This is a rare thing. I normally don’t post about things that relate to my job as the Director of the N-Squared Innovation District, but this one does have a strong local impact. The 128 Business Council, which operates shuttles to office parks in the area, is surveying people who live and work in Newton and Needham to better understand commuting patterns.
You can take the survey online and it costs about a 10-minute investment in time; the length of time it takes depends on your answers, as some lead to additional questions. There’s an option at the end to enter for a gift card.
This is really about collecting some basic information that tells us where people start and end their commute so we can better understand how to serve them. For that reason, some people may find it to be a very short survey, while others may be asked a bunch of questions about your commuting methods. Either way, please take a bit of time to fill it out, especially if you work in Newton or Needham.
Requiring an answer to annual income, even as a range, had me abandon the survey at 88% completed. It’s simply none of your business no matter how “anonymous” you claim the survey to be. Add a “refused” category to that question and I’ll be happy to go back and do it again.
Why is this blog post categorized only under “bicycles” if the survey is about commuting?
@Mary I used the tags I felt filled in those gaps since I can’t add categories myself and didn’t see one for commuting. I’ve added it to Streets and Sidewalks.
Chuck, I started it but bailed. I addition to objecting to it asking for income, I don’t see why it would need to ask for exact age (not a range) and education. Not sure what else it asked for after that as I abandoned the survey at that point
Chuck –
I was surprised that the survey didn’t ask about how I traveled to work, around the city, or to Boston. Chuck, can you clarify what you’re hoping to learn from the survey?
I never respond to requests related to my income, but the survey seemed to accept that I wasn’t going to provide that information.
I could understand why someone who makes say $80K a year and drives to and from work and every other thing they do might wonder why they need to know your income.
But what about, say, a hourly wage worker who travels to Newton at 5 a.m. from Chelsea to work as a housekeeper at one of our hotels? Or perhaps a cashier, also earning hourly wages who depends on public transportation to get to Brighton after they leave their job at 10 p.m. at one of the big stores on Needham Street? Can folks imagine why that kind of detail might important to traffic planners?
I didn’t experience any potentially sensitive questions that were mandatory. And I know that different answers trigger different questions.
“How much money do you make?” – It’s the biggest taboo question even in an age where strangers are comfortable asking all sorts of other personal questions.
Years ago I went to India and I was taken up short when people I had just met unselfconciously asked “what is your salary?”
It’s hard to make a good survey. There’s a balance between asking the questions you need, accepting when people don’t want to answer, and forcing them to answer even if it leads them to quit. Unfortunately, many survey makers don’t understand this balance. Also unfortunately, so many surveys refuse to let respondents leave questions unanswered that people start to assume that the questions are mandatory unless told otherwise. That is why it is so important to give the option “prefer not to answer”, so people know they aren’t going to have wasted all their time if they refuse to answer that one question.
Yes, income data can be helpful; so can age (but age range is perfectly adequate) and other demographics. But getting answers from as wide a range as possible is more helpful. If you make it impossible to skip questions, you’ll have a lot fewer completed questionnaires, and more bias in those answers you do get. If someone wants to share that they are eking by on minimum wage, they’ll answer the question. If they don’t want to share that, you still want to know how they commute.
With the survey being from the 128 Business Council and the fact that they run shuttles to office parks, I imagine they’re less interested in minimum wage workers, hotel housekeepers, retail cashiers, etc.
Well then Mary I “imagine” you have no imagination.
Businesses of all types depend on hourly wage workers to maintain their facilities, provide clerical services, interact with customers and provide all varieties of services.
Businesses in our inner suburbs are facing a workforce crisis and the solution depends on solving our transportation and housing crisis.
Well, yes, obviously. But I don’t feel like this survey targets those types of employees.
@Mary: Methinks you might want to change your name to Mary Mary Knower of Everything.
I had no problems completing the survey. I thought it was thorough but included so many options to select as many answers as you want that I wonder if the info gathered is pertinent or useful. I use several modes of transportation on weekdays and on weekends. By grouping them together and not asking which I use the most for which purpose, it seems like a conglomeration of answers. There’s no way to tell which one I use for which reason. For instance, I drive when working (or I work from home) and shopping, use Uber/Lyft for appointments and use car services to and from the airport. But there’s no differentiation between them in the survey.
Mary, Why?
@Greg, no really to be so snarky to Mary.
I take Mary’s point. How will the survey be distribute beyond Village 14
Well, Claire it’s a toss up between you and Mary, Mary for being deserving of snarky comments for either knowing everything or complaining. And while you may think they are not necessary, many of us do. I mean, really, there is no reason at all for this survey not to be answered by hourly, low paid workers. It doesn’t skew in any direction.
@Marti Bowen, please take a look in the mirror. Or at the thumbs down every time you personally attack me.
I haven’t suggested that it not be answered by hourly workers. My question was how was it going to be distributed so as to get responses from hourly workers. I’m not thinking it is limiting its distribution to Village 14.
