Wanted: questions for the Friday fun polls
May 6, 2009
Wanted: questions for the Friday fun polls
May 6, 2009
Does anyone have any questions for the Friday fun polls?
I’m running short on good ideas and I’m certain you all have questions you’d love to ask :)
I only have limited criteria — make it a fun transit culture topic, the questions & answers shouldn’t be too complex, and fewer answer options are better. (It’s a fun poll: we don’t want to make it too hard for people to answer! Or too hard to understand the results once the poll closes.)
Feel free to use the comments or email me if that’s preferable!
How about “Which of TransLink’s transit services do you use the most?”
a) Trolley bus
b) Community shuttle
c) Local diesel bus
d) B-Line / Limited / Express bus
e) Suburban highway coach
f) SeaBus
g) SkyTrain
h) West Coast Express
OR
make it simpler with:
a) Conventional bus (whether local, B-Line, Community Shuttle, etc.)
b) SeaBus
c) SkyTrain
d) West Coast Express
This is, of course, mostly to satisfy my own curiosity about the common commuting methods used by the other readers/bloggers.
OR we could try:
“Have you ever ridden a TransLink bus or train just for fun or out of curiosity?”
a) yes
b) no
c) I’ve taken a different bus/train to work, but I’ve never just ridden a random route for the heck of it.
How about this :)
Which technology combination should be chosen for the rapid transit extension to UBC?
1) SkyTrain to Cambie, then rapid bus to UBC
2) SkyTrain to Granville, then rapid bus to UBC
3) SkyTrain to Arbutus, then rapid bus to UBC
4) SkyTrain to Alma, then rapid bus to UBC
5) SkyTrain all the way to UBC
6) LRT to UBC via Broadway
7) Rapid bus to UBC
What about something to do with summer activities? Favorite “beat the heat” bus routes.
1. Bus up to lynn canyon
2. bus out to and walk onto a ferry
etc. etc. (will need some suggestions)
or something to do with recommending routes/actives to summer tourists.
or how about something to do with pets? Were such a dog city here in Vancouver and I heard Toronto allows pets on buses (that aren’t in crates, but are well behaved). Id be interested to hear what peoples thoughts are on allowing behaved pets on board.
Do you own a vehicle?
a.) Yes, but I usually take transit or use other means of commuting.
b.) Yes, and I usually drive to work.
c.) No.
Hey guys, I am totally appreciative of the suggestions so far, but I do have to offer a little more direction here.
I’m actually not looking for questions about stats that TransLink already has, because the fun poll would give a distorted picture of those stats, and I can also get the actual answers for you (eg. ridership survey — I can get you those numbers in a bit.)
I also can’t ask about the SkyTrain/LRT/BRT alignment to UBC. It’s an important issue to be sure, and a fun poll isn’t the proper vehicle to ask such a serious question.
Also, the technical survey hasn’t even been completed, so we don’t have all the info yet, and real consultation on the UBC Line is planned tfor the future too.The other thing is that we are currently in a funding crisis, so we also need to solve that problem first — otherwise we won’t even have funding to build the UBC project on any alignment at all.
I also can’t ask questions on existing policies like the pet one — sorry Lindsay! Not because I don’t see your point, but because that policy has been formulated already and it’s kind of weird for me to be publicly questioning it. (Imagine if one of your coworkers decided to run polls about all the decisions you chose to make at work — that’s the kind of weird I mean.) There already is a mechanism to handle feedback on our policies too — you can send them in to Customer Relations, and they’ll get directed to the appropriate department. Or you can feel free to run polls on your own sites, which is cool too.
To get an idea of what I’m looking for, earlier fun polls have been on items like:
– eye contact on transit
– where do you like to sit on the bus
Mostly behavioural and preference items, really! It’s fun to have a venue to discuss those things, since they never get aired anywhere.
