AUDL 2012
AFFIRMATIVE
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Affirmative Evidence Packet
Transportation Infrastructure
Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its
transportation infrastructure investment in the United States.
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Contents
1AC............................................................................................................................................................................4
The Plan .................................................................................................................................................................5
Inherency Extensions ............................................................................................................................................... 14
Inherency: No Funding for Active Transportation .............................................................................................. 15
Inherency AT: Equity is improving now ............................................................................................................ 17
Inherency: Current Planning Fails ....................................................................................................................... 18
Harm Extensions...................................................................................................................................................... 21
Transportation inequity pervades society ............................................................................................................ 22
Social Inequity reinforces Racism ....................................................................................................................... 24
Racism Impacts.................................................................................................................................................... 26
Racism Impacts – War ......................................................................................................................................... 27
Poverty Advantage .............................................................................................................................................. 28
Environmental Justice Advantage ....................................................................................................................... 29
Inactive Transportation is a Public Health Problem ............................................................................................ 30
Obesity Leads to Mortality .................................................................................................................................. 31
Military Readiness Add-On 1/2 ........................................................................................................................... 34
Military Readiness Add-On 2/2 ........................................................................................................................... 35
Military Readiness Extensions............................................................................................................................. 36
Military Readiness Extensions............................................................................................................................. 37
Unequal Transportation Leads to Unequal Health Care ...................................................................................... 38
Pollution Impacts ................................................................................................................................................. 40
Global Warming Add-on (1/2) ............................................................................................................................ 41
Global Warming Add-on (2/2) ............................................................................................................................ 42
Global Warming Extensions ................................................................................................................................ 43
Global Warming Extensions ................................................................................................................................ 44
Global Warming Extensions ................................................................................................................................ 45
Solvency Extensions ................................................................................................................................................ 46
General Solvency Extensions .............................................................................................................................. 47
General Solvency Extensions .............................................................................................................................. 48
Solvency: Better Planning Needed ..................................................................................................................... 49
Solvency: Better Planning Needed ..................................................................................................................... 50
Solvency: Cost Beneficial .................................................................................................................................... 51
Solvency: Cost Beneficial .................................................................................................................................... 52
Solvency: Increased Ridership............................................................................................................................ 53
Solvency: Increased Ridership............................................................................................................................ 54
Solvency: Increased Ridership............................................................................................................................ 55
Solvency: Increased Ridership............................................................................................................................ 56
Solvency: Increased Ridership............................................................................................................................ 57
Solvency: Improved Public Health ...................................................................................................................... 58
Solvency: Improved Public Health ...................................................................................................................... 59
Solvency: Improved Public Health ...................................................................................................................... 60
Solvency: Improved Public Health ...................................................................................................................... 61
Solvency: Improved Public Health ...................................................................................................................... 62
Solvency: Improved Public Health ...................................................................................................................... 63
Solvency: Improved Public Health ...................................................................................................................... 64
Empirical Solvency Examples ............................................................................................................................. 65
Empirical Solvency Examples ............................................................................................................................. 66
Empirical Solvency Examples ............................................................................................................................. 67
Disadvantage Overview ........................................................................................................................................... 68
Disadvantage Overview 1/2 ................................................................................................................................. 69
Disadvantage Overview 2/2 ................................................................................................................................. 70
Highways Disadvantage Answers ........................................................................................................................... 71
2AC Highways Disad Frontline 1/3..................................................................................................................... 72
UNIQUENESS EXTENSIONS—NOT SPENDING ENOUGH NOW .............................................................. 75
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UNIQUENESS EXTENSIONS—SPENDING DOES NOT ENCOURAGE GROWTH ................................... 77
UNIQUENESS—US INFRASTRUCTURE IS BAD NOW ............................................................................... 78
NO LINK--EXTENSIONS .................................................................................................................................. 79
NO INTERNAL LINK—HIGHWAYS TO ECONOMY ................................................................................... 80
NO INTERNAL LINK TO HEGEMONY .......................................................................................................... 81
NO IMPACT Extensions ..................................................................................................................................... 83
NO CHINA IMPACT .......................................................................................................................................... 84
TURN EXTENSION—HIGHWAY INVESTMENT HURTS GROWTH ......................................................... 86
NO THRESHHOLD ............................................................................................................................................ 87
BUDGET DISADVANTAGE ANSWERS ............................................................................................................. 88
2AC Frontline: Budget Disadvantage Answers 1/3 ............................................................................................. 89
Econ Defense: 2AC ............................................................................................................................................. 92
Econ Resilient: 1AR ............................................................................................................................................ 94
Doesn’t Cause War: 1AR .................................................................................................................................... 95
A2 Food Prices .................................................................................................................................................... 97
1AC (Short Version) .......................................................................................................................................... 100
1AC (Short Version) .......................................................................................................................................... 101
1AC (Short Version) .......................................................................................................................................... 102
1AC (Short Version) .......................................................................................................................................... 103
1AC (Short Version) ............................................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
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1AC
Explanation
The Affirmative Case calls for the federal government to increase its investment in public
and active transportation systems to remedy inequities in existing transportation commitments.
The argument is that current policies misdirect too much transportation spending to support
transportation systems that tend to benefit wealthier communities (not the wealthiest) but
definitely more affluent. This investment practice encourages over-reliance on cars at the
expense of public transit and transportation support for active transit, which means support for
safe areas for walking and biking.
The 1AC can claim help to solve one or two harms by spending on public and active
transit systems. The first of these is social equity. Currently, low-income communities and
communities of color do not receive their fair share of transportation support. Since
transportation is the key way that we access most of the important things in life, health care,
education, shopping, those who suffer from transportation inequity suffer from a form of social
exclusion—that is being excluded from the rest of society. This frequently occurs to identifiable
groups and there for disproportionately affects different races, elderly, and disabled persons more
negatively than society at-large.
The second harm is public health. This line of argument is accessed two ways. On the
one hand, a lack of access to active transit infrastructure discourages healthy transportation via
walking and biking. As a result obesity, cardiovascular, diseases and stress-related diseases are
higher in communities without safe active transit infrastructure. On the other hand, lack of
access to public transit decreases access to such social facilities as health care and food stores
that support healthy diets. Again, this tends to impact poorer communities and communities of
color more frequently than mainstream communities.
The plan increases spending on public transit and active transit to restore social equity to
transportation. Public transit could include a number of mass transit systems including: trains
and subways, light-rail and trolleys, or buses. Active transit is non-motorized transportation. It
includes safe walking and biking routes, though arguably scooters and skateboards are another
form of active transit. Cities across the country are involved in various components of these
initiatives. Portland, OR is a model city for a combination of light rail/trolleys/buses and active
transit. Other cities have developed similar programs including Dallas, Minneapolis/St. Paul,
and Baltimore, MD. Cities with strong public transit include Boston, New York, Washington,
D.C., Chicago and San Francisco. Much of the solvency evidence references these examples and
there is a solid debate to be had over whether or not successful programs such as Portland can be
replicated in other cities.
The solvency arguments demonstrate the importance of restoring social equity to
transportation, funding active transit systems, and public transit in order to remedy the problem.
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The Plan
Greetings, my partner and I feel it is time to address some our local and
national transportation problems. We offer for your consideration, the
following plan:
The US Federal Government should substantially increase its transportation infrastructure
investment in the US by increasing transportation equity in planning and development
including increases in active transportation infrastructure and public transit.
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1AC
OBSERVATION ONE—Inherency: the barrier to change
Current transportation funds are directed away from areas of greatest need.
A.
Low-income and communities of color lack access to centers of power excluding
them from necessary transportation funding and negatively impacting public health.
The Leadership Conference Education Fund, 2011.
Transportation Policy and Access to Health Care, p.2.
a. Disproportionate investment in expanding road networks and car-based transportation
For several decades, we have invested the overwhelming majority of federal transportation funds in new highway construction.
People from
urban areas and people of color are significantly underrepresented in the institutions that decide how to
invest transportation funds for metropolitan areas, which results in a strong preference for transportation
benefiting suburbs and outlying areas. As a result, we now have a landscape of metropolitan sprawl and a
predominately car-based transportation system across the country.
b. Transportation investments to date have limited access to health care for low-income people
Because a very small percentage of federal funds have been used for affordable public transportation and
for active transportation (i.e. walking, biking) opportunities, people without access to cars have been
isolated from opportunities and services—including health care providers. By underinvesting in walkable
communities, rapid bus transit, rail, and bicycle-friendly roads, our policies contribute to high
concentrations of poor air quality, pedestrian fatalities, obesity, and asthma in urban areas. All of these
public health risks have disproportionately affected low-income people and people of color.
Congress seeks to eliminate funding for non-motor transportation and public transportation.
McMahon, February 22, 2012, (Edward T. McMahon—Urban Land Institute), “Bicycles Belong” Urban Land
This question is at the heart of the current debate over how transportation funds will be spent over the
next few years. The U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee voted on February 2 to
eliminate funding for nonmotorized transportation (e.g., bike paths and sidewalks) from the federal
transportation bill working its way through Congress. The "wildly imbalanced transportation bill" also
imperils federal support for public transportation systems.
In taking this approach, Congress took a giant step back-to the 1970s and 1980s, when federal
transportation legislation strongly favored investment in highway infrastructure. Not until 1991 was the funding
legislation expanded to other options, with passage of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA). ISTEA broke from the past
by including funding for mass transit and bicycle and pedestrian facilities. Since that time, about 20 percent of the highway trust
has gone to support public transportation and about 2 percent of federal transportation funding has gone to
various "transportation enhancement" projects-primarily bike trails, sidewalks, and related facilities.
However, the new House bill severs support for such projects, with its supporters contending that these
are frills and amenities with little impact on transportation.
However, transportation is about more than just roads. For example, in large European cities such as
Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and Stuttgart, up to 30 percent of all commuters reach their jobs by bicycle.
Does this mean that Germans, Danes, and the Dutch don't like cars? Of course not; they love them, just like we do. The difference is, they simply
don't have to use them all the time, because they have more transportation choices than we do. In addition to excellent public
transportation systems, most European countries have extensive networks of bikeways, bike lanes, and
other nonmotorized facilities.
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1AC
TWO—HARM: SOCIAL INJUSTICE.
A. Transportation is fundamental.
Transportation access is the key to full participation in all elements of society including education,
health services, job markets, family, recreation, etc. Our focus on the car excludes some groups
from full participation in society.
Martens et al, 2012, [Karel Martens, Institute for Management Research, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlans; Aaron Golub,
School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning and School of Sustainability, Arizona State U; Glenn Robinson, School of Engineering and
Institute for Urban Research, Morgan State University, “A justice-theoretic approach to the distribution of transportation benefits: Implications
for transportation planning practice in the United States,” Transportation Research A 46 (2012), 684-695
While we feel that potential mobility can be seen as the dominant proxy of the social meaning of the transport good, we argue that this social
meaning is increasingly contested in current society, at least within academia (e.g., Vigar, 2002) and increasingly among government officials
(Preston and Rajé, 2007). Moreover, the conceptualization of the transport good as potential mobility is at odds with the
functional dimension of transport, which is of key importance for people to fulfill one’s needs and desires. The
availability or un-availability of transport shapes people’s life opportunities (Lucas, 2006) – it determines whether a
person can take advantage of education and health services, can access job markets (Ihlanfeldt and Sjoquist, 1998;
Ong and Blumenberg, 1998) and thus advance economically, can keep in contact with friends or family, or whether
she/he can enjoy leisure and recreational facilities (Frank et al., 2006). This functional dimension of transport should
be more important in guiding transportation planning practices than the mere notions of freedom and independence.
Even more, we agree with Sheller and Urry (2000)) that the focus on potential mobility has brought freedom and
independence for a large part of the population, but at the expense of the freedom of a car-less minority. Hence, in what
follows, we will focus on access as the appropriate social meaning of the transport good .
B. Transportation poverty is worse for low income areas and communities of color.
Those without cars are also less likely to have access to public transit.
Karen Lucas, 2012, Transport Studies Unit, University of Oxford, ‘Transport and social exclusion: Where are we now?”
Transport Policy 20 (2012) 105–113
Surprisingly, given the levels of car penetration in the US (approximately 92% of all households have
access to a private vehicle), car ownership amongst the lowest income quintile is only slightly higher than
it is in the UK (around 60%). Women are more likely to drive across all age categories in the USA than in the UK and there is less of a
gender difference between licence holders and non-licence holders than in the UK. Black Americans are far less likely to own
and drive a car than their white counterparts, with 20% of all Black households not having access to a car.
American Indians, Hispanics, Pacific Islander, Asian and people of mixed race are also less likely to own
cars than white Americans (Clifton and Lucas, 2004). There is considerable evidence to suggest that low income
non-car owning households in the US also have less access to public transit (Garcia and Rubin, 2004)
and, hence, experience considerable difficulties in accessing jobs (Cervero, 2004) and other key facilities
(Morris, 2004).
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1AC
C. This results in transportation Apartheid.
Bullard, 2004. (Robert D. Bullard—Ware Professor Sociology, Director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center, Clark
Atlanta University). Highway Robbery, Transportation Racism, & New Routes to Equity (eds. Robert D. Bullard, Glenn S. Johnson, and
Angel O. Torres), 2004. P. 3.
Transportation systems do not spring up out of thin air. They are planned—and, in many cases, planned
poorly when it comes to people of color. Conscious decisions determine the location of freeways, bus
stops, fueling stations, and train stations. Decisions to build highways, expressways, and beltways have
far-reaching effects on land use, energy policies, and the environment. Decisions by county
commissioners to bar the extension of public transit to job-rich economic activity centers in suburban
counties and instead spend their transportation dollars on repairing and expanding the nation’s roads have
serious mobility restrictions for central city residents. Together, all these transportation decisions shape
United States metropolitan areas, growth patterns, physical mobility, and economic opportunities. These
same transportation policies have also aided, and in some cases subsidized, racial, economic, and
environmental inequities as evidenced by the segregated housing and spatial layout of our central cities
and suburbs. It is not by chance that millions of Americans have been socially isolated and relegated to
economically depressed and deteriorating cities and that transportation apartheid has been created.
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1AC
Structural racism guarantees that the negative impacts are inevitable. Only dismantling the
walls of racism allows us to overcome them. You most vote affirmative to solve the case and
avoid the impact of the negative’s disadvantages.
Barndt, educator, trainer and organizer in the field of racial justice, 2007 (Joseph,
Understanding & Dismantling Racism: the twenty-first century challenge to white America,
p.219-220)
To study racism is to study walls. In every chapter of this book, we have looked at barriers and
fences, restraints and limitations, ghettos and prisons, bars and curtains. We have examined a
prison of racism that confines us all_people of color and white people alike. Victimizers as well
as victims are in shackles. The walls of the prison forcibly separate communities of color and
white communities from each other, as well as divide communities of color from each other. In
our separate prisons we are all shut off from each other. The constraints imposed on people of
color by subservience, powerlessness, and poverty are inhuman and unjust; but the effects of
uncontrolled power, privilege, and greed that are the marks of our white prison inevitably destroy
white people as well. To dismantle racism is to tear down walls. The walls of racism can be
dismantled. We are not condemned to an inexorable fate, but are offered the vision and the
possibility of freedom. Brick by brick, stone by stone, the prison of individual, institutional, and
cultural racism can be destroyed. It is an organizing task that can be accomplished. You and I are
urgently called to join the efforts of those who know it is time to tear down, once and for all the
walls of racism. The walls of racism must be dismantled. Facing up to these realities offers new
possibilities, but refusing to face them threatens yet greater dangers. The results of centuries of
national and worldwide colonial conquest and racial domination, of military buildups and violent
aggression, of over-consumption and environmental destruction may be reaching a point of no
return. The moment of self-destruction seems to be drawing ever more near, nationally and
globally. A small and predominantly white minority of the global population derives its power
and privilege from the sufferings of the vast majority of peoples of color. For the sake of the
world and ourselves, we dare not allow it to continue. Dismantling racism also means building
something new it means building an antiracist society. The bricks that were used to build the
walls of the prison must now be used for a better purpose. Just as we must tear down the wall
brick by brick, so also we must build new structures of power and justice_ Although we still
need many more reminders that we cannot build a multiracial and multicultural society without
tearing down the walls of racism, this negative reminder must be turned around and stated in
reverse: we cannot tear down the walls without building new antiracist structures of power in our
institutions and communities. Transforming and building anti-racist institutions is the path to a
racism-free society.
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1AC
THREE—HARM: PUBLIC HEALTH.
A. Inactive transportation has increased obesity in US
The Leadership Conference Education Fund, 2011, Transportation Policy and Access to Health Care, p2-3.
Streets and highways without sidewalks present an unnecessary barrier to walking.10 Auto-oriented
transportation and limited access to walkable streets have resulted in an unhealthy, sedentary lifestyle
with material consequences for public health.11 Over the past 25 years, childhood obesity has steadily
increased as walking trips among children have steadily decreased.12 Obesity and related illnesses
disproportionately affect low-income people and people of color,13 and these public health hazards cost
billions of dollars annually.14 Obesity costs account for approximately 9 percent of all health care spending in the U.S., and part of
these costs are attributable to auto-oriented transportation that inadvertently limits opportunities for physical activity.15
B. Mortality rate from obesity is very high--Over 160,000 deaths a year.
Weight-control Information Network, 2010, “Overweight and Obesity Statistics,”
National Institute of Diabetes
and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, February 2010, http://win.niddk.nih.gov/statistics/index.htm
Most studies show an increase in mortality rates associated with obesity.Individuals who are obese have a
significantly increased risk of death from all causes, compared with healthy weight individuals (BMI 18.5
to 24.9). The increased risk varies by cause of death, and most of this increased risk is due to
cardiovascular causes.[11] Obesity is associated with over 112,000 excess deaths due to cardiovascular
disease, over 15,000 excess deaths due to cancer, and over 35,000 excess deaths due to non-cancer, noncardiovascular disease causes per year in the U.S. population, relative to healthy-weight individuals.
C. Decreased life expectancy for young adults is too high and getting worse.
Lindholm, 2011, (Raymond Lindholm, Georgia State University College of Law, Center for Health, Law, &
Society) “Combating childhood obesity: A survey of laws affecting the built environments of low-income and
minority children”, Review of Environment and Health 2011
Nationally, an estimated 10.58 million children between 10 and 17 years of age are overweight and obese
(5). This alarming number is of great concern due primarily to the major economic and health
implications that obesity carries over the course of a child’s lifetime. Overweight children are at an
increased risk of becoming obese adults, and as many as 80% of obese adolescents will become obese
adults (8). In turn, obese adults face major health problems as well as shortened life expectancy, ranging
anywhere from 8 years in the case of highly obese middle-aged white-American females to 20 years for
severely obese black-American males (9). Decreased life expectancy for obese young adults today is
estimated to reach as high as 25% (10). Because of the major health implications that accompany
overweight and obesity, for the first time in modern history, experts are predicting that the children of
today will have a lower life expectancy than their parents (9).
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1AC
FOUR: SOLVENCY
Now is an important time for securing social equity in transportation. Follow Rosa Parks’ example
in the 21st Century.
Litman and Brenman, 2011. (Todd Litman--Victoria Policy Institute and Marc Brenman—Social Justice
Constituency and Senior Policy Advisor to the City Project) “New Social Equity Agenda for Sustainable
Transportation (Draft for Discussion)”, March 3, 2011, p.2.
On 1 December 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Louise McCauley Parks, an African American
woman, refused to obey a bus driver’s order to give her seat to a white passenger. This began the
Montgomery Bus Boycott, a major event in the U.S. civil rights movement which helped achieve more equitable public policies.
How much progress has occurred since? Racial discrimination is now illegal in business, education and employment, and various policies and
programs exist to protect minority groups. However, many people still suffer inequities in their ability to access public services and economic
opportunities.
In terms of transportation, most Montgomery, Alabama African American residents who can drive and afford an
automobile are probably better off now because they have more mobility and do not face daily racial
discrimination. However, residents of all races who either cannot drive or would prefer to use alternative
modes (because they dislike driving, want to save money, or enjoy the physical activity and social
interactions of walking, cycling and public transit) are probably worse off because their communities are
less walkable, bus service declined and development patterns are more sprawled. Transport system
discrimination has changed: it results less from race or ethnicity and more from disability and poverty.
This is an important and timely issue. A number of demographic and economic trends are increasing
consumer demand for alternative modes and more accessible, walkable communities (Litman 2006), and many
citizens, public officials and practitioners sincerely want to address social equity objectives (Sanchez and Brenman 2007). It is therefore
important to develop comprehensive and practical methods for evaluating transportation social equity
impacts and achieving social equity objectives.
Need to mandate equitable distribution of active transportation resources
Garcia et al, 2009. (Robert Garcia--The City Project, Los Angeles, CA, America Bracho and Patricia Cantero-Latino Health Access, Santa Ana, CA, and Beth Glenn—School of Public Health and Johnsson Comprehensive
Cancer Center, UCLA), “’Pushing Physical Activity, and Justice’”, Preventive Medicine, 49 (2009) 330–33
Increasing the availability of safe-space for physical activity (Babey et al., 2008), opportunities to engage
in physical activity during the school day (Cawley et al., 2007), and access to and use of public transportation (Lachapelle and Frank, 2009) are environmental strategies that have been found to be related to
increased physical activity levels. Low-income, ethnic minority families are less likely to have access to parks or other space for
physical activity (Estabrooks et al., 2003), less likely to engage in physical activity during leisure time (Brown et al., 2005) and are more
dependent on public transportation (Mather, 2009). Evidence is accumulating that promoting mass transit use may
be a
promising strategy to increase physical activity levels (Lachapelle and Frank, 2009). However, lowincome and minority communities, those most likely to need public transit and who may be more likely to
benefit from its use from a physical activity standpoint often have poorest access to these resources. Thus,
these environmental change approaches hold the promise of being particularly beneficial for
socioeconomically marginalized groups. Therefore, we propose that efforts should be made to mandate
the equitable distribution of public resources that will ultimately increase physical activity levels in the
population.
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Investing in active transportation is the best policy for decreasing obesity
Oglilve et al, 2011, (David Ogilvie--Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit and the UKCRC Centre for Diet and Activity
Research (CEDAR); Fiona Bull--School of Sport, Exercise and Health Science, Loughborough University, UK, and the School of Population
Health, University of Western Australia. Jane Powell--University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. Ashley R. Cooper--Department of
Exercise, Nutrition and Health Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK. Christian Brand--Environmental Change Institute, University of
Oxford, Oxford, UK. Nanette Mutrie---Department of Sport, Culture and the Arts, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK. John Preston--School
of Civil Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton, UK. Harry Rutter--National Obesity Observatory, Oxford, UK. “An
Applied Ecological Framework for Evaluating Infrastructure to Promote Walking and Cycling: The iConnect Study” American Journal of Public
Health March 2011, Vol 101, No. 3 |
Interest in the relation between transportation and public health traditionally has focused on adverse local
effects of motor traffic such as noise, air pollution, and injuries1 but now also recognizes the potential
health benefits of promoting walking and cycling and the wider adverse effects of dependence on motor
vehicles.2 Walking and cycling offer an ideal opportunity for people to incorporate physical activity into
their daily lives, reducing their risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes and coronary heart disease.3,4 A
population shift toward more ‘‘active travel’’ also could help reduce traffic congestion and carbon
emissions, to which the use of motor vehicles makes a large and inequitably distributed contribution.5–9
Improving the infrastructure for walking and cycling recently has been identified as one of the most
important policy recommendations for tackling obesity in both the United States and the United
Kingdom.9,10 Such recommendations are largely based on evidence from cross- sectional studies
showing that certain characteristics of the physical environment—such as the design of residential
neighborhoods and the availability of routes for walking and cycling— may be associated with patterns of
physical activity in general and walking and cycling in particular.11,12 However, evidence is limited
from studies of actual interventions to show that altering transportation infrastructure or other aspects of
the built environment has led to an increase in walking or cycling or a modal shift away from car use, let
alone changes in overall physical activity or carbon emissions.13–15
Transportation infrastructure must be improved to solve social exclusion and improve health of
minority and low-income communities
The Leadership Conference Education Fund, 2011, Transportation Policy and Access to Health Care, p.1.
Transportation policy can make a positive impact on health conditions by increasing options for
commuters, reducing air pollution, and creating better connections to health services. Conversely,
transportation policy that fails to take into account the needs of low-income and minority communities
can have extreme and cascading health consequences.
