POLL: MOST ARIZONANS AGAINST TOLL ROADS AS FIX FOR TRAFFIC WOES
By STEPHANIE SANCHEZ
Cronkite News Service
PHOENIX (Tuesday, Oct. 30) _ Nearly all Arizonans consider traffic a problem, but most say toll roads aren’t the answer to relieving congestion, according to a poll released Tuesday.
However, many Arizonans appear to be open to the idea of paying higher taxes to build and maintain highways, according to the Grand Canyon State Poll conducted by the Social Research Laboratory at Northern Arizona University.
“The majority doesn’t like the privatization of the highways, and people are willing to pay taxes instead,” said Fred Solop, director of Grand Canyon State Poll.
A Blue Ribbon Transportation Committee formed by the Legislature is looking at toll roads as one possibility to ease traffic congestion. Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City and co-chairman of the committee, supports toll roads and earlier this year pushed unsuccessfully for legislation to convert carpool lanes on some Valley freeways to toll lanes.
Meanwhile, a group called the TIME Coalition, whose name stands for Transportation & Infrastructure Moving AZ’s Economy, is working to put an initiative on transportation funding on the 2008 ballot.
Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed statewide said they are against creating toll roads. Thirty-two percent supported toll roads, and 11 percent had no opinion.Leonard Gilroy, director of government reform for the Reason Foundation, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit think tank, said toll roads are a way to build roads quickly without raising taxes.
“The government will make you wait well over 10 years for a road to be built,” Gilroy said.
The poll found 52 percent willing to vote for an increase in taxes to pay for highway construction and maintenance. Forty percent were against the idea, and 9 percent had no opinion.
Arizonans agree that traffic is a problem, the poll found. Fifty-seven percent said traffic is a very important problem and 34 percent called it a somewhat important problem. Nine percent said traffic isn’t an important problem.
The poll, conducted Thursday through Sunday, involved 400 randomly selected Arizona residents. It has a sampling error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
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Web Link:
_ Social Research Laboratory: www.socialresearchlab.com