Talking Michigan Transportation
The Talking Michigan Transportation podcast features conversations with transportation experts inside and outside MDOT and will touch on anything and everything related to mobility, including rail, transit and the development of connected and automated vehicles.
Talking Michigan Transportation
Reprise: A veteran Michigan pollster talks about perceptions of road conditions and repairs
This week’s edition of the Talking Michigan Podcast features a reprise of a 2022 conversation with a veteran Michigan pollster about the public’s view of road conditions, repairs and funding. At the time, the pollster, Richard Czuba, talked about perceptions of improvements because of Gov. Whitmer’s Rebuilding Michigan program, which allowed MDOT officials to capitalize on a favorable bond market to rebuild many of the state’s busiest roads. The department leveraged debt to make vital improvements, but the need for a sustainable funding solution persists.
This week's episode will be a reprise from one previously recorded in September of 2022. And because road funding is still such a hot topic and because road work is going on in earnest, although much of it will be suspended for the upcoming busy holiday travel weekend, I thought it would be a good time to recall a conversation with Richard Zuba of Glen Gariff, a veteran pollster who looks at a number of statewide issues, and had some really good insight about people's perception in Michigan of road work, road conditions, funding, all things related to that. It's as relevant now as it was then, so I hope you enjoy the conversation. Hello, this is the Talking Michigan Transportation Podcast. I'm your host, Jeff Cranston.
Speaker 1:Today I'm going to be speaking with Richard Zuba, who has been conducting survey research since 1983 and is the founder of the Glenn Gareff Group. He has extensive experience in political and policy campaigns, including the successful Michigan stem cell ballot proposal in 2008, and in 2012, a successful campaign to reform the state's personal property tax. It probably won't surprise you that, given all those years of polling in Michigan, he has gained some knowledge about voter perceptions of roads. He recently conducted a poll for his clients, the Detroit News and WDIV-TV, and included some questions specific to perceptions of road conditions and repairs, additions and repairs. The results of the latest reminded me of what a friend and former longtime chief circuit judge in Kent County used to tell me about we in the media and I was in the media then and how we underestimate the body politic. Would that be your conclusion from this, Richard?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I've been polling on the roads issue more than any topic for the last 10 years on the roads issue more than any topic for the last 10 years, and we are seeing some shifts in voter attitudes here in Michigan on roads. And the one thing that always strikes me when I do polling, no matter what the topic voters aren't fools when it comes to policy positions. They can decipher through a lot of things. But one of the things they have a lot of trouble deciphering when it comes to roads is they don't get what I call the sausage making of it. Who's responsible for which road? How does that road get repaired? Who funds it? Voters just don't know that level of detail, and you know that's not uncommon. That's tends to be the case on most topics, but when it comes to roads in particular, they just they think everybody's responsible for every road, Whether it's a highway or their local gravel road. They particularly think the state of Michigan is responsible for that and that becomes quite a dilemma.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the thing about Michigan. We're somewhat unique in that we have 616 road agencies and I think that does make it more complicated. I always wonder what drives people's perceptions of road conditions, you know, is it mostly informed by how rough the pavement is on the street where they live, or is it the local arterial or the freeway they use to get to work? I guess that kind of goes to your question about the different road agencies and the public's lack of understanding about who does what. And you know it's not their fault. They shouldn't have to worry about who takes care of it, they just want it to be good, right, well that's exactly right.
Speaker 2:And, to answer your question, their perception of the roads is on exactly the roads they drive every day. So if you're a highway driver, your perception is what are the highways like? If you are a local driver, primarily your perception is you know what's that local road like, going past your house or taking you to the grocery store and you know. That's where we start to see real differences. You know, I remember years ago we saw this stark difference in how outstate voters viewed the roads versus metro Detroit voters, and we still tend to see that difference where metro Detroit voters are far more critical about the condition of the roads than outstate drivers are.