Lack of access to affordable transportation is a major contributor to health disparities. It isolates
low-income people from health care facilities and forces families to spend a large percentage of their
budgets on cars and other expensive options, at the expense of other needs, including health care.1 Our
transportation policy also generates public health problems that disproportionately affect low-income
communities and communities of color. As Congress considers a reauthorization of our nation’s surface
transportation programs, which will allocate significant federal funds to transportation infrastructure, civil
and human rights advocates have an opportunity to advance public health through participation in the
transportation policy making process.
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Need to shift direction of programming
Bradley, et al. 2011. Road to Recovery: Transforming America’s Transportation Infrastructure. (Bill Bradley—former US Senator,
Currently Managing Director Allan and Company; Thomas J. Ridge—Former Pennsylvania Governor and Secretary of Homeland Security,
Currently CEO of Ridge Global; David M. Walker, former US Comptroller General and Current CEO of Comeback America Initiative) Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace
p. 50-1 A paradigm shift is needed in the way Americans think about transportation, the services they
demand from the nation’s transportation system, and the investments they make in this system. The
country needs to shift its focus from seeking mobility to providing greater access, from increasing the
speed of travel to improving the reliability and efficiency of transportation services, and from building
singular transportation projects to efficiently managing transportation networks. The national concept of
transportation has evolved from a glorification of the “freedom of the open road” to an appreciation of the
more fundamental freedom of economic, social, and environmental sustainability
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Inherency Extensions
The following arguments all support the argument that current planning and spending on
transit and transportation is deficient and poorly targeted. The first set of arguments support the
argument that there is insufficient funding for active transportation now and argue that there is
no successful program devoted to assuring equity in the distribution of federal transportation
funding. The last set of arguments merely indicates that the current planning for transportation
systems does not factor the needs of communities.
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Inherency: No Funding for Active Transportation
1. Transportation funds for Public Health and Safety are declining
American Public Health Association, 2009 AT THE INTERSECTION OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND TRANSPORTATION:
Promoting Healthy Transportation Policy, p9
The research and training components in the federal transportation bill that focus on public health and
safety are limited.
The funding (authorized and appropriated) for all of the public health and safety programs from 2005–
2009 is shown in a table on page 12 of this report. The money spent on public health and safety programs
is minimal. In addition, spending on programs that improve public health has received limited increases in
funding from year to year and even decreases in some programs. The actual funds that are appropriated
for public health programs are generally lower than authorized, which is not surprising given the deficits
in the overall economy and within the federal transportation budget.
2. Potential of active transit recognized but US lags behind other countries
Dill, 2009. (Jennifer Dill, Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning, Portland State University). “Bicycling for Transportation
and Health: The Role of Infrastructure, Journal of Public Health Policy (2009) 30, S95–S110. doi:10.1057/jphp.2008.56
To help address health and other policy concerns, policy makers and professionals are looking at
ways to increase the use of walking and bicycling for everyday travel. While most of the focus on ‘‘active
living’’ has been on walking, bicycling may have a greater potential to substitute for motorized vehicle
trips because of its faster speed and ability to cover greater distances. Bicycle commuting has been shown
to be an activity that meets recommended intensity levels (1) and to be related to lower rates of
overweight and obesity (2).
The potential for bicycling as a transportation mode has been recognized nationally through
objectives to raise bicycling rates (3) and significant increases in funding for building new infrastructure
(4). Several states and cities have also adopted aggressive policies and programs to increase bicycling
(5,6). However, the United States lags far behind many other developed countries, particularly several
European countries, with respect to the share of people traveling by bicycle (7,8). Moreover, most bicycle
travel in the United States, particularly among adults, is for recreation, not daily travel. This is in contrast
to bicycling in countries such as the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany (7,9).
3. Without bike infrastructure, it will be difficult to get people to switch
Dill, 2009. (Jennifer Dill, Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning, Portland State University). “Bicycling for Transportation
and Health: The Role of Infrastructure, Journal of Public Health Policy (2009) 30, S95–S110. doi:10.1057/jphp.2008.56
The preference for traveling on bike paths and boulevards is consistent with the priority the bicyclists
placed on routes that avoid streets with lots of vehicle traffic. However, the participants placed almost
equal importance on minimizing trip distances. Without a well-connected network of bike lanes, paths,
and boulevards, along with low-traffic neighborhood streets without specific bicycle infrastructure,
meeting these two priorities simultaneously would be difficult.
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4. Cycling low now—less than 1% in US lowest in world
Tight, et al, 2011. (Miles Tight--Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, Paul Timms--Institute for Transport Studies,
University of Leeds, David Banister--Oxford University Centre for the Environment, Jemma Bowmaker--SURFACE Inclusive Design Research
Centre, University of Salford, Jonathan Copas--School of Computing Science, University of East Anglia, Andy Day--School of Computing
Science, University of East Anglia, David Drinkwater--School of Computing Science, University of East Anglia, Moshe Givoni--Oxford
University Centre for the Environment, Astrid Gühnemann--Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, Mary Lawler--Institute for
Transport Studies, University of Leeds, James Macmillen--Oxford University Centre for the Environment, Andrew Miles--Centre for Research of
Socio-Cultural Change, University of Manchester, Niamh Moore--Centre for Research of Socio-Cultural Change, University of Manchester, Rita
Newton--SURFACE Inclusive Design Research Centre, University of Salford, Dong Ngoduy--Institute for Transport Studies, University of
Leeds, Marcus Ormerod--SURFACE Inclusive Design Research Centre, University of Salford, Maria O’Sullivan--SURFACE Inclusive Design
Research Centre, University of Salford, David Watling-- Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds “Visions for a walking and cycling
focussed urban transport system” Journal of Transport Geography 19 (2011) 1580–1589
Internationally, the United States and Canada have even lower levels of cycling, with approximately 1%
and 2% of urban trips being made by bicycle in these countries respectively. In contrast, much higher
levels of cycling are apparent in some parts of Northern Europe, with 28% of urban trips in the
Netherlands made by bicycle (Pucher and Dijkstra, 2000), perhaps partly as a result of provision of high
quality facilities and recent initiatives to promote policies such as bike and ride (Martens, 2006). Bassett
et al. (2008) compared walking and cycling trips between various countries – around a quarter of trips in
the UK are by walk or cycle, compared to just over 30% in Denmark, Finland, Germany and Sweden and
close to 50% in the Netherlands. In many European cities, walking and cycling account for over 50% of
all trips, and most recently in the UK the Sustainable Travel Demonstration Towns (DfT, 2007b) have
already recorded substantial increases in walking and cycling. However, formidable obstacles to walking
remain such as low density sprawl generating long trip distances, narrow or non-existent footways,
inadequate crossing facilities and the growth of motorised traffic.
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Inherency AT: Equity is improving now
Studies prove that current policies tend to increase the rich-poor transportation gap even if overall
access levels to transportation are improved
Martens et al, 2012, [Karel Martens, Institute for Management Research, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The
Netherlans; Aaron Golub, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning and School of Sustainability,
Arizona State U; Glenn Robinson, School of Engineering and Institute for Urban Research, Morgan State
University, “A justice-theoretic approach to the distribution of transportation benefits: Implications for
transportation planning practice in the United States,” Transportation Research A 46 (2012), 684-695
When the state of practice is compared to the maximax approach, the following pictures ensue (Fig. 2).
On the left side of the figure, the conventional practice produces rising access for the most mobile, with a
rising average, but with a likely growing gap between those with the highest and the lowest level of
access. Those least mobile would likely experience declining access as land uses may reorganize around
the changing mobility patterns (e.g. spatial mismatch problem). On the right, the maximax approach
shows how more investments benefiting low-access populations would help them ‘‘catch up’’ to some
extent with the most mobile, closing the difference up until the predefined maximal acceptable gap,
similarly raising the average access levels for everyone, while possibly also benefiting those with the
most access.
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Inherency: Current Planning Fails
1. Current modeling methods tend to reinforce the unequal distribution of transportation
access
Martens, Karel, 2006. Radboud University Nijemegan, “Basing Transport Planning on Principles of Justice,” Berkeley Planning Journal,
19 (1), 1-15, 2006 http://escholarship.org/uc/item/0tg6v7tn
A further analysis of the four-step model augments this argument.
From a social justice perspective, the first step of the
model is of key importance. In this step, the number of trips per household is predicted for some year in
the future. Generally, households are distinguished according to a number of characteristics, the most
important of which are household size, car ownership level, and household income. Then, for each
household type, the average number of trips is calculated using large-scale travel data. These average trip
rates, in turn, are used to forecast future trip generation levels at the level of transport activity zones. Table
1 presents a typical example of the trip rates used in transport modeling. The table shows, for instance, that a one-person household with a car is
predicted to make more than seven times as many trips per day as a one-person household without a car. These differences in trip
generation rates translate into the results of the transport model and, ultimately, into suggestions for major
transport capacity improvements.
By ignoring the fact that current travel patterns are a reflection of the way in which transport resources
have been distributed in the past, transport models thus create an inherent feedback loop. The models use
the high trip rates among car owners in the present to predict high trip rates among car owners in the
future. These predictions favor policies that cater to this growth through improved services for car owners
(e.g., road building or investment in costly rapid rail). These improved services, in turn, result in higher
trip rates among car owners and the circle begins again, as shown in Figure 3.
This analysis can be translated into social justice terms. The fact that current approaches to transport modeling aim to
forecast future travel demand suggests an implicit assumption that demand constitutes the just principle
upon which to distribute new transport facilities. After all, the forecast of future travel demand is the basis
for generating policy recommendations about future investments in transport infrastructure. While
traditional transportation planning has thus focused on the overall performance of the transport network, a
social justice approach would focus on the distribution of transport investments over population groups
and the related performance of the network for each of these groups. Since the criterion of demand
encompasses current wants backed by a willingness and an ability to pay (Hay and Trinder 1991), the
future distribution of a good based on this criterion will essentially reflect the current distribution of
income in society. Transport modeling based on demand will thus tend to recommend transport
improvements that serve the rich rather than the poor.
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Inherency: Current Planning Fails
2. Current planning fails. If favors the most mobile at the expense of the least mobile
Martens et al, 2012, [Karel Martens, Institute for Management Research, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlans; Aaron Golub,
School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning and School of Sustainability, Arizona State U; Glenn Robinson, School of Engineering and
Institute for Urban Research, Morgan State University, “A justice-theoretic approach to the distribution of transportation benefits: Implications
for transportation planning practice in the United States,” Transportation Research A 46 (2012), 684-695
Historical processes of urban segregation and social containment resulting from job, housing and
lending discrimination left many low-income and minority residents concentrated in central cities (e.g.,
Bayor, 1988; Mohl, 1993; White, 1982). The barriers posed by the costs of automobile ownership in
combination with public transportation systems ill-equipped to service center-city to suburban trips,
resulted in a well-documented spatial mismatch (Ihlanfeldt and Sjoquist, 1998), sometimes called
‘‘automobile mismatch’’ (Ong and Blumenberg, 1998). These populations, who are relatively less mobile
and will pose fewer demands on the road network, will benefit less from road investments than the most
mobile. In effect, the gap between the least and most mobile is likely to grow under a mainstream
transport planning process focused on congestion mitigation (Martens and Hurvitz, 2011). This
distributional ethic is hardly ever discussed explicitly.
3. Current planning favors the most mobile and increases the transit gap
Martens et al, 2012, [Karel Martens, Institute for Management Research, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlans; Aaron Golub,
School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning and School of Sustainability, Arizona State U; Glenn Robinson, School of Engineering and
Institute for Urban Research, Morgan State University, “A justice-theoretic approach to the distribution of transportation benefits: Implications
for transportation planning practice in the United States,” Transportation Research A 46 (2012), 684-695
The other logic for transit investments is to use higher performance systems to address regional
congestion issues. Services, such as express bus, regional rail and commuter rail systems, are developed
for commuters and higher income populations for peak-hour, mostly work trip, accessibility needs. Here,
access levels by car and public transport are somewhat related to each other: when the access level of the
most mobile is threatened (due to congestion, etc.), the access level of the least mobile (those without a
car) may be improved by the new transit investments. Sometimes, however, the transit investments made
to serve the most mobile hardly benefit the least mobile (Mann, 2004).
This bifurcation in public transport planning can lead to tensions when funding gets shuffled
between services for low income groups and for commuters (Mann, 2004), but in most places, this dual
system survives because of the overarching goals of both minimal welfare for the poor and car-less, and
regional congestion and air quality management. The main conclusion from practice is that the
distribution of access benefits between places and between modes is not considered explicitly, but results
from an ad hoc system of improvements (or sometimes downgrading) which tend to favor, over time,
improving services for the most mobile. While average access levels grow, so does the gap in access
levels between the most and least mobile (Fig. 2).
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Inherency: Current Planning Fails
4. Even when Environmental justice is considered in planning, social justice is ignored
Martens, Karel, 2006. Radboud University Nijemegan, “Basing Transport Planning on Principles of Justice,”
Berkeley Planning Journal, 19 (1), 1-15, 2006 http://escholarship.org/uc/item/0tg6v7tn
This emphasis on the environmental impacts of the transport sector contrasts sharply with the still
limited consideration for the social justice dimension of sustainable transport. The recent literature on
justice and transport is largely disconnected from the sustainability discourse, and the number of policy
initiatives that address the gaps in mobility and accessibility between population groups has been limited.
Much of the literature deals with issues like accessibility poverty (Higgs and White 1997; Denmark 1998; Blumenberg 2002) and transport
exclusion (Church et al. 2000; Hine and Grieco 2003), without exploring the broader implications for a comprehensive transport policy that
integrates all three dimensions of sustainable development. Most policy initiatives, in turn, do not insert equity
considerations into mainstream transport policy, but merely add auxiliary instruments to address the
special needs of weak population groups. Such “stop-gap” policies include the U.S. Welfare toWork
program (Blumenberg 2004), and the recent U.K. experiments with accessibility planning (Lucas 2006).
This narrow perspective is reflected in the development of two key tools of transport planning:
transport modeling and cost-benefit analysis. Over the past two decades, both tools have been adapted so as to better address the
environmental impacts of the transport sector. In contrast, the implications of the social justice component of
sustainability for transport modeling and cost-benefit analysis have hardly been explored. This article aims to
begin filling that void. It provides a critical analysis of both transport modeling and cost-benefit analysis from the perspective of social justice.
Social justice is understood here as the morally proper distribution of goods and bads across members of
society (Elster 1992; Miller 1999a). Although both transport modeling and cost-benefit analysis implicitly help determine the
distribution of transport-related goods and bads, there has hardly been any explicit reflection on the distributional
mechanisms that are currently built into both planning tools. The aim of this paper is to critically discuss these main
distributional mechanisms and suggest possible alternatives. These alternatives, apart from promoting equity in the field
of transport, are also expected to strengthen the trend towards a more sustainable transport system.
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Harm Extensions
The arguments that follow are designed to strengthen the harm contentions of the
affirmative. The first set of arguments defends the idea that social inequity in transportation
spending is widespread. The second set of arguments extends the idea that social inequity has
several major impacts including racism, poverty, and environmental justice. The final collection
of arguments defends the idea that reliance on inactive transportation furthers public health
problems and, further that the public health impacts are worse in low-income communities and
communities of color.
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Transportation inequity pervades society
1. Access to social institutions is not equal
Martens et al, 2012. [Karel Martens, Institute for Management Research, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlans; Aaron Golub,
School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning and School of Sustainability, Arizona State U; Glenn Robinson, School of Engineering and
Institute for Urban Research, Morgan State University] “A justice-theoretic approach to the distribution of transportation benefits: Implications
for transportation planning practice in the United States,” Transportation Research A 46 (2012), 684-695
It may be obvious that in contemporary society, the distribution of access is far from equal. Access levels
between individuals differ substantially, whether in terms of space, mode availability or income. The
level of access a person may experience is strongly related to three characteristics. First, space is an
important determinant of access, as the location of a person’s residence has a strong impact on access to
various opportunities (Naess, 2006). Second, mode availability, and especially car ownership or, more
broadly, availability, strongly shapes a person’s level of access (e.g., Benenson et al., 2010; Ong and
Blumenberg, 1998; Taylor and Ong, 1995; Sanchez et al., 2003). Third, and interrelated, income has a
substantial influence on level of access, given the cost related to every trip and a person’s ability to pay
(e.g. Levinson, 2010). Following the ‘default’ status of the principle of equality, the question is whether
people should have equal level of access, irrespective of space, mode or income considerations? Below,
we turn to this question for space and mode availability. We leave the treatment of justice in access in
relation to income differences to a later discussion, as it concerns issues of transport pricing rather than
the benefits of investments in transportation infrastructure and services.
2. Greater transportation mobility for society at large leads to greater transportation poverty
for the socially excluded
Karen Lucas, 2012, Transport Studies Unit, University of Oxford, ‘Transport and social exclusion: Where are we now?” Transport Policy
20 (2012) 105–113
Kenyon et al. (2003: 210) offered the following, widely-cited definition of transport-related social
exclusion, highlighting its accessibility and mobility dimensions:
‘[It is] The process by which people are prevented from participating in the economic, political and social
life of the community because of reduced accessibility to opportunities, services and social networks, due
in whole or part to insufficient mobility in a society and environment built around the assumption of high
mobility’
This definition is particularly cogent in the transport context because it identifies the relational nature of
the problem, i.e. that it is the high and increasing levels of mobility within the population as a whole that
is a key causal factor in the reduced, accessibility and, ultimately, exclusion of less mobile sectors of the
population.
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Transportation inequity pervades society
3. Favoring automobile increase social inequity and increases dependence on the automobile
even further
Litman and Brenman, 2011. (Todd Litman--Victoria Policy Institute and Marc Brenman—Social Justice Constituency and Senior
Policy Advisor to the City Project) “New Social Equity Agenda for Sustainable Transportation (Draft for Discussion)”, March 3, 2011, p. 5.
Planning that favors automobile travel is inequitable in several ways:
•
Non-drivers as a group receive less than their fair share of transport funding which is unfair (horizontally
inequitable). For example, in a typical urban area, 10-20% of trips are made by non- motorized modes yet only 2-5%
of total government transportation budgets are devoted to non- motorized facilities, and an even small portion
including private expenditures on parking facilities mandated in local zoning laws.
•
Wider roads and higher motor vehicle traffic volumes and speeds impose delay, risk, discomfort and
pollution on other road users, particularly pedestrians and cyclists.
•
Since physically, economically and socially disadvantaged people tend to rely heavily on walking, cycling
and public transit (or described differently, people who drive less than average tend to be disadvantaged compared
with high-annual-mileage motorists), these impacts tend to be regressive (vertically inequitable).
•
These policies tend to cause automobile-dependency: transport systems and land use patterns which favor
automobile access. This provides inferior access for non-drivers, and transport costs on lower-income households
(Agrawal 2011).
Current environmental justice analysis often overlooks these impacts. These impacts may be
considered if non-drivers are a geographically-concentrated, legally-recognized minority group,
but not if the people who are harmed are geographically dispersed (such as people with
disabilities) or not politically influential (such as teenagers).
4. The wealthy can opt out of public transportation creating a disincentive to generate socially
just transportation policy
Karen Lucas, 2012, Transport Studies Unit, University of Oxford, ‘Transport and social exclusion: Where are we now?” Transport Policy
20 (2012) 105–113
Time geographers have also opened up further challenges for the study of transport-related disadvantage, in particular their consideration of the
issue from a time-space perspective. Theorists here focus on the fundamental societal changes that have taken place
over the last fifty years in spatial organisation of society (e.g. Miller 1999; Dijst et al., 2005; Neutens et al., 2009). These
structural changes have created new inequalities in the opportunities that are available to different people
within given timeframes, causing time-poverty based exclusion for certain social groups, particularly working
women with children (Priya Uteng, 2009; Schwanen, 2011). The demands of tight scheduling, multi-tasking and multiple responsibilities are
experienced differently by different population groups and by people living in different locations, particularly people living in rural areas and on
peripheral urban estates (Lucas, 2004).
The particular insight time geography offers to the analysis of transport-related exclusion is that often it is people’s own preferences, needs and
attitudes which determine the transport choices that are available to them. In this case, the transport disadvantages or time poverty that they
experience may be the product of self-enforced, rather than externally imposed, physical isolation and exclusion (Currie and Delbosc, 2010).
Barry (2002) refers to this form of self-imposed exclusion in his chapter entitled ‘Social Exclusion,
Isolation and Income’, finding that:
‘The private car is the enemy of social solidarity in as much as public transport is its friend. The private
car isolates people and puts them in competition with other road users’ (Barry, 2002: 26)
He suggests that the problem of higher income sectors of the population effectively ‘opting out’ from the
use of public services is all part of the dynamic nature of the problem of social exclusion and also needs
to be addressed by policy.
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Social Inequity reinforces Racism
1. Transportation racism is a social justice and civil rights issue
Bullard, 2004. (Robert D. Bullard—Ware Professor Sociology, Director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center, Clark Atlanta
University). Highway Robbery, Transportation Racism, & New Routes to Equity (eds. Robert D. Bullard, Glenn S. Johnson, and Angel O.
Torres), 2004.
The struggle against transportation racism has always been about civil rights, social justice, equity, and
fair treatment. For more than a century, African Americans and other people of color have struggled to
end transportation racism. Harbingers of the modern civil rights movement, Rosa Parks and the
Montgomery Bus Boycott of the 1950s challenged transportation racism. Later, the Freedom Riders of
the 1960s defied “Jim Crow” on interstate transportation. Despite the heroic efforts of many and the
monumental human rights gains over the past five decades, transportation remains a civil rights and
quality of life issued. Unfortunately, it appears that transportation—civil rights issues have dropped off
the radar screens of many mainstream civil rights and social justice organizations at a time when racist
political forces disguised as “conservatives” attempt to roll back and dismantle many hard-won civil
rights gains. It is time to refocus attention on the role transportation plays in shaping human interaction,
economic mobility, and sustainability. From New York City to Los Angeles, and a host of cities in
between, people of color are banding together to challenge unfair, unjust, and illegal transportation
policies and practices that relegate them to the back of the bus. P. 1-2
2. Transportation is a human right
Bullard, 2004. (Robert D. Bullard—Ware Professor Sociology, Director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center, Clark Atlanta
University). Highway Robbery, Transportation Racism, & New Routes to Equity (eds. Robert D. Bullard, Glenn S. Johnson, and Angel O.
Torres), 2004.
From Rosa Parks and the brave souls who risked their lives in the Montgomery Bus Boycott to
John Lewis and the Freedom Riders, individual and organizational frontal assaults on racist transportation
policies and practices represent attempts to literally dismantle the infrastructure of oppression. Natural
heirs of the civil rights legacy, the Los Angeles Bus Riders in the 1990s and hundreds of grassroots
groups in the early years of the new millennium have taken to our nation’s buses, trains, streets, and
highways and joined the battle against transportation racism. Transportation racism hurts people of color
communities by depriving their residents of valuable resources, investments, and mobility. This book
represents a small but significant part of the transportation equity movement—a movement that is
redefining transportation as and environmental, economic, civil, and human right. P.2
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Social Inequity reinforces Racism
3. Transportation racism determines access to social good
Bullard, 2004. (Robert D. Bullard—Ware Professor Sociology, Director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center, Clark Atlanta
University). Highway Robbery, Transportation Racism, & New Routes to Equity (eds. Robert D. Bullard, Glenn S. Johnson, and Angel O.
Torres), 2004.
Transportation policies did not emerge in a race- and class-neutral society. Transportationplanning outcomes often reflected the biases of their originators with the losers comprised largely of the
poor, powerless, and people of color. Transportation is about more than just land use. Beyond mapping out the paths of freeways
and highways, transportation policies determine the allocation of funds and benefits, the enforcement of environmental regulations, and the siting
of facilities. Transportation planning affects residential and commercial patterns, and infrastructure
development. White racism shapes transportation and transportation-related decisions, which have
consequently created a national transportation infrastructure that denies many black Americans and other
people of color the benefits, freedoms, opportunities, and rewards offered to white Americans. In the end,
racist transportation policies can determine where people of color, live, work, and play. P. 19-20
4. Current transportation planning maintains white privilege and societal segregation
Bullard, 2004. (Robert D. Bullard—Ware Professor Sociology, Director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center, Clark Atlanta
University). Highway Robbery, Transportation Racism, & New Routes to Equity (eds. Robert D. Bullard, Glenn S. Johnson, and Angel O.
