Poll results against tolling 290 East

Here are the results of the poll on tolling 290 East from Jim Lutz. Thanks to Jim for undertaking this project. Respondents who live in the Manor area and who routinely drive 290 East were overwhelmingly against tolling 290 East and for financing highways with gas taxes instead of tolls.

Internet Opinion Poll Voters Reject Segment 1 of the Manor Tollway by a Margin of 83 Against to 48 In Favor (9-18-09)

An internet poll asking for citizen opinions for and against the tolling of US 290 was announced in the Manor Messenger issue of September 10th. During the 8 days of polling between 9-10-09 and 9-17-09 there were 185 opinions registered online.
The largest number of voters were from the East Travis County area.

The three polling questions included…
1. I live or work east of I35 and routinely use US 290 East ...Agree or Disagree
2. New construction of and improvements to existing major Texas arterial roadways should be financed by……choose A. Gas Taxes or B. Toll Roads
3. I approve of the tolling of US 290 East between 183 continuing east of the intersection of 290E/Springdale ….Agree or Disagree

Finally a box was provided for a signature and zip code.

A total of 185 entries were entered in the opinion poll. 54 respondents neither provided a signature and/or a zip code or were duplicate entries. These were rejected. The poll results reflect the opinions of the remaining 131 respondents.

In total 83 citizens voted against the US 290 toll road and 48 residents favored its construction.

East Travis County residents with zip codes in the Manor, Elgin, Coupland and Samsung areas totaled 91 voters of the total of 131 voters. Of these 71 votes were registered against the toll road and 29 votes favored the toll road construction as described in the poll. The remaining zip codes represent citizens in other areas. The designated zip codes were found in ZipCodes.com.

35 votes were registered from the immediate 78653 Manor area code and included 28 votes against the toll road and 7 votes favoring the toll road.

Of the total 131 voters, 24 respondents didn’t use US 290 routinely. Sixteen of these 24 non user respondents also voted in favor of the US 290 toll road .

Nearly all of the voters against the US 290E toll road also voted in favor of gas taxes over poll taxes as a means of financing “major Texas arterial roadways”.

Thank you for your participation in this poll. Free poll software is available from Google at Google Docs.

Jim Lutz
Manor Area Citizen