This survey is being shared widely with businesses and residents. Depending on where you live or work and how you travel the survey will trigger different questions
Feel free to share it youself.
Where I stopped cold: the “time leaving” and “time arriving” questions only have full-hour increments. That makes no sense for someone like me who typically has a 20-30 minute commute. Unless I missed something.
PS – I have no problem with the wage question. It’s standard, and does help give information about types of workers and their commutes.
@Doug: I wondered about this at first too. But then I figured, it just means I’m telling the survey which hours I’m on the road, train, bike etc as part of my commute.
I completed the survey again inputting my (supposed) income because I realized that I hadn’t had access to the whole survey after reading the comments. Not to worry – the survey police won’t arrest you if you do. The survey is comprehensive but as a city, we may need to focus on high school age students and senior citizens (the largest growing population in the city). Both groups would benefit from improved public transit.
Two other points:
The 128 Business Council didn’t ask any questions about traveling on Rte 95 which is a complete nightmare and affects the lives of everyone who has to use it. Has the 128BC given any thought to addressing that issue? The entire metro area would love a solution to that problem.
I’ve had to travel by car to Boston when public transportation isn’t an option and found that parts of it are total gridlock for most of the day. I wonder if there’s a ripple effect for communities abutting the city.
So the basic question is this: How is Newton affected by problems that exist elsewhere and what can be done about it? How do we work on these problems?
Monica Tibbits-Nutt, who wrote the survey, sent me the following answers to all of your questions:
“It didn’t have much transportation content…Other than getting home zip and work zip – this does NOTHING.”
We definitely don’t just ask demographic info! If you click the survey link and scroll without beginning to answer the questions, all you initially see is demographic information, because the survey tool logic is set up to only ask the respondent questions applicable to them, out of respect for their time. So, if the respondent says that they are employed, the survey tool automatically asks them questions about how they get to work, etc. If they aren’t employed, it skips work-specific questions. Later on, if a respondent tells us that they don’t actively use public transit, the survey tool skips the questions about specific public transit habits. (It does still ask them questions about their public transit preferences and impressions.)
Total, the survey actually includes 77 questions, but, again, the survey tool logic skips inapplicable questions based upon the respondents’ initial answers.
“Basic questions – how do people get to work? What other choices would they consider or prefer? Why do they not do those now?”
We definitely ask all of these questions and more (and we ask them in a number of different ways), but, again, you have to actually begin answering the demographic questions before you can see them. Questions that the survey includes once you actually dive into filling it out:
What time do you leave home for school or work?
What time do you arrive at work?
What time do you leave work for home?
What time do you arrive at home?
How do you commute to work? [the answer to which prompts a range of follow-up questions]
Does your employer provide any incentives or support for taking public transportation? [with follow-up questions]
Do you own a vehicle? [with follow-up questions, including if they say no: Why don’t you? Are you planning to purchase a vehicle? If you do purchase a vehicle, will you use it instead of transit?]
Do you depend upon public transit to get to your job, school, or other activities? Would you be able to access your job, school, or other activities without public transit?
During the past year, how often have you used public transit? [As already mentioned, if they say that they never use public transit, the survey logic skips a number of follow-up questions, like: Which services have you used in the last month? In the last month, how did you most often pay for your fare? How do you get from your home to the transit stop/station? How satisfied are you with the frequency of service, distance to the stop, availability of seating, transit time, etc.?]
How far is your home to the nearest train station and bus stop?
Relative to public transportation, how comfortable are you with planning a trip somewhere new, knowing where to get off the bus or train, etc.?
How difficult would it be for you to take public transportation for all of your trips to work, school, shopping, errands, entertainment/dining?
Yes/No: “I see time spent driving as a waste of time.”
Yes/No: “Most of my friends and family members use public transportation.”
Yes/No: “In an ideal world, everyone would have their own car.”
Yes/No: “I really enjoy the time I spent on public transportation.”
Yes/No: “I feel more in control when driving than I do on a bus or train.”
This is just a sample of the 77 questions that a respondent may encounter, again depending upon the flow of the survey logic. As you can see, we ask questions about current transportation habits, potential future habits, and stated preferences, but we also try to gather data about respondents’ underlying assumptions and external structural factors that influence transportation behavior.
Please rest assured that, not just myself, but a whole team with expertise in city planning, transportation planning, data & survey metrics, and sociological trend analysis agonized over this survey! There are definitely additional questions we could have asked, and many additional data points we would have liked to gather, but we of course had to strike a balance between breadth, depth, and the likelihood that respondents would actually finish the survey.
“I’m also not sure how they would award the amazon gift cards”
Again, you have to actually take the survey and make it to the end to see the question, but: The very last question of the survey, before the user clicks “submit,” asks for their email address. We’ll run those email addresses through a lottery and send digital Amazon gift cards directly to the winners.
Sorry — but I could not complete your survey because you had no allowance for a senior who is retired and still actively driving!! Why not?? There are a lot of us… in fact, this population is growing…
We definitely ask about employment status and seek to collect information about the commuting habits of retirees.