Torres), 2004.
Transportation planning has duplicated the discrimination used by other racist government
institutions and private entities to maintain white privilege. The transportation options that are available
to most Americans today were shaped largely by federal policies as well as individuals and institutional
discrimination. Transportation options are further restricted by both the geographic changes that have taken place in the nation’s
metropolitan regions and historical job discrimination dictating limited incomes. Transportation decision-making is political. Building
roads in the job-rich suburbs while at the same time blocking transit from entering these same suburbs are
political decisions buttressed by race and class dynamics. In cities and metropolitan regions all across the
country, inadequate or nonexistent suburban transit serves as invisible “Keep Out” signs directed against
people of color and the poor. P. 20
5. Hispanics suffer social inequity from highway expansion
Chi and Parisi, 2011. (Guanqging Chi and Domenico Parisi—Department of Sociology and Social Science Research Center, Mississippi
State University). “Highway Expansion Effects on Urban Racial Redistribution in the Post-Civil Rights Period,” Public Works Management
Policy, 2011. 16:40. http://pwm.sagepub.com/content/16/1/40
Hispanic population changes were also affected by other factors. For example, census tracts that
experienced overall population growth tended to experience Hispanic growth. Tracts with higher
percentages of Hispanics in 1970 experienced Hispanic growth, suggesting that Hispanic migrants
considered the social network when choosing their residency location. Tracts with good public
transportation facilities and more old housing units in 1970 attracted Hispanics. Tracts with more well-educated
people and higher poverty rates experienced Hispanic decline. That the poverty rate had negative effects on Hispanic growth may simply be due
to that Hispanic growth in the studied areas was largely attributed to Hispanic migrants who came for job opportunities and thus preferred
neighborhoods with lower poverty rate.
In sum, highway expansion affected Black redistribution through its amenity role by providing
convenient access to highways, and highway expansion affected Hispanic redistribution through its
disamenity role by providing lower housing prices. It seems that low housing prices and the presence of
Hispanics were the main driving factors of Hispanic growth.
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Racism Impacts
State racism treats human beings as disposable and expendable causing genocide
Giroux 6 (Henry, the Global TV Network Chair Professorship at McMaster University in the English and Cultural Studies Department,
“Reading Hurricane Katrina: Race, Class, and the Biopolitics of Disposability,” College Literature, Vol. 33, No. 3)
With the social state in retreat and the rapacious dynamics of neoliberalism, unchecked by government
regulations, the public and private policies of investing in the public good are dismissed as bad business, just
as the notion of protecting people from the dire misfortunes of poverty, sickness, or the random blows of fate
is viewed as an act of bad faith. Weakness is now a sin, punishable by social exclusion. This is especially
true for those racial groups and immigrant populations who have always been at risk economically and
politically. Increasingly, such groups have become part of an evergrowing army of the impoverished
and disenfranchised—removed from the prospect of a decent job, productive education, adequate
health care, acceptable child care services, and satisfactory shelter. As the state is transformed into the
primary agent of terror and corporate concerns displace democratic values, dominant “power is
measured by the speed with which responsibilities can be escaped” (Qtd. in Fearn 2006, 30).With its
pathological disdain for social values and public life and its celebration of an unbridled individualism and
acquisitiveness, the Bush administration does more than undermine the nature of social obligation and civic
responsibility; it also sends a message to those populations who are poor and black—society neither
wants, cares about, or needs you (Bauman 1999, 68-69). Katrina revealed with startling and disturbing
clarity who these individuals are: African- Americans who occupy the poorest sections of New Orleans,
those ghettoized frontier-zones created by racism coupled with economic inequality. Cut out of any
long term goals and a decent vision of the future, these are the populations, as Zygmunt Bauman points
out, who have been rendered redundant and disposable in the age of neoliberal global capitalism.
Katrina reveals that we are living in dark times.The shadow of authoritarianism remains after the storm
clouds and hurricane winds have passed, offering a glimpse of its wreckage and terror. The politics of
a disaster that affected Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi is about more than government
incompetence, militarization, socio-economic polarization, environmental disaster, and political
scandal. Hurricane Katrina broke through the visual blackout of poverty and the pernicious ideology of
color-blindness to reveal the government’s role in fostering the dire conditions of largely poor AfricanAmericans, who were bearing the hardships incurred by the full wrath of the indifference and violence
at work in the racist, neoliberal state. Global neoliberalism and its victims now occupy a space shaped
by authoritarian politics, the terrors inflicted by a police state, and a logic of disposability that removes
them from government social provisions and the discourse and privileges of citizenship. One of the most
obvious lessons of Katrina—that race and racism still matter in America—is fully operational through a
biopolitics in which “sovereignty resides in the power and capacity to dictate who may live and who
may die” (Mbembe 11-12).Those poor minorities of color and class, unable to contribute to the prevailing
consumerist ethic, are vanishing into the sinkhole of poverty in desolate and abandoned enclaves of decaying
cities, neighborhoods, and rural spaces, or in America’s ever-expanding prison empire. Under the Bush
regime, a biopolitics driven by the waste machine of what Zygmunt Bauman defines as “liquid modernity”
registers a new and brutal racism as part of the emergence of a contemporary and savage
authoritarianism.
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Racism Impacts – War
1. Racism leads to ethnic cleansing.
Elden 2 (Stuart, PhD of poli sci, Boundary 2 “The War of Races and the Constitution of the State: Foucault’s «Il faut défendre la société» and
the Politics of Calculation” pg.126)
Modern racism replaces the theme of the historical war with the biological theme, postevolutionist,
of the struggle for life. “It is no longer a battle in the sense of a war, but a struggle in a biological
sense: differentiation of species, selection of the strongest, survival of the best adapted races. Indeed,
the theme of the binary society . . . becomes replaced by that of a society which is, on the contrary,
biologically monist’’ (FDS, 70). Similarly, there is a transition in the role of the state. The state no
longer serves the interests of one race against another, but as ‘‘the protector of integrity, of the
superiority and purity of the race’’ (FDS, 70–71). The dominant race does not say ‘‘we must defend
ourselves against society’’ but ‘‘we must defend society against all the biological perils of this other
race, this sub-race, this contra-race which we are in the process of, in spite of ourselves, constituting’’
(FDS, 53). It is not therefore simply a struggle of one 17. Alessandro Fontana and Mauro Bertrani,
“Situation du cours,” social group against another but of a state racism, a racism that society
exercises throughout itself, an internal racism, a permanent purification, one of the fundamental
dimensions of social normalization (FDS, 71).
2. The biopolitical racism of the status quo will not cease its authoritarian genocide until there
is a complete elimination of the racial other
Giroux 6 (Henry, the Global TV Network Chair Professorship at McMaster University in the English and Cultural Studies Department,
“Reading Hurricane Katrina: Race, Class, and the Biopolitics of Disposability,” College Literature, Vol. 33, No. 3)
Within the last few decades, matters of state sovereignty in the new world order have been retheorized so as to
provide a range of theoretical insights about the relationship between power and politics, the political nature of
social and cultural life, and the merging of life and politics as a new form of biopolitics. While the notion of
biopolitics differs significantly among its most prominent theorists, including Michel Foucault (1990, 1997),
Giorgio Agamben (1998, 2002, 2003), and Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (2004), what these theorists share is an
attempt to think through the convergence of life and politics, locating matters of “life and death within our ways of
thinking about and imagining politics” (Dean 2004, 17).Within this discourse, politics is no longer understood
exclusively through a disciplinary technology centered on the individual body—a body to be measured,
surveilled, managed, and included in forecasts, surveys, and statistical projections. Biopolitics points to new
relations of power that are more capacious, concerned not only with the body as an object of disciplinary
techniques that render it “both useful and docile” but also with a body that needs to be “regularized,” subject
to those immaterial means of production that produce ways of life that enlarge the targets of control and
regulation (Foucault 1997, 249). This shift in the workings of both sovereignty and power and the emergence of
biopolitics are made clear by Foucault, for whom biopower replaces the power to dispense fear and death “with
that of a power to foster life—or disallow it to the point of death. . . . [Biopower] is no longer a matter of
bringing death into play in the field of sovereignty, but of distributing the living in the domain of value and
utility. Its task is to take charge of life that needs a continuous regulatory and corrective mechanism”
(Ojakangas 2005, 6). As Foucault insists, the logic of biopower is dialectical, productive, and positive 178 College
Literature 33.3 [Summer 2006] (1990, 136).Yet he also argues that biopolitics does not remove itself from
“introducing a break into the domain of life that is under power’s control: the break between what must live
and what must die” (1997, 255). Foucault believes that the death-function in the economy of biopolitics is
justified primarily through a form of racism in which biopower “is bound up with the workings of a State
that is obliged to use race, the elimination of races and the purification of the race, to exercise its sovereign
power” (258).
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Poverty Advantage
1. Transportation poverty leads to social exclusion and causes economic poverty
Karen Lucas, 2012, Transport Studies Unit, University of Oxford, ‘Transport and social exclusion: Where are we now?” Transport Policy
20 (2012) 105–113
However, it is important to establish, that transport disadvantage and transport-related social exclusion are
not necessarily synonymous with each other, i.e. it is possible to be socially excluded but still have good
access to transport or to be transport disadvantaged but highly socially included (Currie and Delbosc,
2010). Rather transport disadvantage and social disadvantage interact directly and indirectly to cause
transport poverty. This in turn leads to inaccessibility to essential goods and services, as well as ‘lock-out’
from planning and decision-making processes, which can result in social exclusion outcomes and further
social and transport inequalities will then ensue. Fig. 1 is an attempt to illustrate some of these key
interactions.
Transport surveys demonstrate that it is most usually the poorest and most socially disadvantaged within
society who also experience transport disadvantage. Almost every National Travel Survey (NTS)
identifies significant inequalities in the travel patterns and access to transport of lower income populations
in comparison to their higher income counterparts. For example, the 2006 UK NTS identifies that, whilst
on average car ownership levels rest at around 85%, less than 50% of the lowest income quintile
households own a car. Although 40% of individuals in the lowest income households report travelling by
car at least once a week, they make only around one-tenth the car trips of members of one car households
and they make far fewer trips in a week overall, using any mode of transport (Department for Transport,
2007). The annual journey distances of non-car owners is also roughly half that of car owners (ibid) with
the consequence that many people on low incomes also experience social exclusion as a direct or partial
result of these transport inequalities (Social Exclusion Unit, 2003).
2. Transportation Poverty limits employment opportunities
The Community Cycling Center, 2009. “Understanding Barriers to Bicycling Transportation Literature Review”
http://www.communitycyclingcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/understanding-barriers-transportation-review-101909.pdf
The information collected in this review did not reveal specific, proven strategies in marketing bicycle
transportation to low-income, women and minority communities. However, several barriers stand out as
relevant issues facing the ability of these communities to obtain affordable, convenient transportation.
Low-income people make fewer trips per day compared to people with higher incomes, and don’t travel
as far every day. This is likely due to a combination of factors. Higher unemployment means fewer work
commutes. Trip distances in central cities are shorter, resulting in fewer miles traveled on comparable
trips, though this factor may change as low-income communities are priced out of central city
neighborhoods. Low-income people also travel at different times of day, and constitute a larger portion of
trips taken during off-peak hours (a factor which frequently makes transit use challenging or unavailable).
Low-income households that don’t own cars are still likely to make a large portion of their trips by
automobile. This indicates that low-income people carpool often, or are reliant on the use of vehicles
borrowed from friends. A lack of transportation options also restricts employment opportunities, as some
jobs may be prohibitively far away or otherwise inconvenient to travel to on transit or on foot.
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Environmental Justice Advantage
1. Transportation infrastructure causes disparate impacts on minorities and vulnerable
populations
Jacobs, et al, 2010. David E. Jacobs, National Center for Housing, Washington, DC; Rajiv Bhatia, San Francisco Department of Public
Health, San Francisco, CA; and James VanDerslice, University of Utah, “The contributions of physical infrastructure to environmental health
disparities: housing, transportation, and water,” Strengthening Environmental Justice Research and Decision Making: A Symposium on the
Science of Disproportionate Environmental Health Impacts http://epa.gov/compliance/ej/multimedia/albums/epa/ej-symposium/infrastructure.pdf
For transportation infrastructure, this paper presents available evidence for five pathways through which
transportation system infrastructure may cause disproportionate environmental or health impacts on
vulnerable populations. Most directly, infrastructure can displace residents and permanently damage
community structure and integrity. Second, both the construction and operation of infrastructure can
impair (or benefit) walkability and livability. Third, use of motor vehicles on roadways and rail facilities
generates air pollution, noise, and pedestrian hazards, disproportionately affecting residents living
adjacent to these facilities. Fourth, preferential investments in auto-centered transport have generated a
transit-dependent subclass that has substantial barriers to access. Finally, transportation systems facilitate
ethnic- and class-based segregation, contributing to the reproduction of environmental injustice.
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Inactive Transportation is a Public Health Problem
1. Transportation policies favor unhealthy forms of travel
Hutch, et al., 2011 (Daniel J. Hutch is with the Office of Policy, Economics and Innovation, US Environmental Protection Agency, Karen E.
Bouye is with the Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA. Elizabeth Skillen is
with the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, National Center for Preparedness, Detection and Control of Infectious Diseases,Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention Charles Lee is with the Office of Environmental Justice, US Environmental Protection
Agency. LaToria Whitehead is with the Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch, National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. Jamila R. Rashid is with the Office of the Secretary, Office of Minority Health, US Department of Health)
“Collaborative Strategies to Improve Public Health Potential Strategies to Eliminate Built Environment Disparities for Disadvantaged and
Vulnerable Communities,” American Journal of Public Health, April 2011, 101:4
Transportation and business investments. During the past several years, much research has related
transportation and the built environment to public health outcomes. The main feature of these findings is
the association between current transportation networks, their surrounding built environment, and the
increasing incidence of obesity.9 Previous land use and transportation literature suggests that smart
growth—characterized by higher-density, mixed commercial and residential land uses— can reduce
dependency on automobiles and resulting pollution by decreasing travel time to common destinations.
Pedestrian safety and access to transportation are important to disadvantaged and disabled populations. As
the Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities observes,
‘‘Transportation systems designed for cars instead of pedestrians are unfriendly to pedestrians and doubly
unfriendly to those with special transportation needs.’’10
Environmental conditions that stem from automobile-oriented development can increase the incidence of
respiratory impairment, amputations, and disabilities related to diabetes. Smart growth approaches—
including increased transportation choices and a mix of residential and commercial land uses—and
reinvestment in older communities can reduce disadvantaged and disabled people’s social isolation and
lack of access to commerce.
2. Inactive transit systems increases obesity, early mortality, and costs hundreds of billions to
the economy
American Public Health Association, 2009 AT THE INTERSECTION OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND TRANSPORTATION:
Promoting Healthy Transportation Policy, p3
Obesity in the United States is climbing at alarming rates. In fact, obesity is the nation’s fastest rising
public health problem. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 16% of children are
obese (12 million are overweight) and the majority of adults (66%) are overweight or obese.12
Overweight children are more likely to become obese adults. Obesity rates are highest among blacks,
Hispanics, and low-income households.12 Obesity and inactivity lead to many other chronic diseases as
well as high blood pressure, heart disease, osteoarthritis, cancer, stroke, and diabetes.12
Unfortunately, the opportunity to be physically active is being essentially engineered out of daily life.
Communities are spread out with limited connectivity to other communities or services; there is often no
walking/biking or public transit that allows people to get to home, school, work, or play safely.1 Autooriented communities are directly linked to low rates of physical activity.7
The cost of obesity and inactivity to society is enormous and growing. In 2004, the total cost (including
health care and loss of wages) of being obese or overweight was estimated at $117 billion,14 and physical
inactivity’s health care tab runs up to $76 billion per year.15
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Obesity Leads to Mortality
1. Obesity about to overtake smoking as leading cause of death in US
New York Times, 3-10-04, “Death Rate from Obesity Gains Fast on Smoking,” http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/10/us/death-rate-fromobesity-gains-fast-on-smoking.html
Obesity is near to overtaking smoking as the No. 1 cause of death in the United States, government
researchers said on Tuesday, and other research shows that its adverse health effects could soon wipe out
many recent improvements in health.
A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that tobacco use was still the leading
cause of death in 2000, killing 435,000 people, or 18.1 percent of everyone who died.
But poor diet and physical inactivity caused 400,000 deaths, or 16.6 percent of the total, the report said.
An estimated 129.6 million Americans, or 64 percent of the population, are overweight or obese. Obesity
is defined as having a body mass index -- a ratio of weight to height -- of more than 30. That usually
means being 30 pounds overweight for a woman and 35 to 40 pounds overweight for a man of average
height. More than 30 percent of adults in the United States -- or 59 million people -- are obese, according
to the disease control centers. Serious health implications, like heart disease and diabetes risk, are
associated with a body mass index of 30 and above.
If Americans continue to get fatter at current rates, by 2020 about one in five health care dollars spent on
people ages 50 to 69 could be a result of obesity, 50 percent more than is spent now, another study, by the
RAND Corporation, found.
2. Childhood obesity leads to extremely lower quality of life in adulthood
Lindholm, 2011, (Raymond Lindholm, Georgia State University College of Law, Center for Health, Law, & Society) “Combating childhood
obesity: A survey of laws affecting the built environments of low-income and minority children”, Review of Environment and Health 2011
These health challenges translate into an extremely low quality of life for overweight and obese children.
One study found that “health related quality of life for obese children and adolescents was comparable to
that of children diagnosed with cancer.” (11) And for obese children also suffering from obstructive sleep
apnea (OSA), the quality of life was found to be comparable to that of “children undergoing
chemotherapy.” Obesity for these children often results in its own self-perpetuating cycle.
For example, children suffering from OSA do not get the rest they need. Therefore, they have lower levels
of energy, trouble concentrating, and perform poorly in school. This may in turn lead to depression and
other emotional disorders, which in turn may contribute to more sedentary behaviors.
Moreover, studies have shown that overweight and obese individuals are highly stigmatized in society.
They are often viewed as being lazy, ugly, sloppy, or stupid. These stereotypes tend to affect girls more
than boys. Obese adolescent females who become obese adults are more likely to have less education,
lower earning power, higher likelihood of poverty, and a lower likelihood of marriage (11).
Obese individuals are less likely to be admitted to college and may also experience discrimination in
acquiring housing (11). Similarly, obese adults may experience discrimination in obtaining employment
or promotions (12).
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Obesity Leads to Mortality
3. Poor children and children of color suffer from limited access to good transportation
infrastructure substantially increasing health risks
Lindholm, 2011, (Raymond Lindholm, Georgia State University College of Law, Center for Health, Law, & Society) “Combating
childhood obesity: A survey of laws affecting the built environments of low-income and minority children”, Review of Environment and Health
2011
According to Singh et al., “Children living in neighborhoods with no access to sidewalks or
walking paths, parks or playgrounds, and recreation or community centers had 32%, 26%, and 20%
higher adjusted odds of obesity than children in neighborhoods with access to such amenities,
respectively.” The group of children apparently most affected by these built-environment factors is girls
aged 10-11. For these girls, living in neighborhoods with the fewest health-promoting amenities
(sidewalks, parks, trails, recreation centers, etc.) presents a 276% greater likelihood of obesity and 121%
greater likelihood of overweight than girls of the same age living in neighborhoods with the most
amenities. To put these numbers in context, girls age 10-11 are more than twice as likely to be overweight
and obese when compared to any other childhood age group living in similarly deficient neighborhoods
(19). For children in general, the neighborhoods they live in have the following built-environment factors
:








• 26.7 % of children have no access to sidewalks or walking paths;
• 19.2 % have no access to parks or playgrounds;
• 35.0 % have no access to recreation or community centers;
• 14.0 % have no access to libraries or bookmobiles;
• 14.0 % were reported to live in unsafe neighborhoods;
• 17.0 % lived in neighborhoods with litter or garbage on the streets and sidewalks;
• 14.6 % lived in neighborhoods with poor or dilapidated housing; and
• 11.6 % lived in neighborhoods characterized by vandalism, such as broken windows or graffiti (19)
Studies have also found that minorities are more likely to live in neighborhoods with the greatest
number of negative built-environment factors and safety issues. For instance, the Singh study also found
that 26% of black and 23% of Hispanic children were reported to live in unsafe neighborhoods,
compared with 8% of white children (19). As a result of these detrimental built-environment factors,
poor and minority children are at greater risk of overweight and obesity. Specifically, according to the
2007 NSCS report, Black, American Indian/Alaska Native, and Hispanic children have 72%, 74%, and
66% higher odds of obesity and 56%, 51%, and 61% higher odds of overweight respectively than their
non-Hispanic white counterparts when analyzed solely according to their built environments. Analysis of
these same factors from an economic standpoint shows that children below the poverty line had 134 %
higher odds of being obese and 120% higher odds of being overweight when compared with children
with family incomes greater than 400% above the poverty line (19). Taken together, these statistics show
that minority and/or low-income children have a dramatically higher potential of being overweight and
obese. Due to the new and emerging evidence that the built environment plays a major role in this
likelihood, an effective approach to breaking this cycle will be to modify the laws and public policies
creating the detrimental built environment factors in the first place.
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Obesity Leads to Mortality
4. Expensive and limited transportation access increases death rates for the transportation
poor
The Leadership Conference Education Fund, 2011, Transportation Policy and Access to Health Care, p2-3.
The poorest fifth of American families spend 42 percent of their incomes on transportation.16 This massive
expenditure can wipe out already limited budgets for out-of-pocket medical expenses, nutritious food, and healthy
recreational activities. Because affordable housing is increasingly located far from main transportation lines and
jobs, low-income people and people of color are more likely to have long commutes—which reduce time for
exercise, shopping for healthy foods, and additional earning opportunities. 17 Fast-moving traffic on highways
literally may divide communities, especially those with elderly people and people with disabilities, and this isolation
is associated with higher mortality and morbidity in the elderly. 18
5. Health impacts communities of color disproportionately
Lindholm, 2011, (Raymond Lindholm, Georgia State University College of Law, Center for Health, Law, & Society) “Combating childhood
obesity: A survey of laws affecting the built environments of low-income and minority children”, Review of Environment and Health 2011
These statistics represent a more than three-fold increase over the past three decades, with a
disproportionate number coming from poor and minority populations (6). In their 2010 study of the 20072008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), Ogden et al. (6) found that 15.6%
of white-American females between 6 and 19 years of age are obese as compared with 25.9% of blackAmerican females and 19.7% of Mexican-American females in the same age group. Although some
evidence suggests that the trend in overweight among children has begun to stabilize since 2003 (7), the
2007 NSCH report found that a significant rise in levels of obesity continues (5).
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Military Readiness Add-On 1/2
Obesity hurts retention and recruiting
Lisa Danielı, July 23 2012, American Forces Press Service, “Family Matters Blog: Tackling Obesity, for
Security’s Sake”
Concerns about the quick rise in obesity – some call it an epidemic -- and its potential to harm military
readiness are not new. Ever since 100 retired generals and admirals formed the nonprofit organization
“Mission: Readiness” and released its landmark 2010 report “Too Fat to Fight” to convince Congress to
mandate healthy school lunches, federal officials, at least, have known of the military imperative to
reverse the fat trend. The report included the services’ assessment that 75 percent of the nation’s 17- to
24-year-olds do not qualify for military service – mostly due to obesity.
Those concerns were reiterated last month when the Bipartisan Policy Center released its report, “Lots to
Lose,” which shows alarming trends not only in recruiting, but also in retention due to overweight
problems. The report notes that nutrition concerns for service members and recruits factored into
President Harry S. Truman’s decision to mandate the federal school lunch program. The focus then,
however, was vitamin deficiencies.
Additional link: Defense budget goes to medical care for obesity and expensive evacuations due to
obesity. There are more evacuations from combat zone due to fitness than to combat.
Alliances for Obesity Prevention: Finding Common Ground: Workshop Summary, 2012, p. 8
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_kl=13305&page=8
Beyond its effects on recruitment and retention, obesity imposes a significant financial burden on
the military for medical care. DoD spends about $1.1 billion annually on the military for medical care.
