The Standard has this to say on some recent information about the West
London Tram survey (the one that came out in favour of the tram, as
opposed to the consultation that did not).

---
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/l...ing%20Standard

Mayor 'misled public'
By Ross Lydall Local Government Correspondent, Evening Standard
6 April 2005

Transport for London today stands accused of trying to mislead the
public over the level of support for a controversial £648 million tram
scheme.

More than 17,000 people responded to an official consultation on the
plans for the West London Tram, with almost 60 per cent against the project.

But TfL tried to disguise the level of opposition by commissioning a
separate survey of 817 people, which generated a three-to-one majority
in favour.

This allowed Mayor Ken Livingstone to claim the public consultation -
the biggest such exercise ever undertaken by TfL - was "skewed" because
only opponents bothered to take part.

Now new documents have raised questions over the significance of the
survey, which was undertaken for TfL by market research firm Synovate.

The company carried out interviews in six west London boroughs and in
South Buckinghamshire.

But it admitted that in four of the areas, the number of people
questioned was too small to make its findings "robust". Synovate
interviewed-67 people in Kensington-and Chelsea, 47 in Brent, 40 in
South Bucks and 32 in Hounslow. It warned TfL: "The information for
these boroughs should be treated as indicative and not as statistically
significant."

Lynne Featherstone, Liberal Democrat chairwoman of the London Assembly
transport committee, accused TfL of using "smoke and mirrors" and said
it was another occasion in which the Mayor had refused to bow to
widespread opposition.

The Standard reported yesterday how the Mayor defied advisers to go
ahead with increasing the £5 congestion charge to ?8 on 4 July.

Ms Featherstone said: "Mr Livingstone's second term as Mayor has already
been littered with numerous occasions where he has left himself
increasingly cut off from what people in London really want.

"In the face of such hostility towards the tram, the Mayor should pause
for thought."

Anthony Lewis, of Save Ealing's Streets, said: "There is frustration and
anger that objections to the scheme have been ridden roughshod over."

The tram would run 13 miles along Uxbridge Road via Ealing and would
require the closure of part of Shepherd's Bush roundabout and the
re-routing of west-bound traffic from Acton High Street.

The Mayor says the tram, which would carry four to eight million
passengers a day, is essential to prevent the congested Uxbridge Road
coming to a halt.

But opponents say that with Uxbridge Road carrying 27,000 vehicles a
day, huge amounts of traffic would be diverted through residential areas.

Business lobby group London First said it could not back the scheme as
it shadowed much of the proposed Crossrail train line and was not a
priority for limited cash. The CBI and the London Chamber of Commerce
were also opposed.

A TfL spokeswoman denied the survey was flawed. She said it provided a
valuable insight into the views of residents who failed to respond to
the formal consultation.
---

Now let me make some observations.

Firstly, it seems to be unfashionable in the media to support the WLT in
any way. The article makes a great deal of the fact that TfL claim the
consultation result was "skewed" in favour of the opponents. Is it just
me, or doesn't that seem pretty logical? After all, who can bothered to
respond to a consultation by saying "OK"?

Secondly, the article says that the survey company carried out
interviews in 6 LBs as well as South Bucks - but the sample size was too
small to be worthwhile statistically in South Bucks, Kensington &
Chelsea, Brent and Hounslow.

It strikes me as somewhat obvious that those four areas are all outside
the area the tram travels through, and therefore it wouldn't make sense
to survey a large number of people in those areas because they're not as
affected as much as people in the three other boroughs, which I
presume are Hillingdon, Ealing and Hammersmith & Fulham.

Let's do a little maths. We'll call those voters in the boroughs where
small samples were taken, "bad" voters. Let the voters in the 3
remaining boroughs be called "good" voters. There are 631 "good" voters
and 186 "bad" voters.

The quoted support for the tram was 75%, which is probably rounded, but
we'll take the figure. Of the total 871 voters, there are 653 "for" the
tram and 218 "against".

Let's introduce a worst-case scenario. Those naughty "bad" voters all
vote "for" the tram, skewing the poll in favour of it, when their votes
statistically don't count. By means of punishment and correction, we can
remove those 186 "bad" voters from the total count and also from the
"for" group. That leaves 467 voters "for" the tram, out of 685 "good"
voters.

What figure does that leave? About 68% in favour, and that's a *minimum*
support for the tram in the remaining boroughs - I'm sure some people in
the outer boroughs voted against it.

My maths may be wrong, and I invite comments. If I'm right, maybe I
should write to the Standard... but I doubt they'd listen.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London