IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/transa/v118y2018icp567-580.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What motivates public support for public transit?

Author

Listed:
  • 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
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856418302866
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.tra.2018.10.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David T. Ory & Patricia L. Mokhtarian & Lothlorien S. Redmond & Ilan Salomon & Gustavo O. Collantes & Sangho Choo, 2004. "When is Commuting Desirable to the Individual?," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(3), pages 334-359, September.
    2. Ian W. H. Parry & Kenneth A. Small, 2009. "Should Urban Transit Subsidies Be Reduced?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 700-724, June.
    3. Michael Manville & David A. King & Michael J. Smart, 2017. "The Driving Downturn: A Preliminary Assessment," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 83(1), pages 42-55, January.
    4. Gilles Duranton & Matthew A. Turner, 2011. "The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from US Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2616-2652, October.
    5. Gaines, Brian J. & Kuklinski, James H. & Quirk, Paul J., 2007. "The Logic of the Survey Experiment Reexamined," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 1-20, January.
    6. Janet Currie & Joshua Graff Zivin & Jamie Mullins & Matthew Neidell, 2014. "What Do We Know About Short- and Long-Term Effects of Early-Life Exposure to Pollution?," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 217-247, October.
    7. Noreen C. McDonald, 2015. "Are Millennials Really the "Go-Nowhere" Generation?," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 81(2), pages 90-103, April.
    8. Adam Seth Levine & Reuben Kline, 2017. "A new approach for evaluating climate change communication," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 142(1), pages 301-309, May.
    9. Brian Taylor & Eric Morris, 2015. "Public transportation objectives and rider demographics: are transit’s priorities poor public policy?," Transportation, Springer, vol. 42(2), pages 347-367, March.
    10. Michael Manville & Benjamin Cummins, 2015. "Why do voters support public transportation? Public choices and private behavior," Transportation, Springer, vol. 42(2), pages 303-332, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    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.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lalive, Rafael & Luechinger, Simon & Schmutzler, Armin, 2018. "Does expanding regional train service reduce air pollution?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 744-764.
    2. Circella, Giovanni & Tiedeman, Kate & Handy, Susan & Alemi, Farzad & Mokhtarian, Patricia, 2016. "What Affects U.S. Passenger Travel? Current Trends and Future Perspectives," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt2w16b8bf, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    3. Proost, Stef & Van Dender, Kurt, 2012. "Energy and environment challenges in the transport sector," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 77-87.
    4. Russo, Antonio & Adler, Martin W. & Liberini, Federica & van Ommeren, Jos N., 2021. "Welfare losses of road congestion: Evidence from Rome," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    5. Li, Shanjun & Liu, Yanyan & Purevjav, Avralt-Od & Yang, Lin, 2019. "Does subway expansion improve air quality?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 213-235.
    6. Button, Kenneth, 2020. "The Transition From Pigou’S Ideas On Road Pricing To Their Application," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(3), pages 417-438, September.
    7. Basso, Leonardo J. & Jara-Díaz, Sergio R., 2012. "Integrating congestion pricing, transit subsidies and mode choice," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 46(6), pages 890-900.
    8. Martin Adler & Stefanie Peer & Tanja Sinozic, 2019. "Autonomous, Connected, Electric Shared vehicles (ACES) and public finance: an explorative analysis," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 19-005/VIII, Tinbergen Institute.
    9. Klein, Nicholas J. & Guerra, Erick & Smart, Michael J., 2018. "The Philadelphia story: Age, race, gender and changing travel trends," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 19-25.
    10. Ariel Goldszmidt & John A. List & Robert D. Metcalfe & Ian Muir & V. Kerry Smith & Jenny Wang, 2020. "The Value of Time in the United States: Estimates from Nationwide Natural Field Experiments," NBER Working Papers 28208, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Beaudoin, Justin & Lin Lawell, C.-Y. Cynthia, 2018. "The effects of public transit supply on the demand for automobile travel," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 447-467.
    12. Liu, Changqing & Li, Lei, 2020. "How do subways affect urban passenger transport modes?—Evidence from China," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 23(C).
    13. Léa Bou Sleiman, 2021. "Are car-free centers detrimental to the periphery? Evidence from the pedestrianization of the Parisian riverbank," Working Papers 2021-03, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    14. Gaduh, Arya & Gračner, Tadeja & Rothenberg, Alexander D., 2022. "Life in the slow lane: Unintended consequences of public transit in Jakarta," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    15. Cong Peng, 2019. "Does e-commerce reduce traffic congestion? Evidence from Alibaba Single Day shopping event," CEP Discussion Papers dp1646, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    16. Stef Proost & Jacques-François Thisse, 2019. "What Can Be Learned from Spatial Economics?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 57(3), pages 575-643, September.
    17. Borck, Rainald, 2019. "Public transport and urban pollution," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 356-366.
    18. Nicholas Rivers & Soodeh Saberian & Brandon Schaufele, 2020. "Public transit and air pollution: Evidence from Canadian transit strikes," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(2), pages 496-525, May.
    19. Qing Shen & Yiyuan Wang & Casey Gifford, 2021. "Exploring partnership between transit agency and shared mobility company: an incentive program for app-based carpooling," Transportation, Springer, vol. 48(5), pages 2585-2603, October.
    20. Michael Manville & Brian D. Taylor & Evelyn Blumenberg & Andrew Schouten, 2023. "Vehicle access and falling transit ridership: evidence from Southern California," Transportation, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 303-329, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:118:y:2018:i:c:p:567-580. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/547/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.