Familiarity with
Pilot Close to Unchanged
Approval
down, disapproval up
Toronto, February 9th – In a random sampling of public
opinion taken by The Forum Poll™ among 977 Toronto voters, two-thirds (TOP2: 68%)
say they are familiar with the details of Toronto’s transit pilot project on
King Street, with almost 4 in 10 (37%) saying they are very familiar. This is a
similar proportion to when we last asked the same question (Nov 23: 73%).
A quarter (BTM2: 26%) say they are unfamiliar with the pilot
project, with 1 in 10 (11%) saying they are very unfamiliar. This is a similar
proportion to November (Nov 23: 21%).
The shift in familiarity since November is equally proportioned between
familiarity and unfamiliarity, with each changing by 5 points.
Few (6%) say they do not know, equal to November (Nov 23: 6%).
Respondents most likely to say they are familiar (TOP2) with the
pilot include those aged 55-64 (78%), males (78%), earning $80,000-$100,000
(80%), with a post-graduate degree (80%), living in downtown Toronto (75%) or
East York (n=88) (73%), and supporting the PCs (73%), NDP (71%), or Green Party
(73%).
Respondents most likely to say they are unfamiliar (BTM2) include those aged 34
and younger (35%), females (30%), the least wealthy (50%), the least educated
(39%) and those with some college or university (38%), living in Etobicoke
(30%) or Scarborough (32%), and supporting the Liberals (31%).
Plurality
approves of the pilot, but support is down
The plurality, about 4 in 10 (TOP2: 42%) say they approve of the
pilot, with a quarter (24%) saying they strongly approve. Both measures are
down from November where half (Nov 23: TOP2 50%) said they approved, and a
third (Nov 23: 33%) did so strongly.
Just under a third (BTM2: 29%) say they
disapprove, with one-sixth (17%) saying they disapprove strongly. Overall
disapproval is up since November (Nov 23: BTM2 24%), but strong disapproval
(Nov 23: 15%) is effectively unchanged.
Just under a quarter
(21%) say they neither approve nor disapprove of the pilot.
Respondents most
likely to say they approve of the pilot (TOP2) include those aged 35-44 (43%),
55-64 (43%), or 65+ (45%), earning $20,000-$40,000 (46%) or the most wealthy
(48%), with a post-graduate degree (47%), that take public transit to work
(49%), living in downtown Toronto (59%), and supporting the Liberals (51%) or
NDP (52%).
Respondents that are
generally satisfied with the TTC, are more likely to say that they approve of
the pilot than disapprove.
Respondents most
likely to say that they disapprove (BTM2) of the pilot include those aged 45-54
(35%) or 55-64 (32%), males (32%), earning $60,000-$80,000 (37%) or
$80,000-$100,000 (35%), that drive to work (44%), living in North York (34%),
Etobicoke (34%), or York (n=60) (33%), and supporting the PCs (41%).
Respondents that are
dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the TTC, are much more likely to
disapprove of the pilot.
Approval is higher
amongst those that say that use transit to commute to work or school, with almost
half (49%) saying they approve, one-third strongly (30%), with one-sixth (18%)
saying they disapprove. 1 in 10 (8%) say they disapprove strongly.
Plurality’s travel habits unchanged in
response to pilot
4 in 10 (39%) say
their usage of King Street won’t change, with a quarter (23%) saying they will
travel on King Street less, just over 1 in 10 (12%) saying they will use King
Street more, and a quarter (25%) saying they do not know.
One-fifth (20%) of
those that take transit to work say they will travel on King Street more, with
few (5%) drivers saying they will use King Street more.
Similar proportions
of drivers and transit users say their usage of King Street isn’t going to
change in response to the pilot, with 4 in 10 (38%) drivers and 4 in 10 (41%)
public transit users saying it won’t affect their usage one way or the other.
One third (35%) of
drivers said they will use King Street less, with one-sixth (15%) of transit
users saying the same.
“Approval for the pilot is down, and
disapproval is up,” said Dr. Lorne Bozinoff, President of Forum Research. “But
overall, more people still approve than disapprove. Generally, both drivers and
transit users are saying their usage of King isn’t going to change because of
the pilot, so making sure the data supports the changes will be important as
the pilot progresses.”
Lorne Bozinoff,
Ph.D. is the president and founder of Forum Research. He can be reached at
lbozinoff@forumresearch.com or at (416) 960-9603.
