Sustainable transportation at the ballot box: a disaggregate analysis of the relative importance of user travel mode, attitudes and self-interest

Palm, Matthew; Handy, Susan

doi:10.1007/s11116-016-9728-0

Cited by 14 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…The pattern most commonly observed is that individuals with a centre-to-left political orientation are more likely to support public goods provision. This effect has also been observed in studies on voting behavior with respect to PT issues (Palm and Handy 2018;Manville 2019). This is not surprising, as traditionally, parties on the left have led the call for expanding public services as well as giving states a central role in their organization.…”

Section: Arguments and Empirical Expectationssupporting

confidence: 56%

How much should public transport services be expanded, and who should pay? Experimental evidence from Switzerland

Lichtin,

Smith,

Axhausen

et al. 2024

Preprint

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The twin challenge of increasing capacity to accommodate growing travel demand while simultaneously decarbonizing the transport sector places enormous pressure on public transport (PT) systems globally. Arguably the most fundamental policy choice and trade-off in designing and operating PT systems in the coming years will be service levels versus cost implications. On the presumption that public (citizen and consumer) opinion is crucial to making such choices, we study this question with a focus on Switzerland by using a factorial experiment (n = 1'634) that considers the frequency and geographic coverage of PT services as well as the cost implications for PT users and taxpayers. We find that support for increased frequency of connections and more services to peripheral regions is high as long as such service expansion is funded mainly by the government, rather than PT users. Preferences are generally consistent across subgroups, except in the case of government funding, where preferences differ by political orientation. This suggests that there is substantial demand across the board for PT services expansion funded primarily by the government, but that the question of funding is also potentially politically the most controversial. While our findings are specific to a country with a highly developed PT system, our research provides a template for similar research in other countries that struggle with a similar challenge.

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Section: Arguments and Empirical Expectationssupporting

confidence: 56%

How much should public transport services be expanded, and who should pay? Experimental evidence from Switzerland

Lichtin,

Smith,

Axhausen

et al. 2024

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Additionally, dissemination and communication are essential for public acceptance and engagement. The decision to support policy changes requires the balancing of self-interest and perceived societal benefits (Palm and Handy, 2018). Complex transport changes, schemes and plans can be challenging to communicate to the public, who may not receive balanced information in a contested political arena (Sherriff, 2015).…”

Section: A Simplified Framework For Policy Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the United States, where transportation agencies often turn to local, voter-approved taxes to fund transportation plans, there is some evidence that voters do not necessarily vote in self-interested patterns. Instead, the perceived impacts of the proposed policies on their community overall are a stronger determinant than their self-interest, which can lead to voters choosing not to support measures they believe would harm their communities even if they would benefit personally (Palm and Handy, 2018). However, this does not mean that self-interest is not an important determinant.…”

Section: A Simplified Framework For Policy Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards the Light: Effective Light Mobility Policies in Cities

2023

International Transport Forum Policy Papers

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“…For these margins to be reached on the ballot measures, some nontransit users had to vote for the protransit measure and some drivers had to vote against the prodriving measure. The analysis by Palm and Handy of these ballot measures found that many voters appeared to be motivated by the "inclusive self-interest" of what they considered best for their community's transportation system (14).…”

Section: Modes Of Travelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transportation Policy at the Ballot Box

Fang

Thigpen

2017

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation R

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Through direct democracy, the voting public can engage in ballot box planning, by which voters themselves, rather than decision makers, set policy and make project decisions. Previous studies found that ballot box planning has a growing influence on land use policy as well as transportation and land use finance. However, the impact of ballot box planning on transportation policy is relatively unexplored. This paper examines 148 local transportation policy–related ballot measures in California from 1995 to 2015. Most transportation policy measures passed, but measures that could be classified as proalternative or anti-car passed at a slightly higher rate than did procar or antialternative measures and showed some agreement between voters and transportation professionals toward multimodalism. Nonetheless, there are numerous examples of voters constraining the options of transportation planners by restricting or even prohibiting contemporary planning strategies. For example, several successful ballot measures took aim at priced parking, red light cameras, and roundabouts. Ballot measures also can create uncertainty through a ballot box volleyball effect, by which policies and project decisions vacillate between two extremes depending on the results of several ballot measures on the same topic. For such reasons, it has been argued that ballot box planning is a deliberative failure in planning and counteracts the best-laid plans of elected officials and planning practitioners.

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Sustainable transportation at the ballot box: a disaggregate analysis of the relative importance of user travel mode, attitudes and self-interest

Cited by 14 publications

References 26 publications

How much should public transport services be expanded, and who should pay? Experimental evidence from Switzerland

How much should public transport services be expanded, and who should pay? Experimental evidence from Switzerland

Towards the Light: Effective Light Mobility Policies in Cities

Transportation Policy at the Ballot Box

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