All,

I have reviewed the new survey. It suffers from the same flaws that the first one did. In addition, it actually shows a significant falling off of support for the bike path initiative as follows:

Raw Numbers	Total Population	No Response	Total Response	For the Bike Path	Against the Bike Path	No Opinion	
1st Survey	550	317	233	164	56	13	
2nd Survey	568	377	191	118	67	6	
							
Percentages	Total Population	No Response	Total Response	For the Bike Path	Against the Bike Path	No Opinion	
1st Survey	100%	58%	42%	30%	10%	2%	
2nd Survey	100%	66%	34%	21%	12%	1%	

Once again, you cannot "throw away" non-responses and then base your support on a percentage of the remainder. It is an obvious bias, and will make almost any survey of this type come out with a positive response. 

Using your same methodology, I could just as well claim that opposition to the bike path proposal has grown from 24% to 35% from one survey to the next. ( 56/233 in survey #1 and 67/191 in survey #2). At the same time your artificially high support claim has dropped from 70% to 62%.

The more significant problem is that this proposal was re-borne after the summer season, and in a manner that appears high-handed to many. Furthermore, wrapping the issue in a false sense urgency, and a very debatable claim to qualify for CPC funding, only muddies the water. 

Ralph Chiumenti
6 W. Cape Pogue Ave
Chappy