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What motivates public support for public transit?

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  • Manville, Michael
  • Levine, Adam Seth

Abstract

Voters often support increased spending for public transportation, but the motivation behind this support is as hard to discern as it is substantively important. Why do voters support transit? We use a survey-framing experiment (n = 1200) to evaluate the persuasive effects of common arguments for public transit. We study how different arguments change not just people’s attitudes toward transit, but also their willingness to become politically active on its behalf. Our findings are twofold. First, arguments that transit will reduce congestion or improve environmental outcomes (specifically, mitigate climate change) make people more supportive of public transportation, while arguments about making travel more convenient, helping the poor, or satisfying other people’s desire for transit do not. Second, congestion-based arguments are self-undermining with respect to activism: they make people more likely to support transit, but less likely to become activists for it. Congestion-based arguments are persuasive because they remind people of wasted time, but in reminding people of time-scarcity they reduce people’s willingness to become involved. Overall, our results suggest that the common reasons people use transit are not powerful political arguments for supporting it, and that one powerful political argument for supporting it, in addition to being inaccurate, might undermine efforts to organize on its behalf.

Suggested Citation

  • Manville, Michael & Levine, Adam Seth, 2018. "What motivates public support for public transit?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 567-580.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:118:y:2018:i:c:p:567-580
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2018.10.001
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Christiansen, Petter, 2020. "The effects of transportation priority congruence for political legitimacy," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 61-76.
    2. Wang, Xize & Rodríguez, Daniel A. & Mahendra, Anjali, 2021. "Support for market-based and command-and-control congestion relief policies in Latin American cities: Effects of mobility, environmental health, and city-level factors," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 91-108.
    3. Chinnawat Hoonsiri & Siriluk Chiarakorn & Vasin Kiattikomol, 2021. "Using Combined Bus Rapid Transit and Buses in a Dedicated Bus Lane to Enhance Urban Transportation Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-18, March.
    4. Jean-Philippe Meloche & Vincent Trotignon & François Vaillancourt, 2021. "Densification ou prolongement des réseaux de transport structurants ? Une recension des écrits sur les coûts et les bénéfices attendus," CIRANO Project Reports 2020rp-28, CIRANO.

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