Survey finds Americans want more public transport

A recent survey by the Washington-based Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a pro-transit environmental-advocacy group, found Americans favored more local government spending on buses, trains, and light rail by a wide ratio: 68 percent to 25 percent. But when asked how to pay for improvements in transit and highways, Americans said no to higher fuel and sales taxes, preferring systems that require developers and commercial landowners to foot the bill
September 17, 2012 Read time: 1 min
A recent survey by the Washington-based 6572 Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a pro-transit environmental-advocacy group, found Americans favored more local government spending on buses, trains, and light rail by a wide ratio: 68 percent to 25 percent.

But when asked how to pay for improvements in transit and highways, Americans said no to higher fuel and sales taxes, preferring systems that require developers and commercial landowners to foot the bill, although they did agree with highway tolls.
Rob Perks, transportation-advocacy director for the NRDC, said voters more often supported specific tax increases for specific local projects than general tax increases.

The NRDC survey of 800 likely voters nationwide and 150 likely voters in Philadelphia found wide support for increasing public transit rather than building more roads to relieve congestion and reduce pollution.

But the survey also found many people resistant to using public transit because they liked driving or because they have found transit inconvenient.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Taking the long view of ITS
    March 24, 2015
    Caroline Visser believes the ITS industry must present a coherent case for consideration of the technology to become part of transport policy and planning. As ITS advisor and road finance director for the International Road Federation (IRF) in Geneva, Caroline Visser is well placed to evaluate quantifying the benefits of ITS implementation – a topic about which there is little agreement and even less consistency. She is pressing to get some consistency in the evaluation of ITS deployments through the use of
    Read More
  • White lines? Cyclists need more
    August 5, 2020
    Just painting lines on the road isn’t sufficient to persuade most people to cycle – you need to separate them from motor vehicles altogether. David Arminas talks to transportation engineer Tyler Golly about the Covid ‘wake-up call’
    Read More
  • DG MOVE’s Christos Economou on the EU’s vision for road transport
    July 26, 2013
    Christos Economou, Deputy Head of Unit dealing with land transport within the European Commission’s DG MOVE, describes a new framework for road charging in Europe to Jason Barnes. Within the European Union (EU), two Directives shape the legislative framework on road charging. Directive 1999/62/EC sets up a number of rules to make sure that national road charging schemes do not distort competition on the internal market or discriminate between hauliers. It is misleadingly called ‘Eurovignette’ after the comm
    Read More
  • Kerb your enthusiasm, warns Passport
    March 4, 2019
    Dynamic kerbside management is crucial if urban authorities are to address increasingly chaotic situations caused by the gig economy and mobility innovation, says Adam Warnes at Passport Demand for the kerbside is growing and changing and it’s no surprise when you consider the recent innovations within the mobility industry. For starters, there are new modes of transport, including ride-shares, electric vehicles (EVs), dockless cycles, last-mile consolidations and autonomous vehicles (AVs). Secondly, the
    Read More

Highlighted Content