit when I heard from someone who took a recent Portland Bureau of Transportation survey and told me they weren’t allowed to complete it.
The survey was sent out in a PBOT Safe Routes to School email on March 4th. “Portland is known as a bike-friendly city, but do Portlanders feel the same way?” the blurb with a link to the survey read. “PBOT wants to know what you think about bicycling, whether you currently bike or not.” Responses to the short survey would help inform future planning and community engagement and it was billed by PBOT as an “important research project”.
“I attempted to take the survey,” shared reader Matt S. in an email to BikePortland yesterday. “And after completing several pages of it, I was informed that, ‘Sorry, we’ve already received enough responses from participants with demographics that match yours’ and was kicked out of the survey.” Matt said he was “gobsmacked” at what he felt was “outrageous, egregious, anti-democratic conduct” by PBOT and its partner on the survey, NW Opinions.
I noted others who posted on the BikeLoud PDX Slack that they received the same message. “Apparently they’ve heard enough from young hispanic men in District 4,” wrote one person who got the same message as Matt. “District 3 filled up too,” and “I guess too many middle-aged cis women in District 4,” wrote other respondents who were also kicked out of the survey before being able to complete it.
When I posted about this on Instagram, one person seemed to support the tactic. “This is amazing!!! Great to see PBOT being more hardcore about better representation.”
To understand more about what was going on, I reached out to PBOT.
PBOT Communications Director Hannah Schafer said the survey’s goal is to assess Portlanders’ bicycling behavior and attitudes and the agency is, “specifically working to identify the conditions that would encourage people to bike more.” Schafer explained that the survey is being conducted on two tracks: the “scientific track” and the “civic engagement track”. Here’s more form Schafer:
“The scientific track proactively targets a sample population with representative demographics to help ensure that it is obtaining a representative sample of Portlanders. That track is tightly controlled by the pollsters and will also include statistical weighting at the back-end to ensure statistical representation. The civic engagement track – which is the survey people are taking and are concerned about – will help bolster the data that will be received from the scientific track.”
So why kick some respondents out? Schafer says the pollsters didn’t expect such a robust response and wanted to reach only people who don’t already consider themselves enthusiastic cyclists. “However, because the pollsters are seeing great interest in the survey and surmise that many of the people responding are both active and passionate about bicycling, they have since modified the survey to allow everybody to take it – even if it overloads certain demographics.”
“That feedback is likely to provide detailed information about the subgroup of Portlanders who identify as people who bike, rather than serve to directly augment data from the scientific track,” Schafer added. “Both approaches have value, and the high number of responses received on the civic engagement track indicates its utility is more in better understanding that sub-group.”
Schafer says people who were initially turned away should be able to take the survey now. “We are so grateful for the tremendous response.”
Take the survey here. It’s up until tomorrow (March 7th).