DoD spends about $1.1 billion annually on medical care associated with excess weight and obesity for
active-duty personnel, their dependents, and veterans (Dall et al., 20007)
The lack of physical fitness that often accompanies obesity also has a negative effect on military
readiness. Today’s recruits have the highest body mass index (BMI) on record, Barnett stated. As a
result of the shrinking number of young people eligible for service, the military has created waivers for
slightly overweight young adults who can pass the fitness test. These heavier recruits are 47 percent more
likely to have a sprain, a stress fracture, or some other overuse injury than those who are not overweight.
(Cowan et al., 2011). These types of injuries can force recruits to repeat boot camp or leave the military
altogether. These injuries also are responsible for one-quarter of all medical evacuations from Iraq and
Afghanistan to medical facilities in Germany, compared with 14 percent of medical evacuations due to
combat injuries (Cohen et al., 2010). In other words, said Barnett, “soldiers are 71 percent more likely to
be evacuated out of Iraq or Afghanistan for a serious sprain or stress fracture than they are for a combat
wound.”
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Military Readiness Add-On 2/2
IMPACT: Maintaining high recruitment levels is key to maintaining military readiness.
Flournoy and Hunt, 2008 (Michele, senior associate at CSIS, Alice, research associate for CNAS, Military
Readiness Overview: Ready or Not? U.S. Military Readiness Now and for the Future,
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2008/changeforamerica/pdf/readiness.pdf)
The United States faces an unusually daunting set of national security challenges—the global network of
violent Islamist extremists, instability in Pakistan, a hostile Iran bent on acquiring nuclear weapons, a
rising China, a resurgent Russia, and a host of weak and failing states. The new president must therefore
give high priority to restoring the readiness of the U.S. military for the full spectrum of possible missions.
As a global power with global interests, the United States needs its armed forces to be ready to respond whenever and wherever our strategic
interests are threatened.
Readiness 101
Readiness measures the degree to which a military force is prepared for and capable of conducting operational missions. In peacetime, the U.S.
military prepares for a broad range of missions derived from the National Security Strategy, the National Military Strategy, and the operational
plans of the regional combatant commanders. During times of war, units slated to deploy focus their preparation on the specific missions they will
be tasked to undertake in the given theater of operations.
A military force does not have a high level of readiness unless it has the personnel, training, and
equipment it needs to accomplish its assigned missions. It can be judged unready if, for example, a unit
does not have enough deployable personnel to fill out its ranks or does not have people with the right mix
of skill sets. It can also be judged unready if a unit has not successfully completed the individual and unit training required for a given
mission, or if it lacks a full complement of functioning equipment. Recruiting and retaining personnel, having time and facilities
available for training, and acquiring and maintaining equipment all affect a unit’s ability to maintain readiness.
The impact is global war.
Spencer, 2000 (Jack, Senior research fellow specializing in nuclear energy policy at the Heritage Foundation, “The
Facts About Military Readiness”, http://www.heritage.org/about/staff/s/jack-spencer)
Military readiness is vital because declines in America's military readiness signal to the rest of the world
that the United States is not prepared to defend its interests. Therefore, potentially hostile nations will be
more likely to lash out against American allies and interests, inevitably leading to U.S. involvement in
combat. A high state of military readiness is more likely to deter potentially hostile nations from acting
aggressively in regions of vital national interest, thereby preserving peace.
Active transportation solves: More cycling solves obesity and improves readiness
Jonathan Maus, 6-22-12, (publisher and editor—Bike Portland.Org),
http://bikeportland.org/2012/06/22/thenationalsecurity-argument-for-safe-routes-to-school-73716
One major factor that keeps young people out of the military is the obesity epidemic. Mission Readiness
says it's "one of the top disqualifiers for military service" and that one out of four young adults between
the ages of 17-24 are too overweight to serve. One way to combat that obesity problem is to get them
biking and walking to school. Here's how they put it:
While not a silver bullet to this multifaceted problem, one way to increase physical activity and promote weight control
is increasing options for more students — and adults for that matter — to safely bike and walk.
...Alone, such investments are not going to solve the nation’s child obesity problem, but they should be
included as part of our ongoing community efforts to ensure that our child obesity crisis does not become
an even more serious national security threat.
So there you have it. More cycling, more soldiers, more security.
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Military Readiness Extensions
Obesity epidemic threatens national security
Aaron French, July 19, 2011, “Weighing in on Americas Military Readiness,”
http://praemon.org/2011/07/19/weighing-in-on-americas-military-readiness/
The U.S. is facing an obesity epidemic that prevents as many as 30% of adults from participating in
military service. This is troubling news for a country that is embroiled in three conflicts overseas and has
tired its all-volunteer military with repeated deployments. The C.I.A. claims that the U.S. has approximately 145 million
men and women that could be called into service if necessary, and says that of that 145 million approximately 120 million are currently fit for
service. The number of those fit for service are being worn thinner and thinner in their repeated deployments overseas while those remaining at
home are growing larger.
The obesity epidemic represents for U.S. national security not only a drain on health care resources, but a
potential liability in the case that the U.S. needs to mobilize for a large conventional war. Even those
recruits deemed fit and healthy for service require weeks and even months before they are prepared,
conditioned and trained sufficiently to handle the rigors and stresses of combat. Those deemed too
overweight to serve are a complete loss to the military, and those that barely meet the requirement are
certain to need longer conditioning and training times. The longer we need to train an increasingly
overweight population for service in war, the more uncertain our ability to defend ourselves in a time
sensitive situation becomes.
27 percent of young adults are obese threatening military readiness
Mission Readiness: Military Leaders for Kids, 2010, Too Fat to Fight Retired Military Leaders Want Junk Food
Out of America’s Schools, p. 1
Mission: Readiness, an organization of retired senior military leaders, is warning Congress that at least
nine million 17- to 24-year-olds in the United States are too fat to serve in the military. That is 27 percent
of all young adults. Obesity rates among children and young adults have increased so dramatically that
they threaten not only the overall health of America but also the future strength of our military.
Obesity epidemic threatens national security
Mission Readiness: Military Leaders for Kids, 2010, Too Fat to Fight: Retired Military Leaders Want Junk Food
Out of America’s Schools, p. 1
As retired U.S. Army General Johnnie E. Wilson says: “Child obesity has become so serious in this
country that military leaders are viewing this epidemic as a potential threat to our national security. We
need America’s service members to be in excellent physical condition because they have such an
important job to do. Rigorous service standards are critical if we are to maintain the fighting readiness of
our military.”
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Military Readiness Extensions
Number of rejections due to obesity increased 70%
Mission Readiness: Military Leaders for Kids, 2010, Too Fat to Fight
Retired Military Leaders Want Junk Food Out of America’s Schools, p.2
The number of recruits actually turned away after taking their physicals has risen dramatically in the last
decade. If a young man or woman seeking to enter the military is otherwise qualified but is obviously too
heavy, a recruiter will not schedule a trip for that person to the regional Military Entrance Processing
Center. But between 1995 and 2008, the military had 140,000 individuals who showed up at the centers
for processing but failed their entrance physicals because they were too heavy.6 Being overweight is now
by far the leading medical reason for rejection, and between 1995 and 2008, the proportion of potential
recruits who failed their physicals each year because they were overweight rose nearly 70 percent.7
Bad economy is temporary and not a solution to readiness
Mission Readiness: Military Leaders for Kids, 2010, Too Fat to Fight: Retired Military Leaders Want Junk Food
Out of America’s Schools, p. 3
The recent recession has temporarily reduced the challenges the nation’s 15,000 military recruiters face in
meeting their quotas for signing up qualified individuals.18 But recruiters remember the recent past when
they could not sign up enough young men and women to meet the nation’s needs.19
Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Clifford Stanley recently warned Congress
about the need to avoid a “boom or bust” recruiting cycle.20 And retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant
General Norman R. Seip has warned that “a failing economy is no formula for filling the ranks of a strong
military, and these longer-term eligibility problems are not going away. 20
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Unequal Transportation Leads to Unequal Health Care
1. Transportation infrastructure prevents access to health care
The Leadership Conference Education Fund, 2011, Transportation Policy and Access to Health Care, p.2.
Without affordable and accessible transportation, many Americans are physically isolated from
health providers. As poverty in suburban areas grows, increasing numbers of people are unable to reach
providers and services that are spread out among non-walkable areas with limited public transportation.
People of color, households in rural areas, and people with disabilities face significant hurdles because
many cannot drive and public transportation is often unavailable, inaccessible, or unreliable. Studies show
that lack of access to transportation reduces health care utilization among children, seniors, low-income
people, and people with disabilities.2 One survey found that 4 percent of U.S. children (3.2 million in
total) either missed a scheduled health care visit or did not schedule a visit during the preceding year
because of transportation restrictions.3
2. Hidden costs include minimal access to health care
Stanley et al, 2008, “Social exclusion: What can public transport offer?” Janet Stanley a, *, Karen Lucas b
a Brotherhood of St Laurence and Monash University, Victoria, Australia b University of Westminster, London, UK Research in Transportation
Economics 22 (2008) 36–40
The argument for social policy integration with the more traditional transport planning approach was
outlined by Lucas, Tyler, and Christodoulou (2007). They pointed out that the ‘true’ or complete benefits
of a public transport system have traditionally either been overlooked or measured in a very narrow sense.
Benefits have also been dominated by assumptions that time savings is the sole value. She notes that this
flawed perspective sometimes fails to take account of issues such as suppressed demand, the value of
extended service levels or the value of keeping transport fares at low levels. Benefits gained from
improved bus transport in four areas in the United Kingdom are presently being examined.
The failure of evaluation was also raised by Battellino (2007) who referred to the narrow view of
transport benefits which overlook issues such as cost savings as a result of the ability to access health
services, high quality food services and in terms of reduced loneliness and depression generated from
isolation. She reports a study from the United States which found that 3.6 million Americans miss out on
health care because they do not have transport and that the cost of providing this transport is below the
cost of a lack of medical care (TRCP, 2006).
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Unequal Transportation Leads to Unequal Health Care
3. Transportation health problems disproportionately impact the poor
American Public Health Association, 2009 AT THE INTERSECTION OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND TRANSPORTATION:
Promoting Healthy Transportation Policy, p5
Nearly one third of the US population is transportation disadvantaged.33 Many of these individuals and
families are vulnerable. They cannot easily access basic needs such as healthy food choices, medical care,
gainful employment, and educational opportunities. Many low-income families have been forced to live
outside city centers where housing is more affordable and access to public transportation is limited. These
families often spend more on driving than health care, education, or food. The poorest fifth of US
families, earning less than $13,060 per year, pay 42% of their income to own and drive a vehicle.34
Those families earning $20,000 to $50,000 spend as much as 30% of their budget on transportation.35 In
addition, lower-income neighborhoods often lack safe places to walk, bike, or play and access to healthy
and affordable foods.7
Transportation and housing are the 2 biggest household costs for most families.33 Often, affordable
housing and employment are not accessible to lower income families who want to use public
transportation.34 Some family members may take multiple bus or other public transit routes to obtain
employment. These families may be forced to purchase a car, which if affordable, still constitutes a huge
financial drain.
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Pollution Impacts
1. Transportation caused Air Pollution impacts health and the economy
American Public Health Association, 2009 AT THE INTERSECTION OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND TRANSPORTATION:
Promoting Healthy Transportation Policy, p4
Air pollution is associated with several health issues, including asthma and respiratory illness, heart
disease, and cancer. Like obesity, asthma is a major public health problem in the United States.21 More
than 32 million people in the United States have been diagnosed with asthma at some time. Of the 22
million people who currently have asthma, 12 million have had an asthma episode or attack in the past
year.22 Four thousand people die each year from asthma-related causes, and asthma is a contributing
factor for another 7,000 deaths every year.22 Asthma prevalence among children increased an average
4.3% per year from 1980–1996.21 Each year, asthma accounts for 14 million days of missed school days
by children.23 Asthma is seen more often among children, women and girls, African Americans, Puerto
Ricans, people in the Northeast, and those living below the federal poverty level, and those with particular
work-related exposures. 23 The US cost of health issues associated with poor air quality from
transportation is between $40 billion and $64 billion per year.24
Living, working, going to school, or playing near major roadways in- creases the risk of asthma as well as
other health conditions, such as cancer, respiratory illness, and heart disease.25–27 Communities lo- cated
near heavily traveled highways have a disproportionately higher rate of lung cancer.27 Air pollutants, including carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter (which is found primarily in diesel
exhaust), are found along high traffic roads.27 According to the US Census Bureau, 36 million people
live within 300 feet of a 4-lane highway, railroad, or airport.28
2. Pollution from transportation disproportionately impacts the poor
The Leadership Conference Education Fund, 2011, Transportation Policy and Access to Health Care, p2-3.
Traffic congestion in major metropolitan areas is on the rise. As a result, urban centers are exposed to
increased vehicle emissions. Transportation-related air quality is causing serious public health problems
in cities, most notably asthma. There is a direct relationship between emissions and health: A study in
Atlanta documented a significant drop in children’s asthma attacks when single-occupancy vehicle use
decreased during the 1996 Olympic Games.20 Minority children disproportionately suffer from asthma;
among Puerto Rican children, the rate is 20 percent and among African-American youth, the rate is 13
percent, compared with the national childhood average of 8 percent.21 The health impacts spread beyond
asthma: People living within 300 meters of major highways are more likely to have leukemia and
cardiovascular disease.22 The health costs associated with poor air quality from the transportation sector
is estimated at $50–$80 billion per year.23
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Global Warming Add-on (1/2)
Transportation is the leading cause of Global Warming
NASA, Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 2-18-10, “Road Transportation Emerges as Key Driver of Global
Warming”, http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20100218a/
Now a new study led by Nadine Unger of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New
York City offers a more intuitive way to understand what's changing the Earth's climate. Rather than analyzing
impacts by chemical species, scientists have analyzed the climate impacts by different economic sectors.
Each part of the economy, such as ground transportation or agriculture, emits a unique portfolio of gases
and aerosols that affect the climate in different ways and on different timescales.
"We wanted to provide the information in a way that would be more helpful for policy makers," Unger said. "This approach will make it easier to
identify sectors for which emission reductions will be most beneficial for climate and those which may produce unintended consequences."
In a paper published online on Feb. 3 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Unger and
colleagues described how they used a climate model to estimate the impact of 13 sectors of the economy
from 2000 to 2100. They based their calculations on real-world inventories of emissions collected by
scientists around the world, and they assumed that those emissions would stay relatively constant in the future.
Snapshots of the Future
In their analysis, motor vehicles emerged as the greatest contributor to atmospheric warming now and in
the near term. Cars, buses, and trucks release pollutants and greenhouse gases that promote warming,
while emitting few aerosols that counteract it
Even 1% risk justifies action ---- the consequences are extinction
Strom in ‘7 (Robert, Prof. Emeritus Planetary Sciences @ U. Arizona and Former Dir. Space Imagery Center of
NASA, “Hot House: Global Climate Change and the Human Condition”, Online: SpringerLink, p. 246)
Keep in mind that the
current consequences of global warming discussed in previous chapters are the result of a global
average temperature increase of only 0.5 'C above the 1951-1980 average, and these consequences are beginning to accelerate.
Think about what is in store for us when the average global temperature is 1 °C higher than today. That is already in the
pipeline, and there is nothing we can do to prevent it. We can only plan strategies for dealing with the expected consequences, and reduce our
greenhouse gas emissions by about 60% as soon as possible to ensure that we don't experience even higher temperatures. There is also the
danger of eventually triggering an abrupt climate change that would accelerate global warming to a
catastrophic level in a short period of time. If that were to happen we would not stand a chance. Even if
that possibility had only a 1% chance of occurring, the consequences are so dire that it would be insane
not to act. Clearly we cannot afford to delay taking action by waiting for additional research to more clearly define what awaits us. The time
for action is now.
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Global Warming Add-on (2/2)
Public and active transit will substantially reduce Greenhouse Gases
HDR, 11-10-08, (employee-owned architectural, engineering and consulting firm), White Paper: HDR’s
Transportation Policy Framework: A Twelve-Point Plan for the Next Transportation Authorization Bill,
One strategy to address climate change is to reduce the rate of GHG emissions. An estimated 27 percent of GHG
emissions come from transportation, and the predominant cause is road use.
• Effectively reduce dependence on oil, transportation-related energy consumption and travel demand.
• Reduce oil consumption by 50 percent by 2020
• Support current requirements to double fuel efficiency vehicles by 2020
• Double transit ridership by 2020
• Reduce the growth in VMT through carpooling, congestion based pricing, increased transit usage,
biking, walking and land use policies that encourage sustainable development
• Support the cap and trade or carbon tax concept to reduce GHG emissions
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Global Warming Extensions
Warming makes extinction inevitable
Hansen 12, 5/9, James, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/opinion/game-over-for-the-climate.html, “Game Over for the Climate” an
adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University and at Columbia’s Earth Institute, and director
of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 7/3, NIlango
GLOBAL warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening. That is why I was so troubled to read a recent interview with President
Obama in Rolling Stone in which he said that Canada would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves “regardless of what we do.”. If Canada
proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate. Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain
twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully
exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies,
concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the
Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases
would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal
cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would
be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk. That is the long-term outlook. But near-term, things will be
bad enough. Over the next several decades, the Western United States and the semi-arid region from North Dakota to Texas will
develop semi-permanent drought, with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding. Economic
losses would be incalculable. More and more of the Midwest would be a dust bowl. California’s Central Valley
could no longer be irrigated. Food prices would rise to unprecedented levels. If this sounds apocalyptic, it is. This
is why we need to reduce emissions dramatically. President Obama has the power not only to deny tar sands oil additional
access to Gulf Coast refining, which Canada desires in part for export markets, but also to encourage economic incentives to leave tar sands and
other dirty fuels in the ground. The global warming signal is now louder than the noise of random weather, as I predicted would happen by now
in the journal Science in 1981. Extremely hot summers have increased noticeably. We can say with high
confidence that the recent heat waves in Texas and Russia, and the one in Europe in 2003, which killed
tens of thousands, were not natural events — they were caused by human-induced climate change. We
have known since the 1800s that carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere. The right amount keeps the
climate conducive to human life. But add too much, as we are doing now, and temperatures will
inevitably rise too high. This is not the result of natural variability, as some argue. The earth is currently in the part of its long-term orbit
cycle where temperatures would normally be cooling. But they are rising — and it’s because we are forcing them higher with fossil fuel
emissions. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen from 280 parts per million to 393 p.p.m. over the last 150 years. The
tar sands contain enough carbon — 240 gigatons — to add 120 p.p.m. Tar shale, a close cousin of tar sands found mainly in the United States,
contains at least an additional 300 gigatons of carbon. If we turn to these dirtiest of fuels, instead of finding ways to phase out our addiction to
fossil fuels, there is no hope of keeping carbon concentrations below 500 p.p.m. — a level that would, as earth’s history shows, leave our children
a climate system that is out of their control. We need to start reducing emissions significantly, not create new ways to increase them. We should
impose a gradually rising carbon fee, collected from fossil fuel companies, then distribute 100 percent of the collections to all Americans on a
per-capita basis every month. The government would not get a penny. This market-based approach would stimulate innovation, jobs and
economic growth, avoid enlarging government or having it pick winners or losers. Most Americans, except the heaviest energy users, would get
more back than they paid in increased prices. Not only that, the reduction in oil use resulting from the carbon price would be nearly six times as
great as the oil supply from the proposed pipeline from Canada, rendering the pipeline superfluous, according to economic models driven by a
slowly rising carbon price. But instead of placing a rising fee on carbon emissions to make fossil fuels pay their true costs, leveling the energy
playing field, the world’s governments are forcing the public to subsidize fossil fuels with hundreds of billions of dollars per year. This
encourages a frantic stampede to extract every fossil fuel through mountaintop removal, longwall mining, hydraulic fracturing, tar sands and tar
shale extraction, and deep ocean and Arctic drilling. President Obama speaks of a “planet in peril,” but he does not provide the leadership needed
to change the world’s course. Our leaders must speak candidly to the public — which yearns for open, honest discussion — explaining that our
continued technological leadership and economic well-being demand a reasoned change of our energy course. History has shown that the
American public can rise to the challenge, but leadership is essential. The science of the situation is clear — it’s time for the politics to follow.
This is a plan that can unify conservatives and liberals, environmentalists and business . Every major national science academy in
the world has reported that global warming is real, caused mostly by humans, and requires urgent action.
The cost of acting goes far higher the longer we wait — we can’t wait any longer to avoid the worst and be judged immoral by coming
generations.
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Global Warming Extensions
Climate models improving to include more sophisticated variables such as clouds
Pittock, 10—led the Climate Impact Group in CSIRO until his retirement in 1999. He contributed to or
was the lead author of all four major reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He was
awarded a Public Service Medal in 1999 and is CSIRO Honorary Fellow. (Barrie, Climate Change: The
Science, Impacts, and Solutions, 2010, pg. 54)
Climate models have been tested and improved quite systematically over time. There are many ways of doing this.
One is to closely compare simulated present climates with observations. Climate modellers often judge
models by how well they do in reproducing observations, but until recently this has mainly been by testing
outputs from models against observations for simple variables such as surface temperature and rainfall. However, this
process can be circular in that climate models, with all their simplifications (for example in how they represent complex processes like cumulus
convection, sea-ice distribution or air-sea exchange of heat and moisture) can be adjusted, or "˜tuned', to give the right answers, sometimes by
making compensating errors. Such errors might then lead to serious differences from reality in some other variable not included in the tests.
Comparing simulated outputs tor many more variables, some of which were not used to tune the models,
now checks this. Other tests used include how well the climate models simulate variations in climate over
the daily cycle, for example daily maximum and minimum temperatures, or depth of the well-mixed surface layer of the atmosphere.
Changes in average cloud cover and rainfall with time of day are other more sophisticated variables that are
sometimes tested. Related tests involve calculating in the models variables that can be compared with satellite
observations, such as cloud cover and energy radiated back to space from the top of the atmosphere. Until recently many climate
models have not done very well on some of these tests, but they are improving." To test longer time-scale
variations, tests are made of how well climate models simulate the annual cycle of the seasons. Different test
locations from those the model builders may have looked at when building their models are often used. For
example, how well does an Australian climate model perform over Europe, or a European model perform over Africa?
A popular test is to use a climate model with observed boundary layer conditions, for example sea-surface temperatures in an atmospheric global
climate model, to simulate year-to-year variations such as a year with a strong monsoon over India versus a year with a weak monsoon. Similarly,
tests are made of how well a climate model reproduces the natural variations in a complex weather pattern
such as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which is important in year-to-year variations in climate.
ENSO is a variation in oceanic and atmospheric circulation, mainly across the tropical Pacific Ocean, but has effects in many other parts of the
world. Getting ENSO right is an important test, and it is only recently that some AOGCMs have done well
with this test.
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Global Warming Extensions
Global Warming is happening now – worse than any other impact
K.M. Valsamma 2012 Bonfring International Journal of Industrial Engineering and
Management Science, Vol. 2, No. 1, March 2012
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2010/2010_Hansen_etal.pdf
The emissions from human activities is reshaping the carbon cycle. The climate history shows how the changing levels of Green House Gases
and temperature had shaped the climate from time immemorial. Though there is a precedent of Global Warming in the 4.5
billion years history of the earth, as evidenced by the Eocene Epoch that lasted from 55 million to 38 million years ago, when the
atmospheric concentration was about 500 ppm, with the sea level some 100 meters higher than today, there was one marked
difference: unlike now, it was all due to sustained increase in CO2 that was released from volcanoes over
tens of millions of years. During the Eocene Epoch, the shift in the climate had actually occurred over a period of millions of years, so
that whatever living organisms were there had enough time to adapt themselves to the warming climate.
