A new poll featured in one of Germany’s biggest newspapers has found that the majority of Germans want better roads more than they want “climate protection.”
In a Forsa survey featured in Die Welt on Thursday, 62% of Germans polled supported the “renewal and further expansion of the motorway and road network.” By contrast, only 33% said that such road expansions “should be avoided in favour of environmental and climate protection.”
Notably, the approval rate for road expansion is highest in small towns with under 20,000 inhabitants at 67%, compared to 59% in large metropolitan areas of more than 500,000 residents.
When broken down by political party, the highest support for road expansion was found among rightwing AfD party voters at 89%, compared to just 31% among Germany’s ruling Green Party.
Moreover, the vast majority of Germans polled said they preferred traditional fossil fuel cars to electric ones.
In February of this year, only a minority of 33% said that “an internal combustion engine is no longer up to date,” while a large majority of 72% said they would “currently prefer a combustion engine to an electric car.”
Despite these stances, however, Die Welt makes clear that Germans are not entirely opposed to some transport reforms. In the summer of last year, the paper reports, a majority of 58% of respondents supported a speed limit of 130 kilometers per hour on German motorways. In Spring of the same year, 76% said they were in favour of expanding local public transport, while 61% percent said they were in favour of expanding bicycle lanes.
The news comes just months after Germany’s Green Party, which is part of the so-called “traffic light coalition” government, slumped significantly in the polls in April following a harsh winter of soaring energy costs. The party fell to 14.5% in the polls – behind the AfD – with Bild reporting that the party saw their worst poll result in 14 months.
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