There’s good news for transportation sufferers from a new Nature Conservancy poll that shows it’s not only urban residents who demand clean and safe transportation—rural residents do, too—and why a state-led effort to modernize transportation in rural, suburban, and urban areas in the Eastern U.S. is so important: it can improve people’s lives.
The survey of rural and small-town voters in 12 Eastern states—Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia—reveals overwhelming support for more convenient and less-polluting transportation choices. Among the results:
- Majorities of rural and small-town voters in every state are displeased with the current transportation system and would assign it a grade of “C” or lower; and
- Seventy-five percent of small-town and rural voters would “support a proposal that would reduce pollution, expand public transportation, create incentives and infrastructure for electric vehicles, and safe ways for people to walk and bike, including in small towns and rural areas of the state.”
What’s more, two-thirds of rural and small-town voters would be willing to pay more than they are now to help fund these clean transportation choices, revealing strong support for improvements to the status quo. This willingness to help fund a clean transportation system holds up across demographics with majorities of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans; young and old; women and men; and both voters of color and white voters voicing support.
