Little Is Learned By Triathlon Survey

In yesterday's Capital, Nicole Young wrote a story reporting favorably on the overall reception of the triathlon by the citizens. I am acquainted with Ms. Young, and might have to send her a thank you card accompanied by a $5 gift certificate to Caffe Pronto for providing me with such good material. The article mixes 2 of this blog's favorite topics: statistics and the triathlon.

A major obstacle that can frustrate effective analysis is the misinterpretation of statistics. I have said before and shall reiterate--for most people, it's not very important to know how to derive, say, the formula for standard deviation. What is important is the ability to see where data is coming from, who is presenting it, and what certain statistics really mean.

And when the people interpreting the data make claims like these:....

City officials were surprised by the positive results

.

But the results speak for themselves. We were expecting the results to be
extremely negative, but they were saying 'We like the event, we'd like to see it
come back, but we'd like to see it done better,' which is OK.

.....it is important to assess whether this is actually the case.

Two surveys were taken of stakeholders in the triathlon, one by a firm called the Minor Group and another by the event itself.

First things first: the survey done by the triathlon's organizers is meaningless. According to the article:

The other (survey) was completed by the triathlon itself, which
surveyed the athletes, volunteers and spectators who participated in the
event.

Those participating in the triathlon responded favorably to the event,
with 83 percent calling the triathlon positive and 84 percent saying they would
participate again, the Annapolis Triathlon Club survey showed.

This is the definition of selection bias. Of course the people who participated in the triathlon are likely to think it was a success. I would bet that these numbers are way different than numbers that are collected from a randomized sample.

(Note to readers: in the interest of full disclosure, I had already seen the other numbers when I wrote the last sentence, so I knew I would be right! But it would have been fairly easy to predict.)

Now then:

According to the survey conducted by The Minor Group, businesses and
residents were split on the overall impact of the triathlon, with 34 percent of
businesses and 37 percent of residents saying it had a positive impact. The
number saying it was negative was slightly lower and undecided responses made up the remainder of the survey.

Luckily for us, based on these numbers we can group businesses and residents together, and don't have to analyze them separately. Otherwise this post would be unnecessarily long, and that's not good for anybody. Let's assume that the numbers go something like this:

-35% in favor
-30% against
-35% undecided

This is a lot of undecided's. It is probably accurate that 1/3 of people have no feeling either way. The issue here is the concept of sampling. Since it would be way to expensive and time consuming to survey all 40,000 city residents/people involved in the event, you have to take a sampling. Such a high portion of undecided responses means that were you actually able to survey everyone, it is more likely that the numbers would significantly change because you would be capturing everyone that has an opinion. And with the survey results so close, the majority faction could easily reverse.

Furthermore:

The whole thing was rushed through and didn't take into account all of the
people affected," he (W1RA President Doug Smith) said. "The residents were next
to the bottom of the list and the churches were exactly at the bottom of the
list.

If accurate, this fact skews the data even more. Residents and churches are the most likely to oppose the event, and if they were not accurately represented, the true 'against' figure is higher.

So, in summary:

1. The survey done by the event itself should be used for kindling.

2. The 'random' survey quite possibly reflects data distortions resulting from sampling difficulties.

3. Since the only survey that matters is in fact too close to call--and not overwhelmignly positive--saying things like "but the results speak for themselves" and declaring resounding support for a future event is inappropriate when based solely on the surveys.

Which Triathlon Was She Watching?

I saw a letter to the editor entitled Triathlon, and I was prepared to read another horror story about how somebody was stuck in traffic and could not get to church, Caffe Pronto, or anywhere else. However, to my great amusement, the letter writer could scarcely contain her anticipation for future triathlons in years to come.

So said she:

All who were there on the morning of Sunday, Sept. 9, whether participants or spectators, had an exciting day.

I can't wait until next year!

I suppose all those who intended to be spectators had a good time, but on behalf of those who wanted a gallon of milk and were made spectators as a result of gridlock, I will respectfully disagree.

Once again, this blog's stance on the triathlon:
-event in and of itself not bad
-should occur only IF adequate planning and minimal (i.e. less than it was) inconvenience is possible

Perspecitve On Triathlon

The Capital ran an editorial today about the triathlon, announcing their support for making this an annual event on the condition that the planning is better.

