On the buses - part 2

More thoughts on the decision to run the Into Town buses through Strait Bargate
They say that there are lies, damn lies and statistics, and we wonder which category the Council Council transport survey of the Boston Into Town bus service falls into.
The survey got off to a bad start when the period for which it was accessible to the public was reduced by 25%.
Then, Boston Eye pointed out that it was possible to complete the survey form on line as many times as you wished, which can't do much for its credibility.
Yet despite all this, Boston Borough Council Leader and chief bus conductor Richard "Papa Dick" Austin insists that this survey is more representative of public opinion than that carried out by the Better Boston Group, which set out specifically to trawl public opinion on the contentious issue of whether the buses should drive through the Strait Bargate pedestrianised area.
The BBG result showed that 72% of the 582 responses opposed the buses using Bargate.
Councillor Brian Rush, one of the organisers of the survey, declared it a resounding success.
But according to Papa Dick it was not valid, and he attacked it for being carried out on one day and in the same place.
The day in question was a market day, which seems a very good day to pick as the town is at its busiest.
The place in question was at the western end of Strait Bargate at a point where the buses enter and exit, which seems a very good spot to pick.
How can the "official" survey be better, when participants had to chase the forms themselves and pay to post them back to the company carrying out the survey? Not only that, but despite the length and breadth of the County Council run survey, fewer people took part than did in the BBG's poll.
What the BBG did was to take the poll to the people, which strikes us as an imaginative and practical approach if not exactly conventional. But then buses menacing shoppers is slightly unconventional as well.
Councillor Austin says: The recent independent and professional survey gave a very different result. They asked if the public thought the benefits outweigh the negatives That is a much more valid question."
Valid?
Woolly is the word we think Councillor Austin was groping for.
Woolly questions let the people who ordered the poll interpret the answers however they please, which is what has happened in this case.

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