The Rail Reporting is Pissing Me Off

The Honolulu Advertiser and writer Sean Hao is now on my growing shit list of people and organizations twisting the facts on the rail.

It really pisses me off when the newspaper twists facts in a veiled attempt at unbiased reporting.

For those who don’t live in Honolulu, one of the hot button issues is whether the City should spend $4.2 billion (or more) on a 20-mile mass transportation system, aka “the rail.”

Obviously, grandmas and lobbyists are coming out of the woodwork to push or prevent this biggest public works project in the history of Honolulu.

So, today, the Honolulu Advertiser ran a story with this headline: “Most in Honolulu say they won't use rail regularly, poll shows”

Rather than quote the entire article, here’s the summary:

The poll was conducted on 510 residents
47% were very unlikely to regularly ride the rail
12% were somewhat unlikely to regularly ride the rail
24% were somewhat likely to regularly ride the rail
16% were very likely to regularly ride the rail

Margin or error was . . . I don’t know because it wasn’t published in the article. It was partially published in a linked pdf file, but that margin was broken down by the demographics and I couldn’t determine the margin of error for the entire poll.

Short story of me being pissed off is that no one ever said MOST people would ride the rail. Reading between the lines the poll shows that more people will ride the rail than originally estimated.

The City estimated that the rail would have 95,000 riders a day by 2030—less than 10% of the 2030 population (which is estimated at above 1.1 million). The poll shows 16%.

Today the population of Honolulu County (Oahu) is 905,601 (2007 estimate from the U.S. Census). 16% of that is 144,896 people. If we assumed zero population growth, 16% is still more than estimated. Add in the 24% who said that they are somewhat likely to be regular users, the tourists, people who will ride the rail occasionally, and population grown and maybe 175,000 people a day by 2030 will ride the rail—almost double the 95,000 estimate.

Point being, according to the poll, MORE PEOPLE SAY THEY ARE GOING TO RIDE THE RAIL THAN ORIGINAL EXPECTED.

The headline should have read “Poll: 16% Very Likely To Use the Rail Regularly.”