I wanted to give some perspective, if possible, on the effect such an event has on the city. Below are percentages--ratios of event participants in relation to city populations:

Boston Marathon: event participants equate to 3.4% of population
Chicago Marathon: capped at 45,000 participants, or 1.6% of the population
New York City Marathon: less than .01% of the population
Annapolis Triathlon: 1,500 participants, 36,500 citizens, or about 4.5% of the population

I actually agree with The Capital, and certainly with the triathlon participants, that we should continue this event if better planning is possible. But can the event be run as smoothly as we (we meaning churches, businesses, travelers, residents) would want? For what it's worth, there are more event participants per capita than the other events mentioned above.

Also, a glaring difference between New York, Boston, and Chicago, as opposed to Annapolis, is that they have good public transportation that many (most?) of their citizens use, so closing the streets for an event has less of an effect. In Annapolis, everybody drives everywhere. As we have seen, closing roads in Annapolis at any time has a terrible effect on everything.

There is no amount of planning that could provide for an event in this town for 50,000 people. Can we accommodate 1,500? If the triathlon becomes an annual event, hopefully the answer is yes.

Triathlon

I was reminded by an email from the city that the often maligned triathlon was to take place yesterday. The email was actually a traffic advisory, and cautioned:

Portions of the land routes go through downtown Annapolis and the area of the Navy Marine Corp Stadium. It is not anticipated that any roads or egresses will at any time be shut down completely, but there may be brief delays and re-directions of traffic as participants pass by certain points. Traffic is expected to be heavy due to the Triathlon,along with normal weekend visitor traffic.

You don't send out a traffic advisory for a "brief delay", you send it out for a day-changing traffic phenomenon, and that is what I envisioned would happen. AP had neither the time, nor the disposition, to go anywhere near downtown yesterday. But I imagined there were citizens with horror stories. And just as I was writing this post, I was vindicated by an emailer, who, despite my best creative writing efforts, probably says it better than I ever could:

(Note: anonymous source. Possible, though unlikely, credibility concerns.)

Never in my 59 years in this city.

Not from Boat Shows, Stadium events, nothing compares to this. On Sunday, Sept 9th, 2007 8:15 A.M. I innocently pulled out of Dubois Road at North Bestgate and took a right to go to Caffe Pronto at "Festival at Riva" what should have been (including the stop in the coffee shop) a 15 minute round trip; (Bestgate to Medical Parkway, to West Street to Riva Road to Festival shopping center).

When I got as far as the Bestgate / North Bestgate intersection there was traffic already backing up and I assumed an accident, (a frequent occurrence at that stoplight). As I turned onto westbound Bestgate I realized that some portion of the Triathlon was being held on the road. I had no convenient way to turn around so I decided to press on.

Within a block, traffic (now confined to an outside lane in each direction) slowed to a crawl. As I would be stopped next to a County Police officer, I would inquire of what was going on and for how long. The first officer I talked to said "they've known about this thing now for 3 years and haven't done any planning. We were told a couple of days ago what our assignments were ... I'd rather be in church with my family -sigh-". The shopkeepers on Bestgate were sitting on the curbs with their parking lots empty. The only traffic that could get to them were the unfortunates who happened to be on their side of the road, The Westfield Mall was a ghost town, the number of cars burning gas in stalled traffic for this 'charity' event had to number in the thousands. Since this was hailed as an 'inaugural' event one could assume they intend to repeat it. I suspect that if all of the business's that lost money, and all of the residents that got blocked from returning to their homes could be contacted with the threat of a repeat performance? That the charitable contributions would be far exceeded out of sheer fear of experiencing it again. I got no less than three different and conflicting stories as to turn possibilities from three different County Officers in the length of Bestgate road. While I was trapped on Bestgate for an hour? My wife went up on the Triathlon website which proclaimed 'minimal delays' on Bestgate road.

