Spring is a time of unbridled optimism for everyone from gardeners to baseball fans to cyclists.

But we shouldn't let anyone's honest excitement at the prospect of a new biking season (Wednesday's weather notwithstanding) get in the way of a coherent discussion about important matters of public policy. Spring fever should never be an excuse to misrepresent the facts about pedal power.

Last week's release of a study commissioned by the City of Waterloo on the habits of shoppers heading to its uptown district has been marked by an outbreak of what can only be described as seasonally induced irrational exuberance over the notion that the bike has suddenly supplanted the car as the primary means of transportation for local shoppers.

A glowing editorial in The Record claimed "one of the eye-raising revelations (of the study) ... was that only about 30 per cent of uptown Waterloo shoppers made their way there by car. The others came by bike, public transit or on foot."

A more skeptical editorial in the Waterloo Chronicle also claimed the study "suggests up to 70 per cent of shoppers in uptown travelled there by bicycle, transit or on foot."

Waterloo city councillor and perpetual bike advocate Diane Freeman lauded the findings because it confirms what she already believes. "I am so excited about this study because it is what I thought that it would show."

The Chronicle quoted Coun. Mark Whaley saying: "This study could lead to a breakthrough in thinking with respect to active transportation. It's almost unbelievable — you suggest that 70 per cent of uptown shoppers use alternative transportation, and that's an absolute mythbuster."

Almost unbelievable? How about completely and utterly unbelievable?

Anyone who hasn't read the study but has relied instead on descriptions of it from self-confessed bike and transit advocates will no doubt assume it's an investigation into how people arrive in Uptown Waterloo. As such, it apparently shows nearly three-quarters of all shoppers get there by means other than car. Such a result could have big implications for policy in Waterloo and elsewhere in the region. If it were true.

The study, headed by University of Waterloo School of Planning professor Markus Moos, used two main data sources. First was an in-person survey of 424 passersby in Uptown Waterloo performed by university students who asked their subjects how they arrived. The results were as follows. By car: 109; walking: 109; bus: 102; bike: 101. Three respondents came by other means, perhaps skateboard.

Before anyone raises their eyes or busts any myths, however, it's crucial to understand this survey set out to find at least 100 representatives from each of the four main modes of travel. That only a quarter of respondents arrived in Uptown Waterloo by car was part of the survey's initial design, not a result.

Rather than proving "the car is no longer king in the core," as a Chronicle headline had it, this simply proves university students can count to 100. (Plus, the fact that most people never bother to read the studies they're spouting off about.)

The second source of (mis)information was an online survey of 227 local residents. These results mirror the in-person survey, with "about 70 per cent" of respondents claiming to travel Uptown by means other than car; with bikes comprising the dominant share at 34 per cent of all trips.

Yet this survey is equally useless in gauging the role of the car versus other forms of transportation in Uptown Waterloo.

Participants were recruited for the web survey via the authors' social media accounts, a Region of Waterloo transit newsletter and an open call on an interview with the local CBC radio station.

Got that? Followers of the personal Twitter feeds of planning school professors, subscribers to a regional transit newsletter and CBC radio listeners: it's not exactly a representative sample of commuters in Waterloo Region. (How could they forget bike shop owners and elementary school kids?)

As Record letter-to-the-editor writer Eric Boyd pointed out earlier this week, such a poll is rife with "selection bias."

More than a quarter of the online respondents claimed a bike is their primary means of transportation. According to Statistics Canada, that's the case for just one per cent of local residents. The survey is also heavily skewed to those 25 to 34 years old.

We can consider such a poll to be about as useful as if we'd asked attendees of the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival whether or not they thought pancakes are delicious. No doubt we'd get a lot of favourable responses. But what would it prove?

When I emailed Moos to ask him about the reliability of his survey results, he responded: "this data cannot be used to draw conclusions on the percentage of people shopping Uptown by different modes." He says his purpose was to show that cyclists spend just as much as car drivers in Uptown shops.

Maybe so, but the report's first 'key finding' on its very first page states: "About 70 per cent of Uptown Waterloo shoppers surveyed in this study travel there primarily by bicycle, walking or public transit." If there's confusion about the report's results, it begins with the report itself.

Good policy requires good data. This isn't it.

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