Speaker 1:Do you think that's because the city of Detroit and the suburbs, you know, are just cash strapped and have a harder time taking care of the local roads? I mean, I know it's hard to say whether that's driven by their perceptions of their commutes on the freeways, which tend to be, you know, in better condition overall, in part because, from a safety standpoint, you just can't let big potholes form, you know when, where people are driving 80 miles an hour. So what? Yeah, I noticed that too, that that breakdown, and I wondered why that was. And maybe because people just commute more, you know, drive more in Metro than in some other parts of the state.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, in particularly when you start going into the northern parts of the state, they go longer distances and they go on roads that allow them typically to go faster the highways, for example. Unless you get up into the UP, it's a different story with a lot of two lane roads, but down in southeast Michigan, you know, let's be honest, congestion and lots of road use wears and tears those roads a lot harder than they do in some of the Northern areas of the state. Uh, so you know. The bottom line, though, to all of this is, you know, voters all think the roads. You know, for years have thought the roads are terrible in Michigan. We're starting to see indications in these latest polling that maybe that's shifting a little bit Not by a lot, but I think voters are paying attention to the fact that they're seeing more roads getting fixed right now fixed right now?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so did you. Were you able to drill down? Or what's your perception of whether that was that? Was them sensing that their road is actually better, or that they're just seeing so much roadwork going on?
Speaker 2:I think it's. They're seeing roadwork. And that's specifically the way we asked this. We said would you say you're seeing more roads getting fixed, less roads getting fixed or about the same roads getting fixed as in the past? And 48% of voters say they're seeing more roads getting fixed than in the past. 43% said about the same, but only 6% said less. I can tell you, 10 years ago, if I would have asked that question, a whole lot more people than 6% would have said there are less roads getting fixed than in the past. So the fact that nearly half of voters are now willing to say there's more roads are getting fixed than in the past, you know is a realization on the part of these voters that something's getting done. And you know, for anybody who drives across the state of Michigan I regularly do. You drive along I-94 from Southwest Michigan to Detroit it's hard to argue that more roads aren't getting fixed as you're driving through all those orange barrels and, let's face it, that's what changes people's perception is seeing those orange barrels.
Speaker 1:And it sounded like in your polling that people were surprisingly tolerant of that and willing to understand, because I mean, you know it's every road agency's dilemma how do you rebuild a road and protect the workers and the drivers while the work is going on and still work quickly and limit the inconvenience? There's, you know, there's indications, I think in your data that people understand that more than we think that you know the short-term pain is going to be worth it.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I can tell you and again, this is over years of polling they were clamoring for roads to start getting fixed. I think every Michigander laughs at the fact that. You know there's construction in the summer and summer is called, you know, is clearly construction season in Michigan, so it's. But they're willing to have to see those orange cones because they've been so desperate for those orange cones. They want better roads and you know that's not to say voters think roads are great right now, but there's an optimism there that's starting to develop amongst the voters that something's getting done, that roads are getting fixed, and that's a big shift in perceptions in Michigan.
Speaker 1:That's yeah, that's a really good sign, and it does not coincide at all with what you see on MDOT's Facebook page. But again, that's not scientific by any means.
Speaker 2:Well, you know this is something as a pollster I regularly tell organizations is you only hear from the people who are really angry, the people who like what you're doing and think you're doing great. They never tell you that because they're good with you. It's only those people who are angry that because they're good with you. It's only those people who are angry that are going to comment about you.
Speaker 2:And you know we asked this question. We said compared to four years ago, would you say the roads are better, worse or about the same? 39% said it's staying about the same. 35%, though, are saying they're getting better, and only 24% now are saying they're getting worse Again, if I had asked this question four years ago, six years ago, eight years ago, there would have been well over half of Michigan voters saying the roads are getting worse, and now we're only at we're down to one in four. That's still not great, but, boy, it's a lot better than where we were. And you know I think we all know from the conversations we've been hearing about roads over the last 10 years, that is an accomplishment to again people are starting to recognize that something's getting done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, and I absolutely agree too with your assessment about you. Only hear from the people who are angry. It's nice we have a great social media coordinator who is very patient and tries to answer. You know every question, every complaint, but a lot of times plain old folks will jump in to the defense and cite some facts, you know, to try to set the record straight, but for the most part there's no heat in the middle right. The radical center that everybody talks about doesn't exist, but it's the edges where the heat is.
Speaker 2:Well, that's exactly right, no, but if you're angry, you're going to comment, you're going to get involved. If you're good with things, you tend to be quiet about these things, particularly these days on social media. You tend to be quiet about these things, particularly these days on social media.
Speaker 1:I think social media is an avenue for amplifying the edges of the conversation versus the center of the conversation. Yeah, absolutely so. The demographic breakdowns were very interesting to me. One thing that jumped out was the largest group to say the roads are better were the people who are 65 and older. In that age group, more than 40% said the roads were getting better, as opposed to 24% who answered worse and 27% saying about the same. That tells me that people who have, you know, been around longer and been driving Michigan roads longer, that they take a long view and they really do think that, you know, historically, things are getting better. Is that? Is that your read?