There are scientists who believe that there are some unrecognized feed backs in the climate system involving types of clouds that only form when
CO2 levels are very high and that our knowledge about this is either very limited or nil. Reconstruction of the Eocene like atmosphere in the
climate models had not shown much warming, as the unrecognized feed backs involving clouds that might have existed at the appropriate time in
the Eocene epoch, had not been factored into the computer modeling. This is the basis for concluding that if an Eocene like climate
were to reenact this time, with the level the atmospheric CO2 doubling in the next two or three decades
over the pre-industrial figures of 280 ppm, it will be both swift and very abrupt. The global climate system is supposedly
loaded with irreversible tipping points which are exacerbated by emissions [5]. III. GLOBAL WARMING VERSUS
BIODIVERSITY The quintessence of what is slowly but surely unfolding before our eyes is that the planet is on the brink of a
disaster, standing in danger of losing much of the rich bio diversity, combined with a more serious threat of species extinction,
as varied and diverse as some of the extremophiles: “populations of bacteria living in spumes of thermal vents” on the ocean floor, that multiply
in water above the boiling point to the “subsurface litho autotrophic microbial ecosystem,”[ 6 ] living beneath earth’s surface at a depth of 2
miles. The very thought of a complete glacial meltdown sends shivers down the spine of people living in
low lying areas. It is on record that Arctic ice is, now reduced to an extent of 1.67 million square miles from what was once a massive
expanse of 2.59 million square miles.[7] This is extremely important, since the ice caps are to the ecology what a canary is to the coalmine. More
over, Arctic, is the home to rare species like extremophiles, where the living creatures have the physiological adaptability to live in the most
frigid waters of Arctic by keeping their blood in fluid condition, by what is called biochemical antifreeze. On the other hand what is happening in
the Himalayas is equally appalling. As a result of the constant glacial melt caused by global warming, more and more lakes of the like of Imja
Glacier Lake are getting formed. Places in the vicinity of Himalayas, are actually becoming “danger zones” or
death traps in the making
with the prospect of high altitude glacial debris, known as moraine, having the potential to release a huge deluge of water, mud and rock up to a
height of 13 meters, swamping homes and fields located as far and wide as 100 .km, leading to total loss of
land for a generation looming large.[8]. One can only shudder at the consequences of a full scale melt of these mountain glaciers.
American Biologist conservationist and the two time Pulitzer prize winner E.O Wilson speaking on biodiversity had
pertinently remarked that “genes hold cultures on a leash” [9] and hence the greatest peril that can befall on
this planet is not “energy depletion, economic collapse” or even “a limited nuclear war”, the worst effects of which
can be warded off and repaired within a few generations, but the one “that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of
genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats”.
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Solvency Extensions
There are six different solvency “blocks” available for the affirmative to choose from and they
each have a different purpose. We encourage you to read them carefully as the evidence can be used to
make multiple arguments.
The first block is a general set of arguments indicating that there is a need for federal support, that
now is an appropriate time to fund the plan, and that federal support will lead to other groups supporting
the plan.
The second block is a defense of planning for equity planning. These arguments stress that it is
possible to identify projects and areas in need of equity support.
The third block stresses that investing in public and active transit is cost-beneficial. This
evidence is very useful and might be helpful in answering the spending disadvantage.
The fourth block is designed to prove that people will take advantage of these investments and
actually use public transit and active transit systems if they are made available.
The fifth block makes the case that public and active transit will improve public health. This
occurs for multiple reasons outlined in the evidence. Public transit increases access to health care and
healthy diets. Active transit increases exercise. And decreased auto traffic reduces pollution and lowers
stress, both contributing to improved public health.
The sixth block provides examples of past successes of increased investment in public and active
transit.
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General Solvency Extensions
1. Must increase federal funding for public transportation
Gostin and Pomeranz, 2009. (Lawrence O. Gostin, Georgetown University Law Center and Jennifer L. Pomeranz, Yale University)
“Improving Laws and Legal Authorities for Obesity Prevention and Control” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 37:62-75 (Supp. 1 2009),
http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/486 http://ssrn.com/abstract=1729227
Public transit is currently seeing record-high ridership, with more than 10.3 billion riders
annually, and the demand is expected to continue as gas prices remain high.39 For public transportation to
grow and meet the rising demand, more funding will be required from federal, state, and local sources.
Rising fuel costs and the need to upgrade vehicles and deploy information technology are driving up
public transportation costs across the country. New and expanded revenue sources must be identified.
Transit systems are funded by multiple sources. Most get substantial annual funds from the federal
government — called “formula” funds because they are based on population — and many also get
discretionary funds for bus purchases. The discretionary funds are often referred to as earmarks.
The single most important role public health advocates can play in supporting public
transportation is to push for additional funding under the federal six-year transportation bill that will
expire in November 2009. This bill, called the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation
Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEALU) is the primary federal legislation that authorizes
programming, sets priorities, and allocates funds over a six-year period for all modes of transportation.
The reauthorization of this bill is an opportunity to provide new funding mechanisms and significant
increases in federal funding for public transportation.40
The current transportation bill for 2004-2009 included about $53 billion for public
transportation.41 Advocates say that figure will need to be increased substantially to supply the country
with safe and efficient public transportation throughout the urban communities and into rural areas as
well.42
2. Now is the time
John Preston 2009 Transportation Research Group, School of Civil Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton,
“Epilogue: Transport policy and social exclusion—Some reflections” Transport Policy 16 (2009) 140–142
It may be that the time for talking is over—the need for action has become paramount. For all the focus
on combating social exclusion over the last decade or so, in most advanced economies inequalities, at
least in terms of income, have widened (OECD, 2008). There is a need for more demonstration projects
that tackle head-on the issues surrounding transport-related social exclusions. These projects should be
aimed at the city or regional scale rather than the more micro-scale projects such as those reviewed by
Lucas et al. in this Special Issue or the recent work of Bristow et al. (2008). They should not necessarily
be targeted at pre-conceived hotspots of economic deprivation nor particularly targeted at perceived
disadvantaged groups. They should be comprehensive in their coverage. For example, in the UK a
sustainable travel demonstration town could be set up with a specific remit to pay full attention to the
social aspects of the sustainability concept and hence meet transport-related social exclusion head-on.
Alternatively, or preferably additionally, a locale might be established as a centre of excellence in polices
to tackle social exclusion with transport policies enacted in combination with the whole gamut of other
sectoral policies that might reduce social exclusionary processes. It is likely that the current global
recession will have increased the need to deal with issues concerning social exclusion and transport policy
may be one of the most appropriate tools to provide short to medium term redress. Now is the time for
action.
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General Solvency Extensions
3. Evidence is sufficient to act now. Plan will lead to more support.
Krizek, et al 2009. Kevin J Krizek--College of Architecture and Planning, University of Colorado, Susan L Handy--Department of
Environmental Science and Policy, University of California at Davis, Ann Forsyth--City and Regional Planning, Cornell University. “Explaining
changes in walking and bicycling behavior: challenges for transportation research”,
Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 2009, volume 36, pages 725 - 740
Thus, policy makers and advocates, as well as researchers themselves, must be careful not to
overstate the strength of the available evidence; cross-sectional results are often cited as evidence that an
intervention will cause a certain outcome (Winship and Morgan, 1999). On the other hand, the absence of
a body of intervention studies that provides strong evidence of the effects of an intervention does not
mean that communities should not attempt walking and cycling interventions. After all, cross- sectional
studies can provide solid evidence on potentially promising approaches. The body of intervention studies
will only grow if communities are willing to try new approaches--and to work with researchers to
rigorously evaluate them. In the meantime, interventions can be taken on with a realistic but not overly
confident assessment, based on available evidence, of their potential.
4. Short term investment means long term solution
Lindholm, 2011, (Raymond Lindholm, Georgia State University College of Law, Center for Health, Law, & Society) “Combating
childhood obesity: A survey of laws affecting the built environments of low-income and minority children”, Review of Environment and Health
2011
While there exists a growing public awareness of the problem, scientific understanding of its
mechanisms and desire on a broad level to implement effective solutions, it is important to acknowledge
that there are also barriers to changing the built environment. Changing infrastructure is a slow and costly
process, and investors want constant and predictable rules that protect their investments. As a result, there
may be entrenched and well-funded interests that will fight to keep the status quo. However, there is one
thing that is inevitable: the built environment will change. Old buildings and infrastructure are being
replaced and renovated at every moment. As more information is gathered on the extent of the problem,
there will be greater political will to enact tough changes. Implementing positive policy changes now will
bear fruit for years on down the road. That is the nature of the built environment. In a certain sense, that is
a point of optimism. We do not have to change the whole system overnight. The system is changing and
evolving. We only just need to guide it as it changes, so that our children can live healthy, full lives
regardless of their racial or socioeconomic backgrounds.5. Government investment is necessary.
government investment
Even voluntary arrangements need
Karen Lucas, 2012, Transport Studies Unit, University of Oxford, ‘Transport and social exclusion: Where are we now?” Transport Policy
20 (2012) 105–113
What is clear from the case studies that are already available is that there is no panacea for addressing the
problem of transport- related exclusion. One size definitely does not fit all and so many more examples
are needed of what does and does not work in practice, within different geographical and social contexts
and for different groups of people. If properly designed and delivered, public transport can provide a part
of this solution, but it is most likely that other forms of more flexible (and often informal) transport
services will be needed to complement these mainstream services. This does not come cheap and, as the
UK experience demonstrates, if not properly supported and subsidised, these complementary measures
will not deliver their desired outcomes
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Solvency: Better Planning Needed
Social equity needs to be factored into transportation planning
Litman and Brenman, 2011. (Todd Litman--Victoria Policy Institute and Marc Brenman—Social Justice Constituency and Senior
Policy Advisor to the City Project) “New Social Equity Agenda for Sustainable Transportation (Draft for Discussion)”, March 3, 2011, p.3.
Social equity (also called fairness) refers to the equitable distribution of impacts (benefits, disadvantages
and costs). This is an important planning goal and a requirement for sustainable development, which
balances economic, social and environmental objectives (Litman and Burwell 2006). Conventional
transportation planning tends to focus on economic objectives (congestion reduction and increased travel
speeds, travel cost savings, and traffic safety), and in recent decades, has added environmental objectives
(resource conservation, emission reductions, and habitat protection). Various performance indicators have
been established to help evaluate economic and environmental impacts. Social equity objectives receive
less systematic analysis; they may be considered during political negotiations and through public
involvement processes, but there are no standard methodologies for evaluating social equity impacts.
Transportation planning is needed for health
Benjamin, 2009 Georges C.--MD, FACP, FACEP (E) executive director of the American Public Health Association, AT THE
INTERSECTION OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND TRANSPORTATION: Promoting Healthy Transportation Policy p.1
A healthy community is one that promotes healthy people by ensuring access to safe and nutritious foods;
safe places to walk, run, or bike; clean air and water; adequate and accessible health care systems; and
other healthy enablers. One of these healthy enablers is our transportation system. Current research
demonstrates that how we build our transportation systems, how and on what modality we use them, and
how we get people and things from one place to another affects our health. Enduring a long, tedious
commute causes stress, which can exacerbate heart disease and our mental state and increases our risk of
experiencing a traffic incident. In neighborhoods without a grocery store nearby, residents do not have
access to nutritious foods, and people lacking access to preventive health services put themselves at risk
by missing critical screening exams because of poor access to medical care services. Living near a
superhighway, port, or a bus or train depot exposes people to increased levels of toxic air pollutants, and
many of these same vehicle emissions contribute to global warming.
What’s the fix? We need a comprehensive commitment to build transportation networks that serve our
need to get from one place to another in a way that enhances our health while optimizing the trade-offs
from our transportation and development needs. Our communities would benefit from a system that
enables all residents access to affordable and secure housing, nutritious food, clean air and water, mass
transportation, safe sidewalks, streets, and playgrounds, health services and opportunities for social
networking.
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Solvency: Better Planning Needed
Need based models are easy to develop
Martens, Karel, 2006. Radboud University Nijemegan, “Basing Transport Planning on Principles of Justice,” Berkeley Planning Journal,
19 (1), 1-15, 2006 http://escholarship.org/uc/item/0tg6v7tn
The development of a need-based transport model could benefit from recent experiments to provide
accessibility to weak population groups, such as the U.S. Welfare to Work program (Blumenberg 2004)
and the U.K. initiative to institutionalize accessibility planning (Lucas 2006). But where these
experiments aim to identify accessibility needs of marginalized groups and generate solutions to solve
their specific problems, need-based transport modeling would inform transport planning overall. This
would avoid the paradoxical situation that mainstream transport modeling primarily serves the wants of
the strong, while small-scale experiments and alternative financing schemes have to provide for the
accessibility needs of the weak, whose problems were created by mainstream transport planning and the
related maldistribution of resources in the first place.
Need based criterion should be incorporated into transportation planning
Martens, Karel, 2006. Radboud University Nijemegan, “Basing Transport Planning on Principles of Justice,” Berkeley Planning Journal,
19 (1), 1-15, 2006 http://escholarship.org/uc/item/0tg6v7tn
This conclusion suggests that current transport demand models will have to be replaced by a whole new
generation of models based on the criterion of need. The goal of such a need-based model would be to
assess to what extent the existing or future transport network is able to secure a minimal level of
accessibility for all population groups. Unlike demand-based models that apply a seemingly neutral
methodology, the development of a need-based model will require an explicitly normative approach, as
needs will have to be distinguished from wants and explicit accessibility standards will have to be set.
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Solvency: Cost Beneficial
Costs of plan will be offset by savings from improved health
Gostin and Pomeranz, 2009. (Lawrence O. Gostin, Georgetown University Law Center and Jennifer L. Pomeranz, Yale University)
“Improving Laws and Legal Authorities for Obesity Prevention and Control”Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 37:62-75 (Supp. 1 2009),
http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/486 http://ssrn.com/abstract=1729227
Costs associated with the development of public transportation can be offset by factors that promote more
active lifestyles, such as the following: (1) property development activities around planned transit
stations; (2) decreased air pollution; and (3) potential health benefits related to increased exercise for
residents living in the surrounding communities.45 Laws and policies that increase access to public
transportation also improve economic opportunities in distressed communities and increase the ability for
those in lower socioeconomic areas to access grocery stores, community facilities, and employment
opportunities.46
Bicycle lanes are cost-effective. One-third of Americans already own bikes and lanes and paths are
more efficient investment.
McMahon, February 22, 2012, (Edward T. McMahon—Urban Land Institute), “Bicycles Belong” Urban Land
Nonmotorized transportation should be a high priority in the United States. Currently, 100 million
Americans own bicycles, and walking and bicycling already account for 12 percent of all trips made in
the United States. For the cost of one mile (1.6 km) of a four-lane urban freeway ($50 million), we could
build approximately 100 miles (160 km) of bike lanes and bicycle boulevards or more than 150 miles
(241 km) of off-road bike trails.
Benefits of biking outweigh costs of investment increase
McMahon, February 22, 2012, (Edward T. McMahon—Urban Land Institute), “Bicycles Belong” Urban Land
Benefits from bicycling and walking far outweigh the cost of upfront investments in infrastructure, with
benefits-to-cost ratios of 5 to 1 or more, according to the Rails to Trails Conservancy. If we simply
doubled the current 1 percent of all trips by bicycle to 2 percent, we would collectively save more than
693 million gallons (2.6 billion liters) of gasoline each year, to say nothing of reduced congestion and
improved public health.
Cost savings makes investment less expensive
McMahon, February 22, 2012, (Edward T. McMahon—Urban Land Institute), “Bicycles Belong” Urban Land
Finally, bicycling and walking provide a variety of environmental benefits. Making fewer trips by motor
vehicle means less air pollution and lower carbon emissions. It also means stores and businesses will need
fewer parking spaces, which, in turn, reduces stormwater runoff and non-point-source pollution. The state
of Minnesota estimates the public savings derived from reduced pollution, oil import, and congestion
costs at 5 to 22 cents for every automobile mile displaced by biking or walking.
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Solvency: Cost Beneficial
Cycling investments are economically efficient.
valuable than it costs.
Infrastructure investment is 4-5 times more
Reynolds, et al. 2009 (Conor CO Reynolds--Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia , M
Anne Harris--School of Population and Public Health, UBC, Kay Teschke--School of Population and Public Health andSchool of Environmental
Health, UBC, Peter A Cripton--Department of Mechanical Engineering, UBC and Meghan Winters--School of Population and Public Health,
UBC) “The impact of transportation infrastructure on bicycling injuries and crashes: a review of the literature” Environmental Health, October
2009
Bicycling is an active mode of transportation that integrates physical activity into daily
life. The bicycle is an attractive alternative to the automobile as an urban mode of transport.
Cycling is associated with a range of individual and public health benefits such as improved
physical and mental health, decreased obesity, and reduced risk of cardiovascular and other
diseases [1-6], as well as ancillary benefits such as reduced emissions of noise, air pollutants and
greenhouse gases [7,8]. There are significant economic costs of physical inactivity [9], and
benefit-cost analyses suggest that the benefits of increased cycling are worth approximately four
to five times the costs of investing in new cycling infrastructure [10,11]. These potential benefits
suggest that it is important to increase the use of the bicycle as a mode of active transportation.
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Solvency: Increased Ridership
Subsidizing biking solves
The Community Cycling Center, “Understanding Barriers to Bicycling Transportation Literature Review”
http://www.communitycyclingcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/understanding-barriers-transportationreview-101909.pdf
Bicycling may present an affordable means of transportation that could overcome some of these barriers.
Bicycling is best suited to replace shorter trips, so for low-income people living in areas with a dense,
mixed-use land-use pattern, it may be a more convenient option than carpooling or transit, both of which
may have restricted schedules. Since low-income people make more trips during offpeak hours or on
weekends when transit service is provided at a lower frequency, bicycling may be faster and/or more
flexible than transit for those trips.
Although low-income people are likely to travel shorter distances and make fewer trips, working women
on average make more trips and travel farther than working men. These women trip-chain more often,
combining trips to different destinations. For these kinds of trips, bicycling may be more convenient than
transit. Because it is not fixed route, bicycling may be quicker, eliminating transfer times between transit
lines. However, because women are more likely to be transporting children or items from one destination
to the next, they may need racks, seats, trailers or other accessories to help them carry things on their
bicycle. In the case of women transporting children, other factors such as the child’s age and own
bicycling ability may affect the type and cost of bicycle accessories required, as well as convenience and
safety concerns.
Bike use increases with infrastructure investment
McMahon, February 22, 2012, (Edward T. McMahon—Urban Land Institute), “Bicycles Belong” Urban Land
Bicycle riding, whether for recreation or transportation, requires investments in bicycle infrastructure.
Such investments yield results regardless of climate, topography, city size, or other factors. For example,
in New York City (NYC), biking continues to go up even as driving and transit ridership stay nearly flat.
According to the NYC Department of Transportation, bicycle commuting into Manhattan increased 13
percent in 2010 and has grown 262 percent in the past ten years.
Active transportation is the missing piece in our transportation system. Bicycles are used for commuting
worldwide, but only in isolated pockets in the United States. A 1995 Louis Harris poll found that a
majority of Americans would be willing to ride a bicycle to work "at least occasionally" if they could do
it on a safe bicycle lane or designated off-road path. Even more remarkable, 13 percent of Americans said
they would be willing to ride a bicycle to work on a "regular basis" if they had the facilities to do so.
The long-range potential of cycling as a mode of transportation is amply demonstrated in bicycle-friendly
college towns like Boulder, Colorado; Eugene, Oregon; Madison, Wisconsin; Gainesville, Florida; Iowa
City, Iowa; and others. Davis, California, a city of 62,500 people and home of the University of California
at Davis, has 35 miles (56 km) of bike lanes and more than 50 miles (80 km) of off-road, multiuse paths,
which have grade separations (bridges and underpasses) to minimize traffic interaction. As a result, more
than 20 percent of all trips in the city are by bicycle. The Davis school district has given up its expensive
school bus system, and according to a resident "one of the delightful features of life in Davis is observing
the morning and afternoon 'rush hours' on the greenbelt paths, as groups of children travel to and from
school on bikes, skateboards, and scooters."
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Solvency: Increased Ridership
Improved cycling safety snowballs into more ridership and increased safety—several
reasons:
Reynolds, et al. 2009 (Conor CO Reynolds--Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia , M
Anne Harris--School of Population and Public Health, UBC, Kay Teschke--School of Population and Public Health andSchool of Environmental
Health, UBC, Peter A Cripton--Department of Mechanical Engineering, UBC and Meghan Winters--School of Population and Public Health,
UBC) “The impact of transportation infrastructure on bicycling injuries and crashes: a review of the literature” Environmental Health, October
2009
There are clearly bicycling safety and popularity "gaps" between (and within) Europe and North
America [28]. In addition, there is an important safety gap between cyclists and other transport modes:
estimates from both continents suggest that cyclists are seven to 70 times more likely to be injured, per
trip or per kilometer traveled, than car occupants [27,29]. It is likely that public perception of a lack of
safety acts as a deterrent to cyclists in North America: in surveys asking about factors that affect the
choice of cycling as a mode of transportation, concern about safety is one of the most frequently cited
deterrents [[30-34], and Winters M, Davidson G, Kao D, Teschke K: Motivators and deterrents of
bicycling: factors influencing decisions to ride, submitted]. For example, in a survey of adults in the
Vancouver metropolitan area, the following were among the top deterrents: the risk of injury from carbike collisions; the risk from motorists who don't know how to drive safely near bicycles; motorized
vehicles driving faster than 50 km/hr; and streets with a lot of car, bus, and truck traffic [33]. The good
news is that there is evidence that perceived safety improvements in bicycle transportation have an
aggregate elasticity value greater than one (i.e. a 10% increase in perceived safety results in greater than
10% increase in the share of people commuting by bicycle) [32].
Increased ridership rates may result in improved safety for cyclists: injury rates have been shown to
decrease with increased cycling rates. This principle of "safety in numbers" is supported by studies of
injury and ridership patterns in California, Australia, and Europe, as well as between cities and within
cities over time [35-38]. There are a number of potential explanations. Motor vehicle drivers may not
expect cyclists when there are few of them on the roads, and thus make so-called "looked-but-failed- tosee" errors that can result in collisions [39]. When motorists and cyclists are unaccustomed to sharing the
road, both parties may hold incorrect assumptions about what the other party will do [40]. Increased
cycling rates may mean that more motorists also use bicycles as a mode of transport, making motorists
more attuned to cyclists and their movements, and encouraging them to drive in a way that accounts for
potential interactions [36]. Finally, a larger cycling population means stronger lobbying power for cycling
resources.
Finally, it is worth considering long-term temporal trends in motor vehicle injuries. The injury
rate from motor-vehicle crashes has steadily declined since the 1920s in many parts of the world, in part
attributable to improvements in road-related infrastructure [41]. This provides reason for optimism: the
risk of injury or death from traffic crashes is modifiable, and this is likely to extend to the infrastructural
determinants of cycling injuries.
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Solvency: Increased Ridership
Bicycle infrastructure investment encourages bicycle use.
McMahon, February 22, 2012, (Edward T. McMahon—Urban Land Institute), “Bicycles Belong” Urban Land
Of course, it is only when cities begin investing in bicycle infrastructure that residents begin to use
bicycles at rates higher than the national average. Consider Portland, Oregon: in the 1980s and early
1990s, it was a city pretty much like any other in terms of transportation behavior. Today, however, over
6 percent of residents commute to work by bicycle; the national average is less than 1 percent. Bicycle
use in Portland has grown geometrically while other modes have grown modestly or declined: since 1990
bicycle use has grown 400 percent, transit has grown 18 percent, and driving has declined 4 percent, all
relative to population. From 1990 to 2008, Portland added more daily bicycle commuters than daily
transit commuters. Portland's city traffic engineer says that "bicycling infrastructure is relatively easy to
implement and low cost compared to other modes." The estimated cost of Portland's entire bikeway
network-which exceeds 300 miles (482 km)-is approximately $60 million, which, as noted, is just a little
more than the cost of one mile (1.6 km) of urban freeway.
Another city where bicycling has boomed is Minneapolis, Minnesota. Today, about 4 percent of
Minneapolis residents bike to work. Biking has grown almost 33 percent since 2007 and 500 percent
since 1980. Even in winter, numerous cyclists commute to work at least some of the time. Minneapolis
currently has almost 130 miles (209 km) of bikeways, with an additional 57 miles (91 km) planned or
under construction. "Biking has become a huge part of who we are," said Mayor R.T. Ryback during a
recent interview.
Minneapolis has a long-term goal of achieving a 10 percent mode share for bicycles. This is certainly
possible when one considers that 25 percent of all trips people take in the United States are within a mile
(1.6 km) and 50 percent of all trips are within three miles (4.8 km), or a 20-minute bike ride. The biggest
impediment to more daily bike riding is concerns about safety. Research shows that fear of collisions with
automobiles is among the most pervasive factors limiting bicycle commuting in the United States.
