You may have read Eric Weiss’s story in Sunday’s Washington Post, which described the District’s attempts to improve pedestrian safety and encourage walking and mass transit use as a “war against workers who drive into the city.” There’s not much more to say about it that David Alpert and Ryan Avent haven’t already said. This sums it up nicely (from Avent):

Essentially, Eric Weiss went around the suburbs asking folks to bitch about the District’s efforts to make the District a better place for people who live and pay taxes in the District

What we found especially irritating was how washingtonpost.com packaged the story with two online polls, one asking District residents whether they “agree with the city’s plan to discourage people from driving into the District”, and the other asking suburban residents the same thing. If you look at the results, you’ll see that a majority on both sides think the city is doing the right thing, even though perhaps predictably, suburban respondents were less enthusiastic than city dwellers. A WaPo commenter did our work for us:

I applaud your coverage of the regional transportation issues. Re-examining our choices in light of current resource presures and climate risks is increasingly important. However, as you report, please be careful not to “make the news” by framing issues from one side or the other? For example, the poll associated with this article asks “Do you agree with the city’s plan to discourage people from driving into the District?” I suspect the response would be different if it read “Do you agree with the city’s plan to improve air quality and pedestrian safety, and provide safe routes to school?”

We’ve added our own poll below.