[TRU Research] Survey responses
Stephen DeSanto
rachidian at gmail.com
Tue Mar 10 12:59:15 PDT 2020
Here's some basic numbers. In general, the majority of respondents to the
survey are highly supportive of the proposal (surprise). The comments
express support for *any* kind of subsidy up-to and including free public
transit for everyone.
*How do you feel about this basic proposal?*
Highly supportive 174
Somewhat supportive 19
Highly opposed 5
Somewhat opposed 5
Neutral 1
Choose one 1
*Large employers: Over 500 employees worldwide*
100% subsidy 124
Less than 100% but more than 50% subsidy 43
50% subsidy 19
No requirement 16
Choose one 3
*Large Seattle employers: Over 500 employees in Seattle*
100% subsidy 151
Less than 100% but more than 50% subsidy 37
No requirement 10
50% subsidy 4
Choose one 3
*Very large Seattle employers: Over 5,000 employees in Seattle*
100% subsidy 178
Less than 100% but more than 50% subsidy 10
No requirement 8
Choose one 7
50% subsidy 2
*Large worksites: Over 100 employees of a single employer arrive daily
at a single site.*
100% subsidy 130
Less than 100% but more than 50% subsidy 38
No requirement 17
50% subsidy 16
Choose one 4
*Should part-time employees, seasonal/temporary employees, and/or
independent contractors be included in this legislation?*
Yes, definitely 130
Yes, maybe 43
I'm not sure 15
Probably not 11
Definitely not 5
Choose one 1
*Should non-profits be included in this legislation?*
Yes, definitely 107
Yes, maybe 54
I'm not sure 28
Probably not 9
Definitely not 6
Choose one 1
*Would you support Seattle funding and expanding a [small-business
subsidy program]?*
Yes, definitely 162
Yes, maybe 21
Definitely not 8
I'm not sure 6
Choose one 6
Probably not 2
A few themes and suggestions emerged from the various comment responses:
- Support for ORCA cards / transit subsidies for everyone (not just
employees of large companies), and/or free public transit. One respondent
had a comment that matches my personal sentiment: "I am much more
interested in seeing everyone have an Orca card that causes them to
consider transit usage an option, than I am concerned about the mechanisms
of the subsidy."
- Support for improvement to public transit reliability and quality.
More frequent buses, reliable service, better routes.
- Desire to see big businesses pay for their effects on public
infrastructure.
- Many respondents who are highly supportive of the basic proposal also
take the bus to work.
Some suggestions from the comments:
- Large companies should subsidize transit benefits for smaller ones /
non-profits / other orgs excluded from this org.
- Not only make transit easier, but making driving harder. (e.g.
financial incentive to not drive, penalize parking)
- "My concern about this is that it places power over our transit system
in the hands of employers as the ones who fund it... Couldn't we just tax
the companies and eliminate the need for fares and employer subsidy?"
- "The focus on size of employer sounds good to the anti-Amazon crowd
but is bad public policy. Transit should be free and subsidized by all
taxpayers in the city."
With regards to employee classification and benefits for temp/contract
workers:
- Concern that temporary, part-time, independent contractors, and
similar groups would be excluded due to "loopholes" that let companies
avoid giving benefits to their employees.
- On the other hand, some respondents oppose independent contractors
receiving transit benefits.
- Concern that low-paid workers and independent contractors (who would
most benefit) can't afford to live in Seattle, so driving is a better
option than transit for some.
- Sentiment that part-time employees should get at least partial
subsidy, but don't structure the law to incentivize companies to not
provide work hours or transit benefits to employees who need both (i.e. "no
loopholes")
Many respondents already have transit benefits, but what it would mean for
others:
- "I wouldn’t be spending all of my tip money on transit"
- More money to pay bills -- medical bills, student debt, daycare bills.
- More likely to use transit, or use more often.
Our canvassing efforts have made an impact in producing survey results. How
people heard about the survey:
- Seattle Transit Blog
- TRU membership emails
- Twitter, Facebook
- Canvassers on the bus and train. "A guy walked up to me saying that
tammy moralez wants to create a law where everyone gets a orca. And that i
should do the survey."
If there is more specific data that you'd like me to get from the survey
responses, or specific questions you'd like me to answer, let me know and
I'll go digging. It takes me a while to re-learn how to use pandas
<https://pandas.pydata.org/> every time I tackle a dataset, but I have some
quick views saved in my notebook so I should be faster to respond now. For
the qualitative data presented in this email, I only did a quick skim of
responses, nothing rigorous, so I might have missed some good ideas or
sentiments.
I've saved some of the narrative responses, grouped by feeling towards
basic proposal, in a Google Doc. I think it provides an easier view of the
comments than the CSV/spreadsheet. If there's a specific question you want
added to this doc, let me know and I'll scrape it out, super-easy to do:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1apc1sy4QyH6z5ildB2CyIkXZNT6myktmuX5S8irjwR8/edit?usp=sharing
Data cleaning note: Several responses for "Comments about the basic
proposal and possible tiers?" contained physical addresses. Not sure what
happened there.
On Fri, Mar 6, 2020 at 2:18 PM Katie Wilson <katie at transitriders.org> wrote:
> Ok! Here’s the .csv. Have at it.
>
>
> On Mar 6, 2020, at 2:00 PM, Stephen DeSanto <rachidian at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I can scroll through the data this weekend and see what stands out to me.
> With surveys like this, I assume the qualitative data will be more useful
> than the quantitative. I can do a pass over it.
>
> On Fri, Mar 6, 2020, 13:13 Katie Wilson <katie at transitriders.org> wrote:
>
>> Hey all,
>>
>> We have over 200 responses to our survey
>> <http://transitriders.org/orcasurvey>. If I were to share a .csv of the
>> responses (without personal info of course), would anyone be interested in
>> taking a look at the data, quantitative and/or qualitative? As we begin to
>> work with CM Mosqueda’s office on crafting the actual policy, it would be
>> great to be able to share our survey results with them.
>>
>> Obviously it’s not a representative sample, and most people are in favor
>> of strong legislation, but I’d be especially interested to know if there’s
>> anything there we might not be expecting. Anything in the written comments
>> we might not have thought of? Any entries from people associated with
>> particular employers that are of interest?
>>
>> Katie
>>
>> Katie Wilson
>> General Secretary
>> Transit Riders Union
>> https://transitriders.org
>> 206-781-7204
>>
>> *The Transit Riders Union is a democratic organization of working and
>> poor **people, including students, seniors, and people with
>> disabilities, taking control over our own lives, and building up the power
>> we **need to change society for the good of humanity and of the planet.
>> We will **fight to preserve, expand, and improve the public
>> transportation system in **Seattle and beyond, so that every human being
>> has access to safe, **affordable, and reliable public transit.*
>>
>>
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.transitriders.org/pipermail/research/attachments/20200310/03f7d87c/attachment.html>
More information about the Research
mailing list