Choosing Ignorance is Stupid

People love statistics. They let us understanding the world
beyond our own senses. USA Today
publishes a daily Snapshot
which presents a graph of random statistics. Sports talk and business analysis
are dominated by statistics. We measure our progress, or lack thereof, and
compare ourselves with others, based on statistics about our size, activities and accomplishments.

Comprehensive and accurate statistics are essential for
planning. For example, predictions of the number of students local schools must
accommodate, and the amount of parking supply required at a particular
location, and research concerning how demographic and geographic factors affect travel demands, all require detailed demographic, geographic and economic statistics.
Much of this information can only be collected feasibly by governments.

Unfortunately, many people take such statistics for granted –
they want the information but fail to support the collection process. In
a shocking act of ignorance, the U.S. House of Representatives voted
232 - 190 yesterday to eliminate all funding for the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS), which
replaced the U.S. Census long form, and approved
an amendment to prohibit enforcement of the U.S. Census law. Similarly, the Canadian federal government is making the
next long census form voluntary, and therefore useless.

These actions are apparently motivated by the belief that
government is ineffective, but this argument is backward, and pardon my bluntness, stupid. As any business manager
will attest, good decision-making requires good data. Investing in data collection improves government efficiency and service quality. Eliminating data collection promotes ignorance
and waste.

For example, regional governments use travel models to predict
how particular transport system changes will affect transport system
performance. These models require data collected through travel surveys. Many regions now collect this information efficiently through American Community Survey add-ons, which is cheaper and facilitates comparisons
with outer regions. Eliminating the ACS will force regional governments to
spend more or use less accurate data. Similarly, detailed information on household size, age, employment,
income, house size, vehicle ownership and physical ability allows local
communities to adjust zoning code minimum parking requirements to reflect
actual demands, which tends to reduce development costs. Much of this information comes from long-form Census data.
Without this information, planning decisions become less responsive to residents'
needs.

The U.S. was once a world leader in collecting planning
statistics. The USDOT's Highway
Statistics Series, and the Bureau of Transportation Statistic's Transportation
Statistics Annual Report, provide decades of data on roadway supply and
finance, vehicle ownership and use, traffic accidents, fuel consumption, and
other useful data, for each state and many cities, in a consistent and easy to access format. Such data sets are invaluable for research and planning analysis - they are beautiful!

Now, other countries and international organizations are
taking the lead. For example, the Australian Transportation Data
Action Network coordinates a national effort to improve the accessibility
and quality of Australian transportation data. The
UK has a National
Travel Survey and EuroStat
provides standardized statistics for numerous countries. The Global Transport Intelligence
Initiative is an international program to improve the collection,
analysis and dissemination of transport-related data.
Neither the U.S. nor Canada have comparable programs or are formally involved
in these international efforts.

This trend toward ignorance is a fundamental threat to good
planning. It is up to us, practitioners who use statistics in our daily work,
to communicate to decision-makers and the general public the critical
importance of quality data. Our
professional organizations, the Institute of Transportation Engineers, the
Transportation Research Board, the American Planning Association, AASHTO, and
academic organizations must provide leadership on this essential issue. Please act now!

For More Information

Where Has All the
Data Gone?, American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

Australian
Transportation Data Action Network coordinates a national effort to improve
the accessibility and quality of Australian transportation data.

National
Transportation Statistics, Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

City Data is an
easily accessible database of information about U.S. cities, including maps and
photos, real estate prices and sales, resident statistics, and much more, at
the neighborhood and zipcode scale.

City Forward is
a free website that provides comprehensive demographic, economic and geographic
information on more than 100 international cities in a format that facilitates
comparisons and analysis.

Todd Litman (2007), "Developing Indicators For
Comprehensive And Sustainable Transport Planning," Transportation Research Record 2017, pp. 10-15.

Todd Litman (2011), Well Measured: Developing Indicators for
Comprehensive and Sustainable Transport Planning, Victoria Transport Policy Institute.

Anthony May, Susan
Grant-Muller, Greg Marsden and Sotirios Thanos (2008), Improving The Collection And
Monitoring Of Urban Travel Data: An International Review, TRB Annual Meeting (www.trb.org).

National Household Travel
Survey, Federal Highway
Administration and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Provides
information on U.S. travel activity from a series of travel surveys performed
in 1969, 1977, 1983, 1990, 1995, 2001 and 2009.

Ongoing Travel
Survey, New Zealand Ministry of
Transport.

OECD Factbook, Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development.

Hans Rosling (2010), 200 countries, 200 years, 4 minutes, BBC (www.bbc.co.uk).

A. Santos, et al.
(2011), Summary of Travel
Trends: 2009 National Household Travel Survey, U.S. Federal Highway
Administration.

Nancy McGuckin (2011),
Summary
of Travel Trends 1969 to 2009,
Travel Behavior Associates (www.travelbehavior.us).

STI (2008), Sustainable Transportation
Indicators: A Recommended Program To Define A Standard Set of Indicators For
Sustainable Transportation Planning,
Sustainable Transportation Indicators Subcommittee (ADD40 [1]), Transportation
Research Board.

TRB (2011), How We Travel: A
Sustainable National Program for Travel Data, Special Report 304, Transportation Research Board.

UNECU (2008), Annual
Bulletin Of Transport Statistics For Europe And North America, Economic
Commission For Europe (www.unece.org).

Matthew Yglesias (2012), Conservatives for Ignorance: The House GOP's principled-and destructive-war on the long-form census, Slate; at www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/american_community_survey_why_republican_hate_it_.html