I am guessing that you may have gotten “stuck” on the second demographic question (“What is your work or school ZIP code?”). The survey logic automatically skips all of the other mandatory questions that are specific to respondents who work or are in school, but we needed to keep this preliminary questions mandatory in order to standardize our data collection. Obviously, this question is not applicable to retirees (nor a few other groups), though, and so there is a note under the question that reads “If you do not commute to work or school. please simply enter your home ZIP code. You will have a chance to tell us your employment status in a later question.” Your feedback made us concerned that this note is not prominent enough, and so we have bolded it for the sake of future respondents.
Also, I have an MBA; there didn’t seem to be an option for a master’s level education. or did I miss something?
In the drop-down menu under this question, one of the options is “Graduate or professional school.” You may not have seen that option if you started typing “MBA.” (If you return and try to fill out the survey again, you’ll notice that many of the questions have an answer field with a downward-facing error, which indicates a drop-down menu.)
I’m engaged in a number of regular activities, but they don’t seem to fit your mold.
With the exception of that initial zip code question, all of the required questions that someone who selects “retired” in the demographic section should see ask about commutes to “work, school, or other activities,” and a number of later questions ask about, for example, commuting for the purposes of shopping, errands, entertainment/dining, etc. Are there specific categories of trips that you feel we’ve left out, or specific questions that you found impossible to answer or otherwise limiting? We want this survey to be applicable for and accessible to commuters of all types, and so we welcome your feedback and suggestions!
In general, I try to avoid rush hours because the traffic in metro Boston has become so intense.
So does our whole team! (Sadly, it’s not always possible for me, so I listen to a lot of audiobooks.) The traffic in metro Boston is definitely intense.
We definitely do not want any questions or misconceptions about the survey to impede its distribution, so I’m really glad you reached out!
If you click the survey link and scroll without beginning to answer the questions, all you initially see is demographic information, because the survey tool logic is set up to only ask the respondent questions applicable to them, out of respect for their time. So, if the respondent says that they are employed, the survey tool automatically asks them questions about how they get to work, etc. If they aren’t employed, it skips work-specific questions. Later on, if a respondent tells us that they don’t actively use public transit, the survey tool skips the questions about specific public transit habits. (It does still ask them questions about their public transit preferences and impressions.)
Total, the survey actually includes 77 questions, but, again, the survey tool logic skips inapplicable questions based upon the respondents’ initial answers. Those 77 questions include, for example:
What time do you leave home for school or work?
What time do you arrive at work?
What time do you leave work for home?
What time do you arrive at home?
How do you commute to work? [the answer to which prompts a range of follow-up questions]
Does your employer provide any incentives or support for taking public transportation? [with follow-up questions]
Do you own a vehicle? [with follow-up questions, including if they say no: Why don’t you? Are you planning to purchase a vehicle? If you do purchase a vehicle, will you use it instead of transit?]
Do you depend upon public transit to get to your job, school, or other activities? Would you be able to access your job, school, or other activities without public transit?
During the past year, how often have you used public transit? [As already mentioned, if they say that they never use public transit, the survey logic skips a number of follow-up questions, like: Which services have you used in the last month? In the last month, how did you most often pay for your fare? How do you get from your home to the transit stop/station? How satisfied are you with the frequency of service, distance to the stop, availability of seating, transit time, etc.?]
How far is your home to the nearest train station and bus stop?
Relative to public transportation, how comfortable are you with planning a trip somewhere new, knowing where to get off the bus or train, etc.?
How difficult would it be for you to take public transportation for all of your trips to work, school, shopping, errands, entertainment/dining?
Yes/No: “I see time spent driving as a waste of time.”
Yes/No: “Most of my friends and family members use public transportation.”
Yes/No: “In an ideal world, everyone would have their own car.”
Yes/No: “I really enjoy the time I spent on public transportation.”
Yes/No: “I feel more in control when driving than I do on a bus or train.”
As you can see, we ask questions about current transportation habits, potential future habits, and stated preferences, but we also try to gather data about respondents’ underlying assumptions and external structural factors that influence transportation behavior.
Please rest assured that, not just myself, but a whole team with expertise in city planning, transportation planning, data & survey metrics, and sociological trend analysis agonized over this survey! There are definitely additional questions we could have asked, and many additional data points we would have liked to gather, but we, of course, had to strike a balance between breadth, depth, and the likelihood that respondents would actually finish the survey.
@ Chuck I went back to take the survey and it didn’t ask me any questions about HOW I commute. The 1st question was my home zip and my 2nd question was work zip so it was established that my commute is into Boston. It ask income range and age and then it ask me why I chose my current home. It was multiple choice and about half of the choice were related to transit such as close to the T. While some of those choices were factors, the top choice wasn’t. The survey concluded after fewer than 10 question none of which sought to understand HOW I commute. I’m assuming that since I commute towards Boston and not towards 128, I was filtered out