An SUV in front of me three cars up decided he had to bail out and do a "U" turn in the absence of cyclists impeding his turn. One of the ersatz rah rah cheerleader types started screaming at him "no! No!" and shaking his fist whilst he leaned over to get the guy's tag number. By this time I concluded a detour down Admiral drive to Jennifer road was the only sane alternative ... after all I could see some cars making the left turn there. After 30 minutes for less than a mile, I was ready to bail out myself. Imagine my surprise when I got to the intersection and was waved through and forbidden to take the left. This was compounded by being forbidden to take a left on Medical Parkway, or at any of the Mall entrances as well. I asked another officer where I would be able to turn around and he told me "at West Street / Generals Highway". Wasn't I shocked when in fact I was not permitted to go left in front of the Mall, nor was I allowed to go straight across to Housley road but forced to go right out General's Highway towards Crownsville, Millersville, ... all the way to Honeysuckle Lane at the Golf Course where an officer capriciously was letting some of us turn. I should point out that my neighbor, caught in the same traffic funnel was NOT permitted to turn there and in fact had to go out to rt. 97 in Millersville to escape.

I then went left from Honeysuckle lane to Crownsville road past the Renaissance Festival to a left on Defense highway where I made it with no more problems to Festival at Riva. I concluded that I'd better not try returning on Bestgate so I went down to the new circle and took Taylor avenue, figuring to be beyond the fracas at that point.and in fact I saw the cyclist pulling into the stadium entrance. To my relief I headed out Taylor to the Rowe intersection, figuring to go beyond Rowe and go the back way home through West Annapolis. To my horror I was flagged at Rowe blvd., to go in towards the city and forbidden to go towards West Annapolis. In front of the Courthouse complex I pulled off beside an APD officer and asking him how I was going to get to West Annapolis. His suggestion was that I 'pull off over in town and park and wait for it to be over'. When I got to the Arundel Center I was flagged again to the right so I decided to go back down West Street to the top of the stadium and wend my way home through Admiral Heights to Admiral drive. I was told by City Officers that I could not take a left at the head of the stadium so I did a "U" turn and went back out to West Street outbound and went to Admiral Drive from there.

By the time I got to Admiral, the traffic had begun to move and only as small number of cyclists were in evidence.but when I approached the North Bestgate turn where I started? The Triathlon 'officials' were trying to wave me into town on Rowe. I slowed up more and told the individual that I had been trying to get home from most of three hours now and I had medication two blocks away that I had to take an hour before now. She stammered and said 'oh well tell the policeman that up there' (at the intersection of North Bestgate). Fortunately I didn't have to because the County Officer (unlike the Triathlon herder who would have been perfectly happy to see me go back into town) allowed me to take my left onto North Bestgate and get home.

This an an awful story. I have about as much patience as a 2-year old when you take his pacifier away, and I can't imagine how I would have reacted if I were in a similar situation.

Remember, folks, the city originally wanted to sell the right for this triathlon to take place for...get ready....$1. I hope the athletes had a good time.

Triathlon

Last night the bill to allow a triathlon to take place in September was put on a legislative action agenda. This is against the rules, but presumably the city council voted to suspend the rules since this triathlon would happen in September and they take off the entire month of August.

I am assuming that this passed...someone please let me know if it did not.

Basically, the city dock area will be shut down for the entire second weekend in September to allow this triathlon. At first, the city was going to do this for $1!!! One dollar to shut down the city's central tourist attraction, deprive the downtown businesses of revenue, and pay the overtime for the public works staff to clean up the mess. The bill was amended to charge $5,000, which still seems low.

The city, according to the bill, "believes that the event will generate additional economic revenue" and "finds that the premises are not needed for public use" during the time of the event.

Three points:
1. If you are going to shut down that area for the whole weekend, you better have more than a 'belief' that it will generate more economic revenue. The city presents no evidence as to how the downtown businesses might be affected.

2. How, in the name of God's Green Earth, did the city council determine that the public did not need to use the area. There are only, like, eleventy billion people who come to the city dock on any given weekend. On a good weather weekend--like the second weekend in September--that number jumps to twelve ga-zillion. Since the city council has determined that these people will not be visiting on this particular weekend, I'm sure the city clerk has, on record, sworn affidavits from every possible tourist and resident that they will not be needing the downtown area at that time.

3. It would cost $5000 to rent a bar for a private party on a Saturday Night. Why does it only cost $5000 to rent the entire downtown center of a city for a whole weekend? AP was denied admission to the University of Maryland Phd program in economics, but even he knows that this is a raw deal.

I hope that you like swimming, running, or biking--because on that weekend you will not be able to have any ice cream, crab cakes, or water taxis.