Speaker 2:Well, I do. I think that's also a read of the fact that voters over 65 tend to drive less too, and I think we need to be very cognizant of that. You know, as has been the case over the last 12 years, the roads become a political football and what we really see is that you know whoever the party in charge is, and in this case it's Democrats. The Democratic governor is in charge. Democratic voters tend to think she's doing a far better job on roads than Republican voters.
Speaker 2:Republican voters are the most critical and even if you say, you know, are they getting better, worse or staying the same? Those Republican voters tend to think that the roads are staying the same and the Democratic voters say they're getting better. When you look at the independents and that's what I always pay attention to in Michigan, because I think they tell the story of where the state is as a whole 48% are seeing more roads getting fixed, 45% say the same. Again, only 6% said less. Even amongst these independents, these centrists, there's a sense that something's getting done here, and I think you know that's the first step here in changing public perceptions on the roads in Michigan is just getting Michiganders to believe it's happening, something's getting fixed.
Speaker 1:Right. It seems a little counterintuitive that that over 65 group was so positive about, you know, road progress, when those tend to be people who vote more Republican.
Speaker 2:You know that's shifting. Actually those over 65s aren't quite as strongly Republican as they used to be. It's a it's an interesting demographic we've seen shift, particularly when, when the pandemic hit. So you know I want to be careful on that kind of assessment there yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1:So what, what do you make of the gender divide? You know, my, my wife thinks it's because men drive faster and then they're more inclined to notice. You know, know, when pavement is in poor condition, what? What would you attribute that that to? Because it was pretty significant.
Speaker 2:I would attribute it to partisan affiliation.
Speaker 3:actually, we are in.
Speaker 2:We are in an environment where women are vastly more self-identifying with the Democratic Party than men do party than men do, and so that would make men more you know, naturally more Republican and more critical of the current administration when it comes to roads. So I think you know this is. Roads are like everything else in our conversations these days. Politics has infiltrated everything, whether it be roads, whether it be which books you read, it doesn't matter. It's now tied to politics. That's that weird polarization we're seeing. This is an issue that just gets wrapped up with that. So we look for signs of, you know, in that polarization Are there signs of hope that people can reach some consensus on this? And you know, one of the things we see and this has been for a long time voters agree something needs to be done.
Speaker 2:Voters wholeheartedly say the roads need to get fixed, we need to invest more. But the problem becomes when you say how do you pay for it? But the problem becomes when you say how do you pay for it? And this goes back to one of the things we find regularly is voters don't understand how the roads get paid for. In Michigan, they think it's oh well, all those gas taxes. And look, the prices of gas are going up, so clearly they're getting more money. They haven't. You know, there hasn't been this aggressive campaign to help voters understand that actually there isn't more money because roads are cars are far more fuel efficient. Now we have battery operated cars and I think one of the one of the real challenges here going forward on funding road repairs is helping voters to understand that the old formulas are outdated, that you know things have changed so much from when we did, you know, put a gas tax on that. They need to understand that that these old models aren't going to work in the future. Yeah, absolutely, we're going to have to accommodate that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's why MDOT's in the midst of a legislatively mandated tolling study, as you know. And also there's talk of, you know, undertaking, either as part of that or separately, a mileage-based user fee that you know. Even tolling maybe is going to become a thing of the past when it comes to really measuring. You know who tolling maybe is going to become a thing of the past when it comes to really measuring. You know who uses the roads and who pays for the roads and who should pay for the roads. You know, I guess, the gender divide. I thought perhaps it was as simple as just partisanship, but I was hoping maybe there was more to it. But I think your analysis is probably right.
Speaker 1:You've been looking at this for a long time. I know that some of the critics of the bonding program and I want you to talk a little bit about that too, because you pulled specifically on that question say that the problem is that the debt will run longer than the life of the roads, and that's just not true. The reason that the projects that were chosen were complete rebuilds of major freeways was because you know they should last 30, 40 years and go beyond the debt. So that's another misperception that's out there, just like you talked about people thinking when gas prices go up, that you know the road funds must grow along with that, and they don't even understand that the 6% sales tax on gas doesn't even go to roads Exactly. So, yeah, talk about that polling question, specifically on the bonding and what you found there and whether that surprised you at all.