Studies prove that improved access to transit stations is more equitable and also benefits industry
Rodier, et al. 2010. (Caroline Rodier, PhD--Sr. Researcher, Transportation Sustainability Research Center, Innovative Mobility Research,
U California Berkeley, John E. Abraham, PhD—Department of Civil Engineering, University of Calgary, Brenda N. Dix—Graduate Student
Researcher, Transportation Sustainability Research Center, John D. Hunt, PhD—Department of Civil Engineering, U of Calgary) “Equity
Analysis of Land Use and Transportation Plans Using an Integrated Spatial Model,” Paper submitted to the 2010 Transportation Research Board
Annual Meeting.
As well, this study shows that a more compact urban form designed around transit stations can reduce
travel costs, wages, and housing costs by increasing accessibility. These can lead to substantial net
benefits for industry categories and for lower income households. Higher income households may be net
losers, since their incomes are more dependent on reduced wages, they are less willing to switch to higher
density dwellings, and they are more likely to own their own home.
Maintaining fixed total industry size between scenarios impacts the consumer surplus measures. The
PECAS AA model represents how increased accessibility benefits industry directly and indirectly (for
example through lower wages), but it does not represent how industry may grow faster in the region
because of this benefit. If a separate model of region-wide economy size were to respond to AA‟s
producer surplus measures, industry would grow faster, and some of the benefit currently ascribed to
industry would be transferred to households through less wage reductions.
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Solvency: Increased Ridership
New opportunities will lead to increase cycling behavior
Nuworsoo, et al. February 2012. (Cornelius Nuworsoo, PhD—Associate Professor of Transporation Planning, Cal Polytech State U—
San Luis Obispo, Erin Cooper—Transportation Analyst, EMBARQ, World Resources Institute Center for Sustainable Transport, Washington,
DC, Katherine Cushing, PhD—Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, San Jose State, Eugene Jud, P.E.—Life Fellow, Institute of
Transportation Engineers) “Integration of Bicycling and Walking Facilities into the Infrastructure of Urban Communities,” Mineta Transportation
Institute, February 2012, p. 8
The average walking trip is ¾ of a mile. The average bicylcing trip is just over 2 miles. Roughly 30
percent of walking trips and 40 percent of bicycling trips are for recreational purposes, whereas only 20
percent of all trips using all modes are recreational, which shows the sizable proportions of non-motorized
trips that are for leisure rather than utilitarian purposes. This indicates that planning for multimodal
transit must purposefully satisfy the specific needs of utilitarian and recreational uses.
America Bikes states: “the average family spends 18 percent of its annual income on transportation.”
Since some people may find it difficult to buy or maintain one or more automobiles, providing bicycling
and pedestrian infrastructure allows access for people of all incomes. Other research shows that people
reduce their driving in response to difficult economic times.
Current safety statistics suggest a need for increased pedestrian infrastructure. For example, Ernst and
Shoup note in “Dangerous by Design” that “41 percent of pedestrian fatalities take place where there are
no crosswalks available.” These facts point to the need for non-motorized infrastructure to promote their
use and for safety during use.
Taken together, this snapshot of conditions for walking and cycling show that there is abundant room to
increase the share of non-motorized transportation in lieu of automobile use if the conditions are created
for use of these modes. The right conditions would include the availability and convenience of nonmotorized transportation infrastructure and connections with desired land uses and activity centers. This
study provides insight into how planners can better accommodate current and future bicyclists and
walkers by determining what is desirable from their point of view.
Growing need for more public transit.
Building America’s Future Education Fund, 2011. Building America’s Future: Falling Apart and Falling
Behind, Transportation Infrastructure Report,
p. 39 Two-thirds of the U.S. population lives in our largest metropolitan areas, and this number is
expected to grow—a recent survey shows that 77% of Americans under 30 intend to live in an urban core
for most of their lives. Yet only 30 of the largest 100 metropolitan regions in the U.S. have light rail or
subway systems. Only half of Americans have access to mass transit, and surveys show that most
Americans want more local transport options. But cities and states need more federal support to build the mass transit
alternatives our metropolitan regions need. The federal government should shift more attention and funding toward
building more mass transit alternatives. Spurring investment in mass transit is a smart use of federal
dollars: new light rail or commuter rail lines can accommodate 8 or 9 times the number of passengers as a
new lane of highway, and they can be built at a fraction of the cost.
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Solvency: Increased Ridership
Population shift requires a move to public and active transit investment
Bradley, et al. 2011. Road to Recovery: Transforming America’s Transportation Infrastructure. (Bill
Bradley—former US Senator, Currently Managing Director Allan and Company; Thomas J. Ridge—
Former Pennsylvania Governor and Secretary of Homeland Security, Currently CEO of Ridge Global;
David M. Walker, former US Comptroller General and Current CEO of Comeback America Initiative)
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
p. 58-9 More than 80 percent of the U.S. population now lives in metropolitan areas of 50,000 or more,
and the rate of population growth between 2000 and 2009 in metropolitan areas—10.4 percent—easily
outpaced that of “micropolitan” or rural areas.28 Individuals from 21 to 30 years of age represent the
second-largest age group in the country. They are set to expand their role in the U.S. housing market and
broader economy significantly during the coming decades. These so-called Millennials have been shown
to prefer walking to driving and have less interest in owning a car than previous generations. Indeed, 77
percent of Millennials plan to live in dense urban environments.29
Americans 65 and older are the fastest-growing demographic segment in the United States. By 2050, one
in five Americans will fall into this category. 30 Considering that more than 20 percent of seniors over the
age of 65 do not drive and must depend upon alternative transportation options, it will be necessary to
expand non-automobile mobility. Today’s lack of transportation options forces half of nondrivers age 65
and older to stay home on any given day, limiting their access to medical care, economic activity, and
social enrichment.31 The demographic shifts of future stakeholders suggest that there should be fewer
investments in new highway capacity and more investments in urban transportation modes that provide
high volume, space- and energy-efficient mobility, such as public mass transit, ultra-light neighborhood
electric vehicles, cycling, and walking.
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Solvency: Improved Public Health
Reducing fuel use also saves public health
Bradley, et al. 2011. Road to Recovery: Transforming America’s Transportation Infrastructure. (Bill Bradley—former US Senator,
Currently Managing Director Allan and Company; Thomas J. Ridge—Former Pennsylvania Governor and Secretary of Homeland Security,
Currently CEO of Ridge Global; David M. Walker, former US Comptroller General and Current CEO of Comeback America Initiative) Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace
p. 84-5 Transportation pricing could reduce fuel use, stimulating public health benefits. It directly lowers
harmful tailpipe emissions, decreases the rate of traffic accidents, and engenders more healthful mobility.
Automobile dependence is closely linked to some of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the
United States. Transportation reform linked to smart growth policies that facilitate biking and walking can
play a significant role in reducing the country’s skyrocketing health care costs, which were estimated to
be $2.4 trillion in 2008 and could reach $4.3 trillion by 2016.37
More accurately priced transportation helps reduce the number of traffic accidents by limiting driving
exposure and peak-hour use in congestion. Traffic crashes cause more than 40,000 deaths and cost $180
billion each year.38 Revenue generated from pricing can be directed to the implementation of more
efficient street designs. Inefficient transportation designs, characterized by weak street connectivity, have
higher automobile collision and pedestrian fatality rates.39 Other studies show that the risks of accidents,
injuries, and fatalities to pedestrians and bicyclists decrease when rates of walking and bicycling
increase.40 An automobile-dependent transportation system contributes to sedentary lifestyles and a lack
of opportunity for daily physical activity. Low levels of physical activity are directly linked to the
alarming obesity problem that costs Americans $76 billion annually, approximately 10 percent of U.S.
health care spending.41 There is a well-documented link between the built environment and physical
activity, indicating that comprehensive land use and transportation planning that provides a sufficient
level of street connectivity and destination density and supports alternatives to driving could save $142
billion annually in obesity-related health care expenditures, lost wages, and premature deaths.42
The literature provides extensive evidence that higher levels of physical activity are associated with urban
design and infrastructure that support walking and cycling, mixed-use zoning, and greater access to public
mass transit.43 Walking associated with transit use is often enough to meet public health
recommendations for physical activity of 30 minutes or more of moderate activity five days per week.44
An analysis found that an average 3.4-mile bicycle commute in Madison, Wisconsin, expends 144
calories round trip, amounting to 10 pounds of weight lost during a year, which reduces risks of heart
disease, stroke, breast cancer, colon cancer, and type II diabetes.45
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Active transportation is necessary for public health
Bors, et al. 20009, Philip Bors, MPH, Mark Dessauer, MA, Rich Bell, MCP, Risa Wilkerson, MA, Joanne Lee, RD, MPH, Sarah L. Strunk,
MHA) “The Active Living by Design National Program Community Initiatives and Lessons Learned” American Journal of Preventive Medicine,
2009:37(6S2)
The link between insufficient physical activity and adverse health outcomes is well-documented
and includes obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic diseases.1 Health scientists have
established the benefits of physical activity and have recently focused on the importance of regular,
moderate-intensity activities.2,3As a result, physical activity advocates have increasingly highlighted the
importance of utilitarian activities, such as walking and bicycling for transportation, in addition to
exercise, recreation, and athletics.
In order to increase routine physical activity, comprehensive public health interventions have
been developed using an ecologic framework to increase the potential to improve the health of
populations.4 An ecologic framework stresses the importance of addressing health problems at multiple
levels and recognizes that behavioral determinants range from individual and interpersonal factors to
community norms, environments, and policies.5–8 Many federal, state, and local public health
practitioners have shifted from traditional, individually focused interventions to those with the potential to
change environments and policies to maximize and sustain population impact. Environmental and policy
interventions for physical activity strive to “create changes in social networks, organizational norms and
policies, the physical environment, and laws.”
Improved infrastructure leads to more active transportation and better health
Stronegger, et al. 2010. (Willibald J. Stronegger—Institute of Social Medicine and Epidemiology, Medical University of Graz, Sylvia
Titze—Institute of Sport Science, Univzersity of Graz, Pekka Oja, UKK Institute, Finland) “Perceived characteristics of the neighborhood and its
association with physical activity behavior and self-rated health” Health & Place 16 (2010) 736–743
We found that different aspects of the residential environment seem to incite different physical
activity behaviors. A high level of satisfaction with the quarter’s local infrastructure may encourage the
residents to engage in higher levels of physical activity for transportation purposes, whereas the preferred
mode of transportation may be gender-specific: men use the bicycle more often whereas women walk.
Therefore, our results suggest that facilities of the local infrastructure (shops, leisure time facilities, etc.)
should be designed so as to ensure accessibility by both walking and cycling.
The results presented here may serve as a basis for devising structural health promoting measures
in urban environments in the sector of urban planning and design. The presence of a diversified local
infrastructure designed in combination with areas for walking and cycling could be a promising approach
to enhance physical activity for transportation purposes. Moreover, a high satisfaction of living in a
quarter of high general social- environmental quality with respect to appearance, safety, air quality,
walkable spaces, etc. is linked to higher levels of leisure time physical activity in both men and women.
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Infrastructure investment will increase active travel
Ogilvie et al, 2010, (David Ogilvie, 1Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit and Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR),
Cambridge, Richard Mitchell--2Section of Public Health and Health Policy, University of Glasgow, Nanette Mutrie--3Department of Sport,
Culture and the Arts, University of Strathclyde, Mark Petticrew--4London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Stephen Platt--5Centre
for Population Health Sciences, University of Edinburgh). “Shoe leather epidemiology: active travel and transport infrastructure in the urban
landscape” International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity 2010, 7:43 http://www.ijbnpa.org/content/7/1/43
Walking and cycling as modes of transport ('active travel') can make an important contribution to overall
physical activity and may be associated with characteristics of the built or natural environment [1-3].
Prima facie, altering the urban landscape may lead to changes in patterns of mobility, physical activity
and (eventually) population health. These changes may be positive or negative, and may occur as the
indirect or unintended effect of transport or planning policies primarily intended to achieve other goals
[4].
Transportation plans should incorporate health considerations into planning
American Public Health Association, 2009 AT THE INTERSECTION OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND TRANSPORTATION:
Promoting Healthy Transportation Policy, p10
Currently, of the federal transportation bill, about 80% of the funding goes toward building highways and
improving road infrastructures, and approximately 20% goes toward public transit programs. As a start, a
more equitable balance of funding is required. Programs in the transportation bill that help to improve
traffic safety; increase availability of public transit ridership; connect people with work, home, and
services in an affordable and accessible way; benefit health by increasing opportunities for physical
activity; and protect the environment as well as health should continue and the funding should be
increased. Specific favorable programs include the following: HSIP, CMAQ, Safe Routes to School,
recreational trails, and all public transit improvement projects. Most importantly, health considerations
should not be sidelined as an add-on in a number of small program areas. All our transportation policies,
programs and decisions should begin with the under- standing that the health of the general public is a
national priority. Health and well-being should be a critical consideration in overall transportation policy.
To be successful, these policies and programs must have positive measurable health outcomes, which will
result in medical cost savings. Positive societal outcomes, such as helping to decrease the burden of
climate change and societies dependance on fossil fuels, should also be considered. The elements of
achieving positive health through transportation policy outlined earlier are good basic principles and offer
a good place for public health professionals to start.
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Active transportation policies improve health and fitness
Sallis, et al. 2012. (James F. Sallis, PhD-- From the Department of Psychology, San Diego State University, Myron F. Floyd, PhD-Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management, North Carolina State University, Daniel A. Rodríguez, PhD-- Department of City
and Regional Planning, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Brian E. Saelens, PhD-- Seattle Children's Research Institute, University of
Washington) “Recent Advances in Preventive Cardiology and Lifestyle Medicine Role of Built Environments in Physical Activity, Obesity, and
Cardiovascular Disease”, American Heart Association Journal, June 19, 2012, http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/125/5/729.full
Active transportation has declined in recent decades. Between 1977 and 1995, the number of all walking
trips decreased by 32% for adults, with similar reductions for youth.45 Adults walk for only 21.2% of trips
that are 1.6 km or less, and children walk for only 35.9% of trips to school of that distance. 45 Reversing
the recent decline in rates of walking and biking for transportation, especially for short trips, presents a
major opportunity for improving health for all ages. Evidence is accumulating about how the built
environment can support active transportation, and this evidence can inform policy changes.
Built Environment, Active Transportation, and Physical Activity
Key characteristics of built environments and community design are land use (residential, commercial, institutional, or park and open space),
intensity (population density), location relative to other community destinations, the interconnections available to reach those destinations, and
aesthetic qualities. Having a variety of destinations close by has been positively associated with walking and bicycling for transportation. 22,23,46–48
Destinations refer to land uses that are frequently accessed in daily life for shopping, education, work, and recreation. Proximity to parks and
commercial areas is associated with higher active transportation.24,49
Population density refers to the number of individuals or households living in a particular area and is consistently associated with higher active
transportation.23,46 In areas of high density, destinations can be closer together because the number of people needed to support shops, services,
and schools is found in a smaller area.
Transportation facilities that connect residential areas and destinations also are related to active
transportation. When neighborhoods have sidewalks, streets are well lit, and pedestrians are shielded from
traffic, residents are often found to walk more and have higher physical activity, although results are not
highly consistent.46,47,50,51 Having bicycle paths or trails that separate bicycles from traffic is sometimes
associated with increased bicycle use.48,52
Public bus and rail stops nearby have been positively associated with active transportation. 51,53,54 People
who use public transportation tended to be more active and less likely to be overweight and obese than
adults who did not use public transportation.55 Nationwide, 29% of those who used transit were physically
active for 30 minutes or more each day, solely by walking to and from public transit.54
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Solvency: Improved Public Health
Transportation policies can help solve 50% of health problems
American Public Health Association, 2009 AT THE INTERSECTION OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND
TRANSPORTATION: Promoting Healthy Transportation Policy, p5-6
Fifty percent of the leading causes of death and illness in the United States—traffic injuries, heart disease,
cancer, diabetes, and respiratory illness—are preventable. These diseases have several risk factors that
can be mitigated by transportation policies—policies that promote the design and development of healthy
communities. Because the transportation system touches most aspects of daily life, optimizing
transportation and community design can play an important role in improving health.
Improving the health of US residents and helping to prevent disease through reformed transportation
policy can be achieved through a variety of means:
• Offering balanced and affordable modes of transportation (including driving, biking, walking, and
public transit) and, where possible, helping to decrease reliance on automobiles;
• Building communities and improving connectivity so that residents can safely walk or bike to work,
school, home, play, public transit, and services;
• Ensuring public transit can be reached safely without needing to drive;
• Increasing opportunities for residents in sprawling communities to be physically active;
• Improving injury prevention and installing safety and protective measures where needed;
• Sustaining and improving motor vehicle safety;
• Increasing US energy independence and investing in identification of alternative fuels sources;
• Educating US residents about the health benefits of walking, biking, and safe transportation behaviors;
and
• Assessing the potential health impact*of all major transportation, land-use decision, or planning
activities.
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Solvency: Improved Public Health
Studies prove that changing and promoting transportation infrastructure increases active
transportation and improves health
Sallis, et al. 2012. (James F. Sallis, PhD-- From the Department of Psychology, San Diego State University, Myron F. Floyd, PhD-Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management, North Carolina State University, Daniel A. Rodríguez, PhD-- Department of City
and Regional Planning, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Brian E. Saelens, PhD-- Seattle Children's Research Institute, University of
Washington) “Recent Advances in Preventive Cardiology and Lifestyle Medicine Role of Built Environments in Physical Activity, Obesity, and
Cardiovascular Disease”, American Heart Association Journal, June 19, 2012, http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/125/5/729.full
Recommendations summarized in the Table, based on limited evidence and often expert opinion, have
guided large-scale initiatives to implement change in built environments and policy. Some evidence
regarding environment and policy interventions does exist. The December 2009 supplement to the
American Journal of Preventive Medicine highlighted outcomes from communities engaging in
environment and policy change through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Active Living by Design
program. For example, Jackson, MI, developed Project U-Turn. In addition to physical activity education
and programming, changes in the physical environment (eg, construction of a rail-trail) and policy (eg,
streets must accommodate all modes of travel, including pedestrians and bicyclists) around physical
activity were realized, with corresponding increases in active transportation.78
The Shape Up Somerville trial compared community-wide interventions for childhood obesity in
Somerville, MA, to 2 nonintervention cities matched on sociodemographic factors. Shape Up Somerville
interventions cut across levels of the ecological model and included pedestrian infrastructure/safety, walk
to/from school campaigns, and new school play equipment. Most notable is that this comprehensive set of
community-wide interventions had a documented impact on reducing child overweight/obesity
prevalence79 and increasing physical activity80 at the population level.
Cycling solves urban health problems
Tight, et al, 2011. (Miles Tight--Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, Paul Timms--Institute for Transport Studies,
University of Leeds, David Banister--Oxford University Centre for the Environment, Jemma Bowmaker--SURFACE Inclusive Design Research
Centre, University of Salford, Jonathan Copas--School of Computing Science, University of East Anglia, Andy Day--School of Computing
Science, University of East Anglia, David Drinkwater--School of Computing Science, University of East Anglia, Moshe Givoni--Oxford
University Centre for the Environment, Astrid Gühnemann--Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, Mary Lawler--Institute for
Transport Studies, University of Leeds, James Macmillen--Oxford University Centre for the Environment, Andrew Miles--Centre for Research of
Socio-Cultural Change, University of Manchester, Niamh Moore--Centre for Research of Socio-Cultural Change, University of Manchester, Rita
Newton--SURFACE Inclusive Design Research Centre, University of Salford, Dong Ngoduy--Institute for Transport Studies, University of
Leeds, Marcus Ormerod--SURFACE Inclusive Design Research Centre, University of Salford, Maria O’Sullivan--SURFACE Inclusive Design
Research Centre, University of Salford, David Watling-- Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds “Visions for a walking and cycling
focussed urban transport system” Journal of Transport Geography 19 (2011) 1580–1589
This paper seeks to develop and evaluate three alternative visions for the year 2030 in which walking and
cycling play a substantially more central role in urban transportation than is currently the case. The aim is
to explore the extent to which these modes could replace our current dependence on motorised transport
with a view to creating urban environments which are safer, more sociable and less environmentally
damaging. The visions seek to go beyond just small scale incremental changes to the existing transport
systems and to explore the potential for more radical change. The focus is on walking and cycling as these
modes have a high potential to address (at least in part) many of the problems which currently blight our
urban areas, including road accidents, traffic induced air pollution, noise, severance and the health issues
associated with increasingly sedentary lifestyles.
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Solvency: Improved Public Health
Infrastructure is necessary first step to create cycling culture
Dill, 2009. (Jennifer Dill, Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning, Portland State University). “Bicycling for Transportation
and Health: The Role of Infrastructure, Journal of Public Health Policy (2009) 30, S95–S110. doi:10.1057/jphp.2008.56
The study demonstrated that bicycling for transportation can be used by adults to meet the
recommendations for daily physical activity. A supportive environment, like that found in the Portland
region, appears necessary to encourage bicycling for everyday travel, allowing more adults to achieve
active living goals. The first part of that environment is bicycle infrastructure that addresses people’s
concern about safety from motor vehicles. In Portland, this includes a network of bike lanes, paths, and
boulevards. Building such a network requires a comprehensive plan, funding, and political leadership. In
Oregon, state law requires that both bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure be built whenever roads are built
or rebuilt (with few exceptions), and that cities, counties, and the State spend a reasonable share of their
state highway funds, usually defined as 1%, on pedestrian and bicycle features.
Walkable neighborhoods need to be included in transportation planning
Sallis, 2009. (James F. Sallis--Department of Psychology, San Diego State University, Brian E. Saelens--University of Washington and
Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center, Seattle, Lawrence D. Frank-- School of Community and Regional Planning, University of
British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada & Lawrence Frank & Company, Point Robert, WA c,d, Terry L. Conway--Graduate School of Public
Health, San Diego State University, Donald J. Slymen-- Graduate School of Public Health, San Diego State University, Kelli L. Cain -Department of Psychology, San Diego State University, James E. Chapman-- Lawrence Frank & Company, Point Robert, WA, Jacqueline Kerr-San Diego State University, University of California San Diego, CA, USA) “Neighborhood built environment and income: Examining multiple
health outcomes”, Social Science & Medicine 68 (2009) 1285–1293
Physical inactivity and obesity are two of the most significant health problems in the United States and
globally (Andersen, 2003; Dishman et al., 2004; World Health Organization, 2004), and both outcomes
were related to neighborhood attributes which are directly controlled by public policies. Policies to
encourage development of more walkable neighborhoods and enhancements to existing neighborhoods
could provide health benefits to large proportions of the population, both low- and high-income, on a
relatively permanent basis. Policies that favor walkable neighborhood designs have also been related to
reductions in driving, greenhouse gases, and air pollution; conservation of open space; and reduced
spending on public infrastructure (Frank et al., 2003, 2004, 2006; Ewing, Bartholomew, Winkelman,
Walters, & Chen, 2007). Some negative effects have been identified, such as local traffic congestion and
concentration of air pollution (Frumkin et al., 2004). Thus, walkable neighborhoods are not a panacea,
and policies promoting walkable development patterns should be combined with other policies to avoid
negative outcomes, especially among low-income populations. The potential to produce widespread and
long-lasting favorable impacts on physical activity and overweight/obesity should make the creation and
improvement of walkable neighborhoods a high priority on the public health agenda. An important next
step in research is to identify the shape of the relation of neighborhood environment characteristics to
physical activity and overweight/obesity outcomes so recommended levels of walkability attributes can be
developed. Other studies are needed to strengthen evidence of causality through prospective and quasiexperimental studies.
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Empirical Solvency Examples
Safe Routes to School Programs improve health in children
Lindholm, 2011, (Raymond Lindholm, Georgia State University College of Law, Center for Health, Law, & Society) “Combating
childhood obesity: A survey of laws affecting the built environments of low-income and minority children”, Review of Environment and Health
2011
In 2005, Congress allocated $612 million to give to states as grants for state Safe Routes to Schools
Programs (SRTS) through 2009 as part of its Transportation Bill (95). Since 2005, the STRS program has
provided evaluation, education, and engineering to cities and counties to improve active transportation to
more than 6,500 schools (96). This has resulted in a large increase in the number of children walking and
biking to school. One study found that the SRTS program in California has resulted in a 38% increase in
the number of children getting to school by active transportation (97). New Jersey is another example of a
successfully implemented SRTS program. Using over $4 million in federal SRTS grants, New Jersey
encouraged children to walk and bike to school while also improving the safety for them to do so (98).
SRTS programs help children get exercise and fight obesity, and they also help reduce pollution and
morning congestion. There are currently plans to reauthorize and re-fund the SRTS program in the 2010
Federal Transportation Bill.
Complete streets program helps children
Lindholm, 2011, (Raymond Lindholm, Georgia State University College of Law, Center for Health, Law, & Society) “Combating
childhood obesity: A survey of laws affecting the built environments of low-income and minority children”, Review of Environment and Health
2011
Several states and localities are using the land-use laws discussed above to improve how streets
and other transportation lanes are constructed. These programs are known as “Complete Streets”
programs. California’s Complete Streets Act of 2008 will require all cities and counties to design their
streets, roadways, and highways so they can safely accommodate motorists, pedestrians, cyclists,
children, seniors, public transit subscribers, commercial vehicles, and people with disabilities beginning
January 1, 2011 (99, 100). Washington has a similar program through its Healthy Communities and its
Active Community Environments programs. Both of these programs help counties and cities implement
the “complete streets” ideal by increasing the number of bicycle facilities, sidewalks, trails, and mixeduse developments so that pedestrians and bicyclists can easily access homes, businesses, schools, and
other community facilities (101). Florida also has a Conserve by Bicycle program (102). In 2009
Louisiana introduced legislation aimed at creating a Complete Streets workgroup in its Department of
Transportation for “streets and roadways that are safe and convenient for travel by automobile, foot,
bicycle, and transit regardless of age or ability.”(103) Programs such as these are effective at increasing
active transportation methods. For instance, Portland, Oregon experienced a 74% increase in bicycle
traffic after implementing a “Complete Streets” program in the 1990’s.
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Empirical Solvency Examples
People will become cyclists. Portland Study Proves.
Dill, 2009. (Jennifer Dill, Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning, Portland State University). “Bicycling for Transportation
and Health: The Role of Infrastructure, Journal of Public Health Policy (2009) 30, S95–S110. doi:10.1057/jphp.2008.56
A large majority (59%) of the participants were able to meet the recommended 150 minutes of
activity per week through the bicycling recorded by the GPS units. Nearly all of the bicycling was for
utilitarian purposes. Although the participants represent a small share of all bicyclists, and an even
smaller share of the population, this finding does indicate that regular bicyclists can achieve healthy levels
of physical activity through daily travel.
Trip distances are sometimes cited as a barrier to bicycling (22). The median bicycle trip length
recorded here was about 3 miles. About half of all daily trips made in the United States are 3 miles or less
in length (10). Therefore, the potential to switch trips from driving to bicycling is large. In addition,
participants were linking trips together, stopping somewhere on the way home from work, for example.
This is made more feasible by Portland’s policies and regulations that support mixing land uses, including
commercial and residential uses. A well-connected network of bicycle-friendly infrastructure would also
facilitate such linking of trips.
Can replicate Portland Results. Rest of nation has the necessary infrastructure or it can be folded
into new construction.
Dill, 2009. (Jennifer Dill, Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning, Portland State University). “Bicycling for Transportation
and Health: The Role of Infrastructure, Journal of Public Health Policy (2009) 30, S95–S110. doi:10.1057/jphp.2008.56
A network of different types of infrastructure appears necessary to attract new people to bicycling. Simply
adding bike lanes to all new major roads is unlikely to achieve high rates of bicycling. For people
concerned with safety and avoiding traffic, a well-connected network of low-traffic streets, including
some bicycle boulevards, may be more effective than adding bike lanes on major streets with high
volumes of motor vehicle traffic. Opportunities to build separate paths are often limited in existing
neighborhoods due to space constraints and costs. Public agencies can, however, look for such
opportunities when building other infrastructure, such as new rail transit lines, along existing
transportation corridors, and when expanding to new undeveloped areas. Finally, the role of bike lanes
should not be dismissed in planning for a bicycle-friendly community. A disproportionate share of the
bicycling occurs on streets with bike lanes, indicating their value to bicyclists. These facilities may
provide important links in the network, connecting neighborhoods when low-volume streets cannot. The
bicycle infrastructure in Portland appears to work, in part, because of a supporting land use and street
network structure. The areas within Portland where the highest levels of bicycling occur also have a wellconnected street grid and mix of land uses. This allows bicyclists to link their trips together in an efficient
manner. The grid street patterns allows the installation of bike boulevards that provide options to
bicycling on major streets with more traffic, without increasing travel distances too much. The older parts
of many US cities have this same supportive structure. For new development, street connectivity
standards and zoning that allows or even mandates a mix of land uses can create such an environment.
The Portland region has adopted both of these strategies.
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Empirical Solvency Examples
Walkable neighborhoods increase active transportation
Sallis, 2009. (James F. Sallis--Department of Psychology, San Diego State University, Brian E. Saelens--University of Washington and
Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center, Seattle, Lawrence D. Frank-- School of Community and Regional Planning, University of
British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada & Lawrence Frank & Company, Point Robert, WA c,d, Terry L. Conway--Graduate School of Public
Health, San Diego State University, Donald J. Slymen-- Graduate School of Public Health, San Diego State University, Kelli L. Cain -Department of Psychology, San Diego State University, James E. Chapman-- Lawrence Frank & Company, Point Robert, WA, Jacqueline Kerr-San Diego State University, University of California San Diego, CA, USA) “Neighborhood built environment and income: Examining multiple
health outcomes”, Social Science & Medicine 68 (2009) 1285–1293
The walkability-by-income interaction (p ¼ 0.027) and walkability main effect (p ¼ < 0.0001) were both
significant. Overall, the significant walkability main effect indicated a higher average number of minutes
per week of walking for transportation in highwalkability neighborhoods (44.3 min per week) compared
to lowwalkability neighborhoods (12.8 min per week). Walking for transportation was significantly
higher in high-walkability neighborhoods compared to low-walkability neighborhoods for both high- and
low-income neighborhoods; however, the differential was larger in high-income neighborhoods (5.1 min)
vs. low-income neighborhoods (2.3 min).
Study done in Baltimore and Seattle so it is more generalizable for nation as a whole.
Sallis, 2009. (James F. Sallis--Department of Psychology, San Diego State University, Brian E. Saelens--University of Washington and
Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center, Seattle, Lawrence D. Frank-- School of Community and Regional Planning, University of
British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada & Lawrence Frank & Company, Point Robert, WA c,d, Terry L. Conway--Graduate School of Public
Health, San Diego State University, Donald J. Slymen-- Graduate School of Public Health, San Diego State University, Kelli L. Cain -Department of Psychology, San Diego State University, James E. Chapman-- Lawrence Frank & Company, Point Robert, WA, Jacqueline Kerr-San Diego State University, University of California San Diego, CA, USA) “Neighborhood built environment and income: Examining multiple
health outcomes”, Social Science & Medicine 68 (2009) 1285–1293
A strength of the present study was the design to recruit participants from two regions of the United
States that differed in demographic composition, climate, geography, and era of development. Results
generalized across the two regions. Other strengths included use of accelerometers to objectively assess
physical activity, assessment of walking for multiple purposes, control for seasonal effects, selection of
neighborhoods that varied widely on walkability defined by GIS and income, and use of validated
measures. The present study is one of the few to statistically adjust for potential self-selection bias
(Handy et al., 2006, 2008; Frank et al., 2007; Bagley & Mokhtarian, 2002).
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Disadvantage Overview
Regardless of what disadvantage the negative runs in the debate, the following argument should
help the affirmative frame the decision of the judge to emphasize the strength of the affirmative impact in
contrast with the negative impact of the disadvantage. The overview seeks to compare the magnitude, risk
and time-frame of the negative arguments with the magnitude, risk and time frame of the impacts the
affirmative claims to solve.
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Disadvantage Overview 1/2
The disadvantage is highly uncertain and cannot justify voting negative.
1. A number of arguments prove that the disadvantage impact is not unique and is inevitable
whether or not you vote Affirmative.
2. The disadvantage also does not link to the affirmative, further proving that the affirmative
does not increase the risk of the impact.
3. The affirmative also outweighs the negative two ways:
A. Obesity. Over 100,000 people die each year. Unless you vote for the plan, you
condemn one million people to die over the next ten years. The probability that
you will cause a nuclear war is obscenely small compared to the certain death as
a result of voting negative.
B. Social Justice. Current transportation is a form of apartheid, excluding
particular groups of society from full participation in society. Our continued
acceptance of this racist governance condemns tens of millions to a new form of
slavery that should outweigh the minimal risk of nuclear war.
Giroux 6 (Henry, the Global TV Network Chair Professorship at McMaster University in the English and Cultural Studies Department,
“Reading Hurricane Katrina: Race, Class, and the Biopolitics of Disposability,” College Literature, Vol. 33, No. 3)
With the social state in retreat and the rapacious dynamics of neoliberalism, unchecked by government regulations, the public and
private policies of investing in the public good are dismissed as bad business, just as the notion of protecting people from the dire
misfortunes of poverty, sickness, or the random blows of fate is viewed as an act of bad faith. Weakness is now a sin,
punishable by social exclusion. This is especially true for those racial groups and immigrant
populations who have always been at risk economically and politically. Increasingly, such groups have
become part of an evergrowing army of the impoverished and disenfranchised—removed from the
prospect of a decent job, productive education, adequate health care, acceptable child care services,
and satisfactory shelter. As the state is transformed into the primary agent of terror and corporate
concerns displace democratic values, dominant “power is measured by the speed with which responsibilities can be escaped”
(Qtd. in Fearn 2006, 30).With its pathological disdain for social values and public life and its celebration of an unbridled individualism
and acquisitiveness, the Bush administration does more than undermine the nature of social obligation and civic responsibility; it also
sends a message to those populations who are poor and black—society neither wants, cares about, or
needs you (Bauman 1999, 68-69). Katrina revealed with startling and disturbing clarity who these
individuals are: African- Americans who occupy the poorest sections of New Orleans, those ghettoized
frontier-zones created by racism coupled with economic inequality. Cut out of any long term goals and
a decent vision of the future, these are the populations, as Zygmunt Bauman points out, who have been
rendered redundant and disposable in the age of neoliberal global capitalism. Katrina reveals that we
are living in dark times.The shadow of authoritarianism remains after the storm clouds and hurricane
winds have passed, offering a glimpse of its wreckage and terror. The politics of a disaster that affected
Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi is about more than government incompetence, militarization, socioeconomic polarization, environmental disaster, and political scandal. Hurricane Katrina broke through
the visual blackout of poverty and the pernicious ideology of color-blindness to reveal the
government’s role in fostering the dire conditions of largely poor African-Americans, who were
bearing the hardships incurred by the full wrath of the indifference and violence at work in the racist,
neoliberal state. Global neoliberalism and its victims now occupy a space shaped by authoritarian
politics, the terrors inflicted by a police state, and a logic of disposability that removes them from
government social provisions and the discourse and privileges of citizenship. One of the most obvious
lessons of Katrina—that race and racism still matter in America—is fully operational through a biopolitics in
which “sovereignty resides in the power and capacity to dictate who may live and who may die”
(Mbembe 11-12).Those poor minorities of color and class, unable to contribute to the prevailing consumerist ethic, are vanishing
into the sinkhole of poverty in desolate and abandoned enclaves of decaying cities, neighborhoods, and rural spaces, or in America’s
ever-expanding prison empire. Under the Bush regime, a biopolitics driven by the waste machine of what Zygmunt
Bauman defines as “liquid modernity” registers a new and brutal racism as part of the emergence of a
contemporary and savage authoritarianism.
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Disadvantage Overview 2/2
4. Reject appeals to cold economic cost-benefit analysis – societal conditions are created by the
decisionmaking processes we use in formulating policies – and utilitarian calculus eventually results in
ignoring groups most affected by racism
Wenz 1 (Peter S., Professor of Philosophy and Legal Studies at Sangamon State University and adjunct
Professor of Medical Humanities at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, , Faces of
Environmental Racism: Confronting Issues of Global Justice (2nd ed.,), p. 63-67)
The merits of the utilitarian rejection of common sense morality need not be assessed, however, because utilitarianism
seems
impossible to put into practice. Utilitarian support for any particular conclusion is
undermined by the inability of anyone actually to perform the kinds of calculations that
utilitarians profess to use. Whether the good is identified with happiness or preferencesatisfaction,
the two leading contenders at the moment, utilitarians announce the conclusions of
their calculations without ever being able to show the calculation itself.
When I was in school, math teachers suspected that students who could never show their work were copying answers from other
students. I suspect similarly that utilitarians, whose “calculations” often support conclusions that others reach by recourse to principles
of gratitude, retributive justice, commensuration between burdens and benefits, and so forth, reach conclusions on grounds of intuitions
influenced predominantly by these very principles.
Utilitarians may claim that, contrary to superficial appearances, these principles are themselves
supported by utilitarian calculations. But, again, no one has produced a relevant calculation.
Some principles seem prima facie opposed to utilitarianism, such as the one prescribing special solicitude of parents for their own children. It
would seem that in cold climates more good would be produced if people bought winter coats for needy children, instead of special dress coats
and ski attire for their own children. But utilitarians defend the principle of special parental concern. They declare this principle consistent with
utilitarianism by appeal to entirely untested, unsubstantiated assumptions about counterfactuals. It is a kind of “Just So” story that explains how
good is maximized by adherence to current standards. There is no calculation at all.
Another indication that utilitarians cannot perform the calculations they profess to rely upon
concerns principles whose worth is in genuine dispute. Utilitarians offer no calculations that
help to settle the matter. For example, many people wonder today whether or not patriotism is a worthy moral principle. Detailed
utilitarian calculations play no part in the discussion.
These are some of the reasons why utilitarianism
provides no help to those deciding whether or not
disproportionate exposure of poor people to toxic wastes is just.
Free Market Approach
Toxic wastes, a burden, could be placed where residents accept them in return for monetary payment, a benefit. Since market transactions often
satisfactorily commensurate burdens and benefits, this approach may seem to honor the principle of commensuration between burdens and
benefits.
Unlike many market transactions, however, whole communities, acting as corporate bodies, would have to contract with those seeking to bury
wastes. Otherwise, any single individual in the community could veto the transaction, resulting in the impasse attending libertarian approaches.7
Communities could receive money to improve such public facilities as schools, parks, and hospitals, in addition to obtaining tax revenues and
jobs that result ordinarily from business expansion.
The major problem with this free market approach is that it fails to accord equal
consideration to everyone’s interests. Where basic or vital goods and services are at issue, we
usually think equal consideration of interests requires ameliorating inequalities of
distribution that markets tend to produce. For example, one reason, although not the only
reason, for public education is to provide every child with the basic intellectual tools
necessary for success in our society. A purely free market approach, by contrast, would result
in excellent education for children of wealthy parents and little or no education for children
of the nation’s poorest residents. Opportunities for children of poor parents would be so
inferior that we would say the children’s interests had not been given equal consideration.
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Highways Disadvantage Answers
The Highways Disadvantage is a negative argument that says that investing in public transit leads
to fewer vehicle miles travelled. With fewer vehicle miles travelled, there will be less revenue available
for investing in highway infrastructure and repair. Infrastructure and repair of highways, it is argued, is
critical for economic growth. Good and efficient roadways are necessary for the movement of goods and
services, for the efficient movement of people to and from places of employment, and access to materials.
By hurting the US economy, the disadvantage says, it will hurt the trade competitiveness of the United
States in the global market place.
There are several answers available to this argument. First, there are many arguments that say
that highway infrastructure is already beginning to impact the economy so the disadvantage will occur
with or without the plan. This argument says that the disadvantage is not unique.
The second major argument is that the plan does not link to the disadvantage. That is, the plan
does not cause the disadvantage to occur. These arguments say the United States has such a strong
economy that it will never relinquish its role as a global leader.
The third major argument is that the affirmative plan turns the argument. The principal reason is
that it is good to decrease investment in highways because highway investments actually cause people to
use the highways more meaning that the more you invest the greater the level of congestion. If the plan is
effective, there will be actually fewer people using the highways.
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2AC Highways Disad Frontline 1/3
NOT UNIQUE: Infrastructure spending will inevitably decline
Economist, April 29, 2011, “America’s Transportation Infrastructure: Life in the Slow Lane”
http://www.economist.com/node/18620944/print, p. 9
Mr Obama is thinking big. His 2012 budget proposal contains $556 billion for transport, to be spent over six years. But his administration has
declined to explain where the money will come from. Without new funding, some Democratic leaders have warned, a
new, six-year transport bill will have to trim annual highway spending by about a third to keep up with
falling petrol-tax revenues. But Republicans are increasingly sceptical of any new infrastructure spending.
Party leaders have taken to using inverted commas around the word “investment” when Democrats apply
it to infrastructure. Roads, bridges and railways used to be neutral ground on which the parties could
come together to support the country’s growth. But as politics has become more bitter, public works have
been neglected. If the gridlock choking Washington finds its way to America’s statehouses too, then the
American economy risks grinding to a standstill.
NOT UNIQUE: Current investments are not coordinated and can hurt growth
Bill Bradley, Tom Ridge, David Walker, Carnegie Endowment, 2011 [Road to Recovery: Transforming America’s
Transportation, 2011 http://carnegieendowment.org/files/road_to_recovery.pdf]
Congress articulates very few requirements to ensure that projects funded with federal dollars are costeffective or necessary or promote long-term economic growth. Authorizing legislation is limited to requirements related
to fair wage rates, discrimination policies, and competitive contracting procedures. Contract authority— the authority granted to DOT
to obligate federal funding for authorized projects before appropriations—increases the power of states to
select projects with little federal oversight, especially because the federal transportation law declares that its provisions “shall in
no way infringe on the sovereign rights of the states to determine which projects shall be federally financed.” Though this law gives states muchneeded flexibility because of the wide range of different transportation needs from state to state, it largely gave away federal oversight. States are
only expected to report to the federal government at the end of the project to arrange for reimbursement. This provides Congress with little
assurance that federal funds are being effectively targeted toward projects of national and regional interest. Worse, delegating too much
power to plan, prioritize, and build projects to individual states means that federal transportation programs
are implemented state by state without continuity or regional vision, leading to uneven, and sometimes
negative, outcomes.
NOT UNIQUE: Infrastructure investment no longer contributes to US Hegemony
Ernst Frankel, Professor Emeritus, Engineering, MIT, October 2007 [http://web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/201/frankel.html]
Physical infrastructure, once the pride of America and a major contributor to its economic and social
growth and success, has in recent years become an acute embarrassment to this nation. Infrastructure
failures, ineffectiveness, and the inability to properly plan, construct, manage, and maintain it now pose
an acute challenge to America’s claims of economic, social, environmental, and technological leadership.
NO LINK: US is not in decline
Michael Beckley, research fellow, Harvard, International Security Program, 2012[International Security
Winter 2011/12, Vol 36 pp. 41-78]
For a theory to be useful, significant changes in the key independent variables should produce noticeable
changes in the dependent variable. Over the last twenty years, globalization and U.S. hegemony have
expanded significantly. 76 If the United States has not declined relative to China during this period, then
declinism has failed a critical test and should be regarded as suspect.
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2AC Highways Disad Frontline 2/3
NO LINK: The US will remain global leader
Michael Beckley, research fellow, Harvard, International Security Program, 2012 [International Security
Winter 2011/12, Vol 36 pp. 41-78]
Compared to developing countries such as China, the United States is primed for technological
absorption. Its property rights, social networks, capital markets, flexible labor laws, and legions of
multinational companies not only help it innovate, but also absorb innovations created elsewhere.
Declinists liken the U.S. economic system to a leaky bucket oozing innovations out into the international
system. But in the alternative perspective, the United States is more like a sponge, steadily increasing its
mass by soaking up ideas, technology, and people from the rest of the world. If this is the case, then the
spread of technology around the globe may paradoxically favor a concentration of technological and
military capabilities in the United States.
NO INTERNAL LINK: Economic wealth does not determine global power
Michael Beckley, research fellow, Harvard, International Security Program, 2012 [International Security
Winter 2011/12, Vol 36 pp. 41-78]
It is, however, important to recognize that GDP is not synonymous with national power, and that
countries with larger economies do not necessarily have more resources at their disposal. Half a billion
peasants will produce a large volume of output, but most of it will be immediately consumed, leaving
little left over for national purposes. As Klaus Knorr argued, what matters for national power is not
wealth, but “surplus wealth.” It is therefore significant that the average Chinese citizen is more than
$17,000 poorer relative to the average American than he was in 1991.
NO IMPACT: The US will continue to exert power
Michael Beckley, research fellow, Harvard, International Security Program, 2012 [International Security
Winter 2011/12, Vol 36 pp. 41-78]
To be sure, the costs of maintaining U.S. military superiority are substantial. By historical standards,
however, they are exceptionally small. 41 Past hegemons succumbed to imperial overstretch after fighting
multifront wars against major powers and spending more than 10 percent (and often 100 or 200 percent)
of their GDPs on defense. 42 The United States, by contrast, spends 4 percent of its GDP on defense and
concentrates its enmity on rogue nations and failed states. Past bids for global mastery were strangled
before hegemony could be fully consolidated. The United States, on the other hand, has the advantage of
being an extant hegemon—it did not overturn an existing international order; rather, the existing order
collapsed around it. As a result, its dominant position is entrenched to the point that “any effort to
compete directly with the United States is futile, so no one tries.”
TURN: Current formulas encourage highways and congestion rather than decreasing road use
Economist, April 29, 2011, “America’s Transportation Infrastructure: Life in the Slow Lane”
http://www.economist.com/node/18620944/print
p. 6The federal government is responsible for only a quarter of total transport spending, but the way it
allocates funding shapes the way things are done at the state and local levels. Unfortunately, it tends not to reward
the prudent, thanks to formulas that govern over 70% of federal investment. Petrol-tax revenues, for instance, are returned to
the states according to the miles of highway they contain, the distances their residents drive, and the fuel
they burn. The system is awash with perverse incentives. A state using road-pricing to limit travel and
congestion would be punished for its efforts with reduced funding, whereas one that built highways it
could not afford to maintain would receive a larger allocation.
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TURN: Failure to invest in public transit threatens the economy and national security
Transportation for America, 2009, Platform for the National Transportation Authorization Program p. 10
The combination of growth in the size of the program, the setting of minimum guarantees or funding
floors, and retention of most decision making within state DOTs has caused the federal transportation
program to resemble a blank check or project “ATM.” The lack of a clear statement of national objectives
and the lack of accountability for use of funds (or for the impacts of decision making) has created a
strategic policy vacuum. In this policy vacuum, states have thrown increasingly vast sums of money at
highway and freeway expansion projects in a quixotic pursuit of “congestion alleviation” – a pursuit that
has served primarily to accelerate a national expansion of suburban and exurban low density
development. This has also set the stage for rampant Congressional “earmarking” – specific listing of projects in the authorization
legislation (5,000 projects in SAFETEA-LU). The increasingly errant nature of the federal transportation program has had profound effects on the
national economy, public health and the quality of life in our communities. Our near total reliance on petroleum for
transportation energy and our out-sized contribution to worldwide greenhouse gases imperil our national
security, our economy, and our way of life. We have lost the ability to walk or bicycle safely and
conveniently in an ever larger portion of the American landscape with tragic consequences for the health
of our population and especially our children. The federal subsidization of low density exurban
development has helped create extensive low-density, semi-urban landscapes where homeowners in
search of low-cost mortgages endure exhausting drive-alone commutes and household budget problems.
Although we are the world’s wealthiest nation, we have a second tier urban transit system and no intercity
high speed rail network.
NO CHINA IMPACT: Effects of Chinese infrastructure are greatly exaggerated
Robinson O’Brien-Bours, Ashbrook Scholar Program, 2011 [http://nlt.ashbrook.org/2011/04/exaggeration-ofchinese-ascendancy.php]
Second, projections of China's rising power are grossly exaggerated. Overlooking the massive fact that
hundreds of millions of Chinese still live in feudal poverty, their economy is built on severely unstable
foundations. Eager to increase their power, wealth, and prestige, the Communists have cut all sorts of
corners to inflate their economy and over-invested in property and infrastructure. Take, for example, this episode
concerning China's poor investment in high-speed rail (something to note from those in the United States who lament our lack of high-speed rail
in relation to our Eastern friends): highlighting the corruption and shortsightedness of the Communist Party, the Chinese have invested $300
billion in an intricate high-speed rail line. The New York Times and President Obama gushed over the Chinese investments in airports, electric
cars, and bullet trains, citing them as an example for America to follow. The problem? No one is riding the trains and the airports are empty.
The government is $270 billion in debt over the bullet train investment, and they have had to lower the
speed of the trains by 30 MPH due to safety concerns that came up because of how haphazardly this was
done. It is a train wreck that they will never be able to pay for (note to those supportive of Obama's
investment in high-speed rail: Japan and Thailand saw their trains bankrupted too after investing in it).
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UNIQUENESS EXTENSIONS—NOT SPENDING ENOUGH NOW
Not enough money for Highway Spending Now
Bradley, et al. 2011. Road to Recovery: Transforming America’s Transportation Infrastructure. (Bill Bradley—former US Senator,
Currently Managing Director Allan and Company; Thomas J. Ridge—Former Pennsylvania Governor and Secretary of Homeland Security,
Currently CEO of Ridge Global; David M. Walker, former US Comptroller General and Current CEO of Comeback America Initiative) Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace
p. 15-16 The Congressional Budget Office periodically releases projections of the HTF’s solvency; the
HTF is drawn down as payments (outlays) are made to states as after-the-fact reimbursements for work
completed. In the office’s spring FY 2009 baseline calculation, the Highway Account had outlays of $35
billion for FY 2007 against receipts of $34.3 billion. In FY 2008, outlays of $37 billion were matched
with only $31.3 billion in receipts, not including an injection of $8 billion into the HTF from Treasury
general funds.7 The HTF had a balance of $7.8 billion in February 2011 (figure 1.1).8
How did the nation get on this costly path? Americans are driving more and paying less, leaving the United States in uncharted territory. In 1956,
America committed to build the Interstate Highway System, the largest public works project in history with a dedicated source of funding. For
half a century, the federal gas tax generated enough revenue to completely fund the HTF, which
comprises two separate accounts, one for highways and one for mass transit.9 During the past three years,
however, there have been billions of dollars in transfers from the general fund to the HTF. The federal
government’s spending on transportation has outpaced its ability to generate revenue from existing
sources, including the federal gas tax.
Current spending is too small for highways
National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission, 2009 , Paying Our Way: A New Framework
for Transportation Finance, Final Report of the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission, February 2009 p. 3-4
The federal government does not bear sole responsibility for the current crisis. All levels of government
are failing to keep pace with the demand for transportation investment. Increasingly, policy makers at all
levels must use existing revenues simply to attempt to keep pace with the preservation and maintenance
of an aging system, leaving few or no resources for vitally needed new capacity and improvements to the
system.
An ever-expanding backlog of investment needs is the price of our failure to maintain funding levels—
and the cost of these investments grows as we delay. Without changes to current policy, it is estimated
that revenues raised by all levels of government for capital investment will total only about one-third of
the roughly $200 billion necessary each year to maintain and improve the nation’s highways and transit
systems. (See Exhibit ES–1.) At the federal level, the investment gap is of a similar magnitude, with longterm annual average Highway Trust Fund (HTF) revenues estimated to be only $32 billion compared with
required investments of nearly $100 billion per year. (See Exhibit ES–2.)4
Meanwhile, the federal Highway Trust Fund faces a near-term insolvency crisis, exacerbated by recent
reductions in federal motor fuel tax revenues and truck–related user fee receipts. This problem will only
worsen until Congress addresses the fundamental fact that current HTF revenues are inadequate to
support current federal program spending levels. Comparing estimates of surface transportation
investment needs with baseline revenue projections developed by the Commission shows a federal
highway and transit funding gap that totals nearly $400 billion in 2010-15 and grows dramatically to
about $2.3 trillion through 2035. (See Exhibit ES–3.)
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UNIQUENESS EXTENSIONS—NOT SPENDING ENOUGH NOW
Highway maintenance costs are higher than current revenue. The plan cannot make it
worse.
Economist, April 29, 2011, “America’s Transportation Infrastructure: Life in the Slow Lane”
http://www.economist.com/node/18620944/print p. 5
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that America needs to spend $20 billion more a year just to
maintain its infrastructure at the present, inadequate, levels. Up to $80 billion a year in additional spending could be spent on
projects which would show positive economic returns. Other reports go further. In 2005 Congress established the National Surface Transportation
Policy and Revenue Study Commission. In 2008 the commission reckoned that America needed at least $255 billion
per year in transport spending over the next half-century to keep the system in good repair and make the
needed upgrades. Current spending falls 60% short of that amount.
If they had a little money…
If Washington is spending less than it should, falling tax revenues are partly to blame.
Revenue from taxes on petrol and diesel
flow into trust funds that are the primary source of federal money for roads and mass transit. That flow
has diminished to a drip. America’s petrol tax is low by international standards, and has not gone up since 1993 (see chart 3) . While
the real value of the tax has eroded, the cost of building and maintaining infrastructure has gone up. As a
result, the highway trust fund no longer supports even current spending. Congress has repeatedly been forced to top up
the trust fund, with $30 billion since 2008.
Federal Infrastructure Spending is declining
Center for American Progress February 2012 [Meeting the Infrastructure Imperative, (Donna Cooper), Doing what Works
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/02/pdf/infrastructure.pdf]
The federal government budget authority for 2010 was $3.48 trillion. In that year, we devoted a relatively
small amount of federal appropriations toward maintaining and improving our critical public
infrastructure assets. In fact, total federal infrastructure appropriations for direct grants, loans, and tax
incentives were $92 billion in 2010, a mere 2.6 percent of all federal expenditures. Moreover, overall U.S.
investment in transportation and water infrastructure in 2010 was 6.2 percent less in real dollars (after
accounting for inflation) than the federal government spent for infrastructure in 2000.
US infrastructure spending is among lowest of industrial nations
Matthew Slaughter, Professor, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth, 2011 [Building Competitiveness, Organization of
International Investment, April 12, http://www.ofii.org/news-room/ofii-press-releases/976-ofii-kicks-off-infrastructure- campaign-to-build-.html]
America’s infrastructure crisis contrasts starkly with the dramatic infrastructure improvements being
made in so many other countries. America today spends approximately 2% of GDP on infrastructure
(federal, state, local, and private-sector spending). This amount is down 50% from U.S. levels in the
1960s, and it is low compared to many other major countries. Comparable infrastructure-spending shares
today are about 5% in Europe and 9% in China. The OECD recently forecast that now through 2030,
world infrastructure spending will average 3.5% of GDP per year, about $71 trillion in all. Should these
projected rates be realized, then America’s current infrastructure spending will lag dozens of countries for
another generation.
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UNIQUENESS EXTENSIONS—SPENDING DOES NOT ENCOURAGE
GROWTH
Current spending does not encourage growth. Too much politics involved.
Howard Shatz, RAND Corporation, 2011 [Highway Infrastructure and the Economy: Implications for Federal Policy, 2011
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2011/RAND_MG1049.pdf]
This brief review of the political context in which national transportation programs have evolved
demonstrates that despite frequent assertions that highways promote economic growth there actually has
never been a clearly articulated national policy to pursue highway investments that do foster economic
growth.
Reform is unlikely
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, President, American Action Forum and Martin Wachs, Senior Researcher, RAND
Corporation, 2011 [Strengthening Connections Between Transportation Investments and Economic Growth,
National
Transportation Policy Project, January 21, 2011]
A sense of urgency remains regarding the need to provide direction for both short-term spending and
longer-term transportation policy reform, yet there is great uncertainty as to how these issues will evolve
over the coming months. Just as there is growing pressure to expand and increase spending on
transportation infrastructure to both contribute to economic recovery and deliver lasting economic returns,
prospects for enacting the kinds of comprehensive policy reforms needed to realize those ambitious
objectives are looking more doubtful.
Current process prevents investment from improving the economy
Howard Shatz, RAND Corporation, 2011 [Highway Infrastructure and the Economy: Implications for Federal Policy, 2011
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2011/RAND_MG1049.pdf]
The processes by which federal funds are disbursed suggest one of the main weaknesses of national
transportation policy and are symptomatic of how federal highway investments may be only loosely
linked to ensuring large economic benefits. Programs and formulas have become complex and change
substantially from one transportation bill to the next. Although programs proliferated to create balanced
attention to many competing interests, the current mix of programs constitutes “stovepipes” that stymie
innovation and prevent rational, integrated, comprehensive planning. That is, although a region may need
a mix of maintenance, public transit, and highway investments, these federal programs are funded
separately using different formulas, and decision-making is dominated by cleverly navigating the funding
structures rather than by adhering to logical regional or metropolitan plans. The proliferation of programs
and the stove-piping make it difficult to fashion investments that clearly meet any federal transportation
goals, let alone increasing national economic performance.
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UNIQUENESS—US INFRASTRUCTURE IS BAD NOW
US infrastructure is only 24th in the world
Center for American Progress February 2012 [Meeting the Infrastructure Imperative, (Donna Cooper), Doing what Works
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/02/pdf/infrastructure.pdf]
This decline is impeding our economic competitiveness. The United States now ranks 24th on key global
indicators for infrastructure quality among 142 nations, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global
Competitiveness Report for FY 2011-12, down from No. 8 in FY 2005-06.
Poor infrastructure is already discouraging international investment in US
Matthew Slaughter, Professor, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth, 2011 [Building Competitiveness, Organization of
International Investment, April 12, http://www.ofii.org/news-room/ofii-press-releases/976-ofii-kicks-off-infrastructure- campaign-to-build-.html]
America’s infrastructure crisis is threatening America’s global competitiveness because it is eroding the
country’s ability to attract and retain dynamic global companies that create high-productivity, high-wage
jobs. America’s ability to meet the infrastructure needs of dynamic global companies increasingly lags the
ability of many other countries—in contrast to much of 20th century, when America’s infrastructure was
a strong pull attracting these companies. In the United States, global companies have long been among
America’s most innovative. The U.S. subsidiaries of global companies, in particular, have long created
and sustained high-paying American jobs based on substantial investments in ideas, capital, and
exporting—much of which is based on lessons learned around the world.
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NO LINK--EXTENSIONS
The US is poised to have a strong impact in new technologies
Michael Beckley, research fellow, Harvard, International Security Program, 2012[International Security
Winter 2011/12, Vol 36 pp. 41-78]
Technological leaders sometimes rest on their laurels and abandon innovative efforts in favor of “finding
new markets for old products.” The United States, however, looks set to excel in emerging hightechnology industries. It has more nanotechnology centers than the next three nations combined
(Germany, the United Kingdom, and China) and accounts for 43 percent of the world’s nanotechnology
patent applications. In biotechnology, the United States accounts for 41.5 percent of patent applications
(China accounts for 1.6 percent) and 76 percent of global revenues. The United States accounts for 20 to
25 percent of all patent applications for renewable energy, air pollution, water pollution, and waste
management technologies; China accounts for 1 to 4 percent of the patent applications in these areas.
Strong Manufacturing keeps America strong.
Marketwatch December 1, 2011 [http://www.marketwatch.com/story/whos-got-best-growth-oddly-its-the-us-2011- 12-01]
America’s economy isn’t doing great, but it’s better than the rest of the world’s. That’s the conclusion to
be drawn from the monthly surveys of manufacturing firms across the globe that were released on
Thursday. Almost everywhere, manufacturing activity is gearing down. Europe is likely in a recession
already. China’s output is falling. Other big emerging economies are still growing, but at a slower pace.
The one big exception? The United States, where manufacturing executives reported a modest
acceleration in production and new orders in November. The U.S. ISM index rose to 52.7% in November,
the highest since June. On the other hand, the global manufacturing purchasing managers index fell to
49.6% in November, the third straight month of contraction (below 50%), according to financial
information firm Markit, which tracks some 7,500 manufacturing firms in 28 countries, accounting for
86% of global output. “The rate of contraction in output would have been more substantial had it not been
for growth in the U.S. accelerating sharply to a seven-month peak,” Markit said. “Outside the U.S.,
production fell at the steepest pace for over two-and-a-half years.”
US remains a strong economic power. Our plan will not have a substantial impact on this.
Robert Lieber, Professor International Affairs, Georgetown, May 14, 2012 [Salon.Com
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/14/is_american_decline_real/]
Certainly the domestic situation is more difficult now than two decades ago. Yet while these problems
should not be minimized, they should not be overstated either. Contrary to what many observers would
assume, the United States has managed to hold its own in globalized economic competition and its
strengths remain broad and deep. For the past several decades, its share of global output has been
relatively constant at between one-quarter and one-fifth of world output. According to data from the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), in 1980, the United States accounted for 26.0 percent of world GDP,
and in 2011, 21.5 percent. These figures are based on GDP in national currency. Alternative calculations
using purchasing power parities are somewhat less favorable, but still show the United States with 19.1
percent in 2011, as contrasted with 24.6 percent in 1980. Moreover, America benefits from a growing
population and one that is aging more slowly than all its possible competitors except India. And despite a
dysfunctional immigration system, it continues to be a magnet for talented and ambitious immigrants. It is
a world leader in science and in its system of research universities and higher education, and it has the
advantage of continental scale and resources. In short, the United States remains the one country in the
world that is both big and rich.
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NO INTERNAL LINK—HIGHWAYS TO ECONOMY
Highway infrastructure spending does not impact economy
Howard Shatz, RAND Corporation, 2011[Highway Infrastructure and the Economy: Implications for Federal Policy, 2011
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2011/RAND_MG1049.pdf]
We separately reviewed papers that studied highway infrastructure at the national level, the state level,
and the substate level and in other countries. Studies of highway infrastructure at the national level tended
to find high rates of return and strong productivity effects, at least in the initial building phase of the
national highway system. One way this was manifested was through lower costs to industries, especially
those that most heavily used the highway network. Likewise, some of the research at the state level found
positive effects of highways, or broader measures of public capital, on a variety of economic outcomes.
However, these effects tended to be lower than those of private capital investment when the two were
compared. In addition, some papers found no effect. Although some research identified positive effects of
infrastructure in one state on the economy of neighboring states, more identified zero or even negative
effects. Taken together, this evidence is consistent with the idea that some highway infrastructure
investment can lead to positive productivity or output outcomes. However, there is a possibility that such
investment can have negative effects on neighboring states.
New highways will have smaller impact than initial build ones. Historical examples are irrelevant.
Howard Shatz, RAND Corporation, 2011[Highway Infrastructure and the Economy: Implications for Federal Policy, 2011
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2011/RAND_MG1049.pdf]
Further evidence of an industry-level productivity benefit can be seen among Class I trucking firms—the
largest trucking firms in the United States (Keeler and Ying, 1988). Changes in the real capital stock of
the federal-aid highway system between 1950 and 1973 dramatically lowered trucking costs. Without
those improvements, costs in 1973 would have been 19 percent higher than they actually were. The value
of these cost- saving benefits equaled between 33 percent and 44 percent of total federal-aid highway
system capital costs. Interestingly, a related analysis found that highway capital investment between 1966
and 1983 did not decrease trucking costs in 12 larger interregional trucking firms, which suggests in part
that new investments in the interstate system had smaller effects as the system was built out (Keeler,
1986).
Infrastructure is not the key to the economy
Edward Glaeser, Economics Professor, Harvard, 2.13.12
[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-14/spending-won-t-fix-what-ails-u-s- transport-commentaryby-edward-glaeser.html]
The spate of bridge and rail construction in China taps into American insecurities and leads many to
wonder whether we are falling behind because we aren’t building more. Politicians understand the
magical promise of bold new projects, like superfast trains across California or missions to space, but that
promise can be false. Spain’s current fiscal woes owe much to its overly ambitious high-speed rail
investments. Similar rail projects in China have produced more allegations of corruption and safety
problems than economic transformation.
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NO INTERNAL LINK TO HEGEMONY
Economic Size does not matter
Michael Beckley, research fellow, Harvard, International Security Program, 2012 [International Security
Winter 2011/12, Vol 36 pp. 41-78]
The case for the decline of the United States and the rise of China rests heavily on a single statistic: GDP.
Over the last twenty years, China’s GDP has risen relative to the United States’ in terms of purchasing
power parity (PPP), though it has declined in real terms. Regardless of which measure is used, however,
most projections have China overtaking the United States as the world’s largest economy before 2050,
and some as early as 2015. Economic size, however, does not necessarily make China a contender for
superpower status. After all, China was the largest economy in the world throughout most of its “century
of humiliation,” when it was ripped apart by Western powers and Japan. The United Kingdom, on the
other hand, ruled a quarter of the globe for more than a century, but was never, even at its peak, the
largest economy in the world. Britain’s GDP was far smaller than China’s and India’s for all of the
eighteenth century and much of the nineteenth century. Britain, however, was able to establish imperial
control over India and to defeat China militarily, imposing unequal treaties on Beijing, acquiring Hong
Kong and various other concessions, and establishing a sphere of influence in East Asia. This dominance
stemmed not from the absolute size of Britain’s economy, but from its superior level of economic
development, measured in terms of per capita income, which was the highest in the world and several
times higher than China’s and India’s at the time.
Wealth is not global power
Alexander Vuving, Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, April 4, 2012 [ssrn-id2035188.pdf, “What is China
Rising to? Assessing China’s and America’s Primacy Potentials]
These common premises all commit what can be called the “impressionistic fallacy.” The first is over
impressed by the power of aggregate wealth, thus equating economic heft with strategic leadership
despite the fact that the two are not only conceptually distinct but also practically distant. History
provides ample evidence demonstrating this fact, most prominently in the century leading up to World
War II. By 1900, Britain was overtaken by the United States as the world’s largest industrial economy,
and by 1913 it was surpassed by Germany in terms of total manufacturing production, but Britain retained
its leading role in the world economy and its strategic primacy in the international system well into the
1920s (Kennedy, 1987). More illustrious is the case of Germany, which in the course of the first half of
the 20th century twice attempted to translate its economic superiority in Europe into a position of strategic
supremacy, only to be defeated by Britain and its allies.
Wealth does not create great powers
Alexander Vuving, Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, April 4, 2012 [ssrn-id2035188.pdf, “What is China
Rising to? Assessing China’s and America’s PrimacyPotentials]
Any assessment of a state’s prospects for strategic supremacy that is based solely on aggregate wealth or
even a combination of wealth and productivity (or innovation, for that matter) is blind to a critical part of
what makes a great power. As the historical example of Britain has implied, this critical part is the ability
of a power to partner, coalesce, and ally with other, consequential players in the international arena.
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NO INTERNAL LINK TO HEGEMONY
Economic might does not increase influence
Richard Maher, PhD. candidate, Brown University, ORBIS, March 2011 [ORBIS, Winter 2011 Volume 55,
Issue 1 p. 54 ]
And yet, despite this material preeminence, the United States sees its political and strategic influence
diminishing around the world. It is involved in two costly and destructive wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan,
where success has been elusive and the end remains out of sight. China has adopted a new assertiveness
recently, on everything from U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, currency convertibility, and America’s growing
debt (which China largely finances). Pakistan, one of America’s closest strategic allies, is facing the threat
of social and political collapse. Russia is using its vast energy resources to reassert its dominance in what
it views as its historical sphere of influence. Negotiations with North Korea and Iran have gone nowhere
in dismantling their nuclear programs. Brazil’s growing economic and political influence offer another
option for partnership and investment for countries in the Western Hemisphere. And relations with Japan,
following the election that brought the opposition Democratic Party into power, are at their frostiest in
decades. To many observers, it seems that America’s vast power is not translating into America’s
preferred outcomes. As the United States has come to learn, raw power does not automatically translate
into the realization of one’s preferences, nor is it necessarily easy to maintain one’s predominant position
in world politics.
Historical examples do not apply to US currently
Robert Lieber, Professor International Affairs, Georgetown, May 14, 2012 [Salon.Com
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/14/is_american_decline_real/]
The declinist proposition that America’s international primacy is collapsing as a result of the rise of other
countries should also be regarded with caution. On the one hand, the United States does face a more
competitive world, regional challenges, and some attrition of its relative degree of primacy. This process,
or diffusion of power, is not exclusive to the post–Cold War era, but began at least four decades ago with
the recovery of Europe and Japan from World War II, the rise of the Soviet Union to superpower status,
and the emergence of regional powers in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. Still, in
contrast to other great powers that have experienced decline, the United States has held a substantially
more dominant position. For example, Britain at the start of the twentieth century was already falling
behind Germany and the United States, although it did manage to continue for half a century as head of a
vast empire and commonwealth.
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NO IMPACT Extensions
The US has world’s strongest military
Richard Maher, PhD. candidate, Brown University, ORBIS, March 2011 [ORBIS, Winter 2011 Volume 55,
Issue 1 p. 54 ]
The United States today accounts for approximately 25 percent of global economic output, a figure that
has held relatively stable despite steadily increasing economic growth in China, India, Brazil, and other
countries. Among the group of six or seven great powers, this figure approaches 50 percent. When one
takes discretionary spending into account, the United States today spends more on its military than the
rest of the world combined. This imbalance is even further magnified by the fact that five of the next
seven biggest spenders are close U.S. allies. China, the country often seen as America’s next great
geopolitical rival, has a defense budget that is one- seventh of what the United States spends on its
military. There is also a vast gap in terms of the reach and sophistication of advanced weapons systems.
By some measures, the United States spends more on research and development for its military than the
rest of the world combined. What is remarkable is that the United States can do all of this without
completely breaking the bank. The United States today devotes approximately 4 percent of GDP to
defense. As a percentage of GDP, the United States today spends far less on its military than it did during
the Cold War, when defense spending hovered around 10 percent of gross economic output. As one
would expect, the United States today enjoys unquestioned preeminence in the military realm. No other
state comes close to having the capability to project military power like the United States.
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NO CHINA IMPACT
Infrastructure investment will hurt China’s economy
Robinson O’Brien-Bours, Ashbrook Scholar Program, 2011 [http://nlt.ashbrook.org/2011/04/exaggeration-ofchinese-ascendancy.php]
Like their investment in trains, China's economy will soon wreck as well. Their excessive investment in
unused infrastructure, the bureaucratic corruption of their government and businesses, and the abject
poverty that 95% of their population lives in will lead to a collapse. It's a paper tiger dangling over a
flame. At any rate, hopefully their growing middle class and increased access to sources of non-censored
information will lead to political reform in the country. In the meantime, American politicians should stop
looking at the Chinese as a model for anything (especially infrastructure investments) and pundits should
stop decrying the decline of the United States before an ascendant China. They have a long, long way to
go.
China’s investments will hurt their economy
Nouriel Roubini, professor NYU School of Business, April 14, 2011 [Project Syndicate, http://www.projectsyndicate.org/commentary/china-s-bad- growth-bet]
In the short run, the investment boom will fuel inflation, owing to the highly resource- intensive character
of growth. But overcapacity will lead inevitably to serious deflationary pressures, starting with the
manufacturing and real-estate sectors. Eventually, most likely after 2013, China will suffer a hard landing.
All historical episodes of excessive investment – including East Asia in the 1990’s – have ended with a
financial crisis and/or a long period of slow growth. To avoid this fate, China needs to save less, reduce
fixed investment, cut net exports as a share of GDP, and boost the share of consumption. The trouble is
that the reasons the Chinese save so much and consume so little are structural. It will take two decades of
reforms to change the incentive to overinvest.
Too much infrastructure will reverse growth
Nouriel Roubini, professor NYU School of Business, April 14, 2011 [Project Syndicate, http://www.projectsyndicate.org/commentary/china-s-bad- growth-bet]
Continuing down the investment-led growth path will exacerbate the visible glut of capacity in
manufacturing, real estate, and infrastructure, and thus will intensify the coming economic slowdown
once further fixed-investment growth becomes impossible. Until the change of political leadership in
2012-2013, China’s policymakers may be able to maintain high growth rates, but at a very high
foreseeable cost.
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No China Impact
Chinese growth does not compete with US growth
Robinson O’Brien-Bours, Ashbrook Scholar Program, 2011[http://nlt.ashbrook.org/2011/04/exaggeration-of-chineseascendancy.php]
First of all, people who lament the rise of other economies around the globe in relation to our own begin
with the flawed perception that there is a finite source of wealth in the world and that as others get richer,
we get poorer. This is absolutely not true; just because the once-called "Third World" is rapidly gaining
on us in economic progress does not mean that we must begin to decline as a result. Yes, it changes the
way that markets and economies operate and require some readjustment, but the idea that just because
China is rising economically that we are going to be worse-off is ridiculous.
Chinese Economic strength does not make them a global threat
Ian Clark, professor of international politics, Aberystwyth Univ. January 2011 [International Affairs, Vol.
87. Issue 1, p. 28]
Future projections of material power, in any event, have been notoriