I had mentioned, a couple of posts back, that the City of Toronto report on the MegaBin/Eucan trial engaged in some interesting number juggling and justification concerning the community’s response to the trial. Most interestingly, the authors of the report had concluded that the 2,387 on-line surveys, of which 85% were negative, could be marginalized in favour of the 199 interviews conducted on the street, of which, “83% support the initiative citing revenue generation as the primary motivator.”

The on-line survey was concluded to be “interested” in that the people filling out the on-line survey quite possibly came to it with an established opinion formed through reading newspapers stories on the trial or engaging in some independent research of their own. God forbid!

Correspondingly, the on-street survey was considered to be more of an objective sample of the city’s population because the survey was taken in a relatively “random” manner: people who happened to be walking by a MegaBin were polled at the time the surveyor happened to be on the job. While, I am not sure if this technique actually fits a social scientific definition of randomness, I am sure that randomness in a sample does not guarantee a whole lot of prior thought on the issue of concern. While those on the street have the advantage of seeing the garbage-bin-come-billboard in person, it is more than likely that they have not reflected on the bin’s use, design or deployment before the interview had taken place.

Furthermore, the on-street surveyors qualified their questions by stating that the garbage bins would save the city–and by implication, taxpayers–money. So, really the views of the on-line participants are being disregarded because they might have educated themselves about the extra-monetary concerns, while the on-street participants who may or may not have any prior experience of the MegaBins are considered dis-interested despite the fact that they reacting to the money issue first and foremost. I would argue that the “interest” in the second case is the reduction of an issue of principal (advertising saturation), aesthetics (the bins are huge and ugly) and safety (the bins are distracting to drivers and cyclists as well as serving as great pedestrian mugging blinds) to an issue of money–not unlike what Toronto City Council is doing itself.

Now, I do agree that the anonymous nature of the on-line survey could have allowed people to vote numerous times and that this is a flaw that should have been corrected by email identification, at the very least. However, it appears that the City thought the survey would go in their favour (hence the lack of concern about multiple voting) and when it did not they were forced to question the validity of their own initiative. Or, perhaps, they did understand the problems from the very beginning but always intended to challenge the results on these “methodological” grounds.

Still, if you look at voting in municipal or provincial or federal elections when has “randomness” ever been a requirement for legitimacy of the opinions expressed by the voters. It seems to me that the report’s willing acceptance of the on-street survey is an example of the politics of interest at its finest. That fact should not be obscured by a veil of scientific language about randomness and objectivity.