Speaker 2:Sure, we asked the question of you know whether they support or oppose Governor Whitmer's move to issue a $3.5 billion in new state debt to rebuild and repave the state-owned roads, and by a margin of 64 to 28, voters support this move to bond 32 percent strongly support it, only 17% strongly oppose it, and this is one where you know voters can find some agreement on this. You know we've often seen in our polling that bonding is a popular alternative to raising taxes. You know, in 40 years of polling in Michigan, I can honestly say I have never seen a poll, a legitimate poll, that showed voters supporting a gas tax increase. This is like one of the jokes of all of us pollsters in Michigan that there is not a poll that will show a support for gas tax. But bonding tends to find far more support. And in this case, you know you look at those independents. Where, again, this is where everything gets decided in Michigan is with independent voters. They support it by a margin of 59 to 30, which is a two to one margin. They think this is a good idea and I think it's a reflection of the fact that voters may not like tax increases, but they certainly realize something's got to get done and more money has to be put into the roads, and I, in this case, you know, based on this question, they viewed bonding as a really good alternative to raising taxes is a really good alternative to raising taxes.
Speaker 2:You know, one of the things that we always, you know, have always asked and looked at both in focus groups and in polling, is you know, there is a group of voters that just simply don't understand where the money's going and their first question is they get plenty of money, you know, and they suddenly. They get plenty of money, you know, and they suddenly I always laugh about this. You have voters who suddenly become road building experts, believe me, and it's sitting through a focus group. You would think they themselves are the ones who are the experts building the roads. You know, they cite Ohio and Florida and you know if we had the right mix of concrete for the weather and all of these different things. They come up with reasons for you know why this isn't right.
Speaker 1:And what do they say when you tell them what those two states spend per capita versus Michigan?
Speaker 2:Well, they just, they just come back to frankly what I think is a simplistic answer that well, we're not spending our money correctly, right, right, and you know it. It again becomes a political argument Uh, and that's why you have to look at the center. You're never gonna get 80% support for something in a state like Michigan. So you have to look at those centrists, those independents and see, can you form a coalition that you can get to 60% support in Michigan? And in this case you do with this bonding proposal and I think that's a big deal.
Speaker 1:We will continue the conversation right after a quick break.
Speaker 3:Oh, look at those beautiful wildflowers along the road, aren't they pretty?
Speaker 4:Check out that classic car. You don't see many of those anymore.
Speaker 3:Wow, look at that cable median barrier.
Speaker 4:What you mean, that wire guardrail in the middle of the road?
Speaker 3:Exactly, aren't they gorgeous? Um, not exactly. They were put there to prevent crossover head-on crashes, which are some of the most deadly type of freeway crashes, and they're really effective, reducing those types of incidents by 90 percent. That's a lot of lives that have been saved, huh.
Speaker 4:I guess I never really looked at them like that. I prefer the wildflowers. But I'm seeing those median cable barriers in a whole new light.
Speaker 1:So put on your policy hat for a minute and think about this, because it's something. As a reporter writing about this and then assigning stories and writing columns and editorials over the years about road funding and across many administrations in Michigan, and having been in the department now for a decade, I've really come to believe that we need a public service commission model for roads, because roads are a public utility and we don't expect the legislature to keep the lights on. So, because you're right, you know you're not going to find, especially in a term limited era, enough political courage to raise taxes for roads. So what else could we do?
Speaker 2:Well, I do think anything you can do to get it to take it out of the constant political give and take is beneficial to the roads. I don't know that it's. I don't know that everyone would agree that it's beneficial to the body politic, but it's beneficial to getting roads done. And you know part of this conversation goes on in areas like economic development, for example, where you know you hear from economic developers saying listen, we got to take this out of, out of the conversation of who's the party in charge at the time. We need this bipartisan economic development plan and I think the same applies to roads. You need a bipartisan plan that you know can be taken out of the day-to-day grind in the day-to-day politics. That becomes really hard in Michigan because you have so many darn road organizations and everyone has their niche and everyone has their kind of, you know, supporters and it's hard to create, you know, unanimity when you have that many players in the field.
Speaker 1:Right, I wonder too if again going to our point about the people and the voters maybe being smarter than we give them credit for if they realize that the reason they support bonding is because they realize that not doing anything is costing us far more than the debt incurred on those bonds. I mean, we're losing, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars a day in assets and bridges and roads and other transportation assets by not doing anything.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I think for the voters, I think it becomes more basic than that and they realize how much more extra they've got to spend because their cars are getting destroyed on potholes.