Anyway, I totally appreciate the feedback so far and hope this helps guide your future suggestions :)
P.S. Lindsay, your suggestion about “beat the heat” routes & summer activities is in fact the basis for our July Buzzer! I’ll do a more in-depth post in late May calling for people’s recommendations :)
By the way Jhenifer, I have noticed that TransLink’s redesigned home page seems to have left out any kind of link to the Buzzer &/or the Buzzer Blog. Any particular reason for this, or was it just an oversight?
I was about to say “It’s there!” but then I checked and it’s not! There is usually a big button on the front page linking to the Buzzer blog – it might have been bumped temporarily due to the Annual General Meeting notice.
Anyway, you can also get the blog link & print Buzzer if you go to the “Get Involved” link on the upper right navigation. The Buzzer blog button is also present in the sidebar throughout the site… it rotates through along with a number of other elements, so it’s not always on every page. That’s much better because the Buzzer blog only used to be on 2 pages on the old site — the front page and the print Buzzer page.
Oh my, we might be a boring bunch then! How about… “If you’re the only one on a Skytrain car, what do you do?”
a.) Sit obediently, what else?
b.) Hold a private Canadian Idol audition.
c.) Practice gymnastics or pole dancing.
d.) Other (please explain, nothing vulgar!)
That’s a pretty great question actually!
I have to admit some of the previous poll questions left me kinda “creeped out”. I was wondering how long it becomes like those “Rate my _______” sites.
A few questions that mind…..
Which seating material do you prefer?
A) Mark 1’s hard plastic for low maintenace
B) wood like our old street cars
C) Vinyl
D) the New Dimple design
Should bus stops have tinted or clear coverings?
A) Tinted to keep out the hot overhead sun to have shade (popular in the 80’s and 90’s)
B) Clear to maximize natural light and brightness (popular)
Should the Burrard Bridge now come with transit priority measures?
Rate our moderator? :)
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10?
Have I talked about bus stops here before? I think I wrote this over at BePartofthePlan.ca actually. Anyway, TransLink only owns the sign and the pole at most stops throughout the region — the bus shelter is in fact the property of each municipality, and is chosen by them. (Exceptions: We own all the 98 B-Line shelters, plus the stuff in bus loops.)
So, with regard to tinted or clear coverings, it is in fact a question for your municipalities to handle, much as we’d like to take care of that for you!
Also, “rate our moderator” is not a valid question :)
Heres a question that comes to mind…
If your waiting at a bus stop that is served by more then one bus route, how do you let a bus driver know that you don’t want to board his bus?
A. Use some sort of hand signal
B. Step back from the bus stop sign
C. Hide behind a bus shelter (if there is one)
D. Walk away from the bus stop
E. Tell the driver after he has already pulled into the stop
F. Other
With regard to the website, I’ve noticed that if you try to access the Buzzer blog from any of the tripplanning.translink.ca pages, you get a 404 Page Not Found error.
Thanks nname: I’ve sent that along now, hopefully it’ll get fixed!
Do you like the Community Shuttle Bus numbering scheme?
* Yes.
* Kind of; sort of.
* No.
* I don’t know, or don’t care.
When choosing to a place to sit, do you prefer to sit next to someone of the same sex?
And either
a) Yes
b) No
OR
a) Same sex
b) Different sex
c) Doesn’t matter
I know I try to sit next to other guys; there’s something programmed in me that tells me, “Don’t be creepy”. Even though it’s something as sterile as sitting on a bus.
Ok here’s one I came up with:
“Do you collect your used tickets/passes or timetables/maps?” Saving them for tax purposes does NOT count – you can only say “yes” if you collect them, are too lazy to throw them away, or simply treat them as curiosities. (In effect, this means you would have had to save this stuff before the tax credit was created.)
a) No
b) Tickets/passes only
c) Timetables/maps only
d) Both b and c
I save all my tickets, whether from aeroplanes, trams, bullet trains, whatever. I was very pleased when I found an old system map from the 90’s before there was a Millennium line or a B-Line, if not just to compare service from back then…how many collectors are out there, and what do they collect?