USA Today<\/a> had a timely graphic up yesterday, considering the continuing media coverage around President Obama\u2019s recent proposal for infrastructure spending and a reformed long-term transportation bill.<\/p>\n First, the graphic:<\/p>\n Though we can\u2019t see the rest of the questions or the context, it affirms a few things we already know about Americans\u2019 attitudes about transportation \u2014 as evidenced in our own 2010 national poll<\/a> \u2014 and how to fund what we need.<\/p>\n While Americans are actually voting in favor of taxing themselves to improve transportation in state and local ballot measures at a rate of about 70 percent, they often know exactly what they\u2019re going to get in those cases: a new bridge, an expanded transit system, a system of repaired roads, or the like. But the federal program is much fuzzier in most people\u2019s minds. The current system is broken and unaccountable, and putting more money into a broken system is like trying to bring more water up from a well using a bucket with a hole in it.<\/p>\n As James Corless wrote in an Infrastructurist guest post yesterday<\/a>, \u201cSome of the old guard transportation insiders in D.C. would be thrilled with doubling the overall size of our transportation program and pouring more money into the same broken system, but Americans know better. They want more accountability, safer streets, and more transportation options<\/a> so seniors can maintain their independence and low wage workers can get to jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s also interesting that the sentence to the left of the poll summarizes it as \u201cAmericans would rather use tolls than taxes to build more roads,\u201d when it could have just as easily been \u201cAmericans are OK with building no new roads if it means raising the gas tax or instituting tolls to pay for them.\u201d<\/p>\n Maybe the poll asks the wrong question?<\/p>\n We\u2019re not in favor of a moratorium on any new roads whatsoever, but this survey clearly reinforces the fact that Americans in urban and rural areas have moved beyond the idea that the solution to every transportation problem can and should be a new road.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/usatoday_poll.jpg\" "\\"USA")
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Maintaining and repairing roads, highways, freeways and bridges<\/strong><\/td>\n| Expanding and improving bus, rail, and other public transportation<\/td>\n | Expanding and improving roads, highways, freeways and bridges<\/td>\n | Not sure<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | 50%<\/strong><\/td>\n | 31%<\/td>\n | 16%<\/td>\n | 3%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n | And as our 2010 poll showed, more than four-in-five voters (82 percent) say that \u201cthe United States would benefit from an expanded and improved transportation system, such as rail and buses\u201d and a solid majority (56 percent) \u201cstrongly agree\u201d with that statement. Fully 79 percent of rural voters agree as well, despite much lower use of public transportation compared to Americans in urban areas.<\/p>\n If you saw this graphic and your curiosity was piqued, perhaps it\u2019s worth going back and poking through our national poll for a fuller picture.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/Geoff-Poll-Quote.gif\" "\\"Geoff")
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