Speaker 2:We particularly saw this in the polling about four or five years ago, where voters just there wasn't a voter who wasn't offering a horror story about having to spend five or $600 to have something repaired on their car because they had a pothole.
Speaker 2:You know, we asked this question of who they thought was the most to blame for the condition of the roads in Michigan, and this is where I go back to. You know, the voters aren't fools and I was surprised and yet I should not have been that the number one answer was past legislatures and past governors. At 31% Voters realize that the roads of today are largely due to what we did in the past with the. You know how they were funded in the past, and so I think, moving forward, looking at that, moving forward, if voters are seeing more roads getting built and fixed and repaved, that in the future, we're going to start to see that. You know, voters' attitudes are going to start to change on this and it's really simple the more roads you repair, the better voters start to feel about that because they drive them and see them every single day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a really good point, but in a term-limited era, somebody who's willing to take that tough vote won't be around to see. You know the fruits of that vote.
Speaker 2:Well, that's right and that's why I, you know, I think the more you can do to take this whole conversation out of the day-to-day political grind, the better off it is for getting roads done, you know, getting them fixed. Better off it is for getting roads done, you know, getting them fixed. Whether that's possible, I don't know. You know, certainly whatever party is in power versus whatever party is out of power is going to have objections to that because they lose control or they gain control. But I've always been a big proponent, when it comes to any policy, that a bipartisan policy tends to be far more sound and stable in the long term than one party's policy else that we didn't cover, that you'd want to mention, that you thought was just particularly interesting in your data.
Speaker 1:I mean, my goodness, the crosstabs are very informative and run deep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know this is a topic that, again, I'm starting to see I hesitate to say it perhaps some light at the end of the tunnel. We've been talking about this for so darn long in Michigan. It'll be interesting to watch this moving forward in the next few years if voters start to become more optimistic and recognize changes taking place. I think the challenge is going to be on those local roads far more than state roads, where we're seeing a whole lot of money pouring into state roads because of the bonding proposal, the bonding debt. How do state and local roads get handled and do voters start to see changes in those roads? And I think that's a question moving forward.
Speaker 1:And I think it's important to note that the locals, you know, have some bonding authority and they also can pass their own. You know millages or income taxes. You know the city of Grand Rapids you know where I live in 2014, passed an income tax for streets and it passed overwhelmingly and people saw the need. I mean. A longtime anti-tax proponent from the West Side, former school board member, you know, showed up at a public meeting to endorse the roads tax and said you know we have to do something and it's easier at the local level than at the state level usually.
Speaker 2:And it's not only about roads, but schools is a good example. Also, voters are highly skeptical of increases at the state level because they think it's going to go to somebody else. West Michigan voters think it's going to Detroit, detroit voters think it's going to the UP, and so there's a real skepticism. The more that money can stay locally and be decided locally, the more support it's going to get from local voters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. That perception too in West Michigan is so true, you know, despite the fact that the last freeway built in the state M6, was built in West Michigan. You know, the Cadillac bypass. What's going on with US 31, about to open that long sought extension of the freeway in Southwest Michigan, the Constantine bypass. I mean, I can go on and on about the major new things in West Michigan as opposed to the rest of the state, but that perception is still there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a farm very close to that US 31 bypass and all my life I grew up on that farm. All of my life we've been talking about that highway and it's finally going to get done.
Speaker 1:Are you talking about?
Speaker 2:the Niles connection. Yeah, the one up in Benton Harbor, St Joe, with 94 and 96 and 31. I mean, all my life we've been talking about that and here we are it's, we're on the verge of it opening.
Speaker 1:Yes, we're very close to a major celebration there and people are going to be allowed to walk or run or, you know, bike on the freeway before it opens, so it should be a big day. Yeah, long time coming, yeah Well, thank you again, Richard. I really appreciate you taking time to talk about this. There's some fascinating findings in your data and you know I really always appreciate your polling and your ability to analyze it and break it down.
Speaker 2:For us it's great to be with you.
Speaker 1:I'd like to thank you once more for tuning in to Talking Michigan Transportation. You can find show notes and more on Apple Podcasts or Buzzsprout. I also want to acknowledge the talented people who help make this a reality each week, starting with Randy Debler, who skillfully edits the audio, Jesse Ball, who proofs the content, Courtney Bates, who posts the podcast to various platforms, and Jackie Salinas, who transcribes the audio to make it accessible to all.