Michigan Voters Care About Roads in 2020, But Are Unclear on Costs
“We are putting band-aids on a much more serious problem,” says Brad Williams, of Detroit Regional Chamber, on road funding.
Voters across the country will be heading to the polls in the coming months, starting off with the Iowa Caucuses on February 3rd.
A steady cascade of polls have been released tracking the race between the Democratic candidates, but far fewer polls have touched on voters’ policy preferences. With Michigan being a key state in the coming election, the Detroit Regional Chamber wanted to get a sense of what was capturing the attention of Michigan voters. The Detroit Regional Chamber did just that with their statewide policy poll, released just in time for this week’s State of the State address and the Detroit Policy Conference.
Brad Williams, Vice President of Government Relations at the Detroit Regional Chamber, joins Detroit Today with Stephen Henderson to discuss the poll’s findings.
Click on the player above to hear the full breakdown of Detroit Regional Chamber’s statewide poll, and see highlights below.
So what Is the most important issue facing Michigan right now?
When prompted this question the majority, 29.5 percent, of the respondents said roads and bridges.
Jobs and the economy was the second most important issue according to the poll at 18 percent. Followed by education at 7.2 percent and water/sewer infrastructure at 6.3 percent.
When asked the question of whether or not the Michigan government already had enough money to fix the roads or needed more revenue, 53 percent of voters believe that the state already has enough money. Williams says the assumption that Michigan, at present, has the funding to fix the roads is simply false. He says that while the money Michigan does have is seemingly being spent efficiently, this is a two billion dollar problem, funding that the state does not currently possess.
