David Crossley

Texans say cut road spending

President, Houston Tomorrow, Feb 15, 10.

Tagged with transportation, texas, highway spending, state budget

Well, this is interesting: “Given a menu of options to balance the state budget, 41 percent [of Texas voters] picked cuts in highway funding…” This finding is in a Houston Chronicle/San Antonio Express-News poll published today. Their second choice, at 20 percent, was “higher state taxes and fees.”

Who knew? Isn’t it conventional political wisdom that people want new roads and lower taxes? In fact an op/ed in Sunday’s Chronicle by State Senators John Carona and Kirk Watson argues that traffic will soon get worse and that will be be an “economic disaster.”

To be fair, the menu offered in the poll only included “Cuts in education, Cuts in health care for the poor, Cuts in highway funding, Increases in state taxes and fees, and Not sure.” Eleven percent chose cutting health care for the poor, seven percent chose cutting education, and 13 percent just aren’t sure what to think. Generally, the question was pretty loaded if you’re a compassionate, informed person. You could either reduce highway spending or increase taxes.

We’ve seen the interest in new highways declining for a while now, particularly in the Houston Area Survey conducted each year by Stephen Klineberg, Ph.D, at Rice University. Even in 2003, the notion of “better roads and highways” got pounded by “improvements in public transportation” as the best long-term solution to traffic problems, with a gap of some 18 percent. In 2009 that gap had grown to 25 percent.

Maybe this is partly attributable to the evolving people of Generation Y, the youngest of whom say they aren’t interested in cars.

One assumption that the older leaders seem to be making is that as population grows only cars will be used to reach destinations. But we already know that there are 4 million fewer cars in the US than there were a year ago, and the number is expected to decline by another 25 million in ten years. What’s going on?

Things are changing, that’s what. Most people get it that our cities are going to need much more efficient neighborhoods and more transportation choices as we grow. But not everybody understands this, and that’s a huge public policy problem.

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