Infrastructure & Climate

When communities promote alternatives to driving they reduce the number of vehicle trips, alleviating congestion while promoting a variety of physical, environmental, and mental health benefits for city residents. Intriguingly, mayors are acutely aware of potential environmental consequences of Americans’ reliance on cars. A striking 66 percent of them believe vehicles are the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in their city.

Figure 19: Biggest Source of Greenhouse Gas Emissions What do you think is the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in your city?

Reflecting the growing urgency with which cities need to address climate change, a large majority of mayors (70 percent) agree that cities should play a strong role in reducing the effects of climate change, even if it means sacrificing revenues or expending financial resources. These levels of support are quite similar to those offered by mayors when we asked the same question in 2017.

Figure 20: Mitigating Climate Change Please rate how strongly you agree/disagree with the following statement: Cities should play a strong role in reducing the effects of climate change, even if it means sacrificing revenues and/or expending financial resources.

As in previous years, there remains a strong partisan divide on this issue. A striking 92 percent of Democratic mayors agree with the proposed climate change tradeoff, compared with 25 percent of Republican mayors. These figures are remarkably similar to when we asked this question in 2014 and 2017.

Figure 21: Mitigating Climate Change, by Party Please rate how strongly you agree/disagree with the following statement: Cities should play a strong role in reducing the effects of climate change, even if it means sacrificing revenues and/or expending financial resources.

Figure 22: Mitigating Climate Change, by Party, 2014 to 2019

Mayors’ commitment to electric vehicles may reflect their desire to address the effects of climate change, and is an issue that elicits less partisan division. As noted earlier, 67 percent of mayors support improving their cities’ electric vehicle infrastructure, even if it means sacrificing parking for non-electric vehicles. Intriguingly, the partisan split on electric vehicles is not nearly so large as it is on other environmental issues. There is still a partisan gap, with Democratic mayors 40 percentage points more likely to agree that improvements to their cities’ electric vehicle infrastructure are important. But, Republican mayors are substantially more likely to fall into the neutral category than in the previous tradeoff, suggesting that views are not quite so polarized on this issue. This is in stark contrast to the climate change tradeoff, where the proportion of Republican mayors holding neutral views on the issue has steadily declined since we first asked this question in 2014.

Figure 23: Electric Vehicle Tradeoff, by Party Please rate how strongly you agree/disagree with the following statement: It is important to improve my city’s electric vehicle infrastructure, even if it means less parking for non-electric vehicles.