In Which We Construct a Confusing "New Coke" Metaphor

As you'll recall, Muni recently held two meetings at which it cured leprosy and also gave birth. Okay, that's an exaggeration: they actually just made Muni more friendly to the handicapped and young people. No, wait, maybe that's an exaggeration, too. They've just released a report on the youth meeting (in a typical show of Muni's openness, it's hidden away in PDF, but you can liberate it to text here), and their findings: there are twenty-one people in San Francisco who would like to pay less for a monthly pass.

Muni's outreach for the meeting consisted of placing Chinese-only posters in buses in February (they're still up, BTW) and mailing out "several" flyers. According to the report, "staff expected 60-80 youth ... however, the final count of attendance included 17 Youth Commissioners and 21 other participants." Sounds like a party!

Astoundingly, the meeting organizers discovered that the twenty-one people who had nothing better to do in the middle of a weekday than attend transit forums like the idea of spending less money. Cheaper Fast Passes for youth were voted as a top priority ... for youths. Other points of interest: more buses and politer drivers. Meeting facilitators documented that young riders are more likely to ride buses if they are less crowded. In fact, they're eighteen billion percent more likely.

Ha ha, just kidding -- nobody collected any actual figures. In fact, less crowded buses might actually make students less likely to ride. We'll never know, since the "market research" didn't actually probe consumer behavior. Just because kids say that it's what they want doesn't mean that they actually want it; after all, New Coke did great in focus groups. Hey, there's a slogan for you -- Muni: Like New Coke, Only With Less Corroborating Data!