The Surprising Politics of Traffic Solutions

Transportation projects, once a bipartisan beacon on the stormy political seas, have become torn by ideology in recent years. It's now common to presume that Republicans favor roads and Democrats favor rails. The source of this divide can be debated—maybe it's that liberals control rail-rich cities and conservatives hold road-dependent rural areas, or maybe it's the lack of a unified federal program like the Interstate Highway System—but the party lines have emerged clearly in the public conscience.

Then again, stereotypes often crumble under scrutiny. Some results from the Atlantic Media/Siemens State of the City poll push back on the new conventional wisdom of transportation politics in some surprising and mysterious ways. In our poll, Democrats were significantly more likely than Republicans to think new roads would have a "major impact" on traffic congestion; in fact, liberals favored every infrastructure investment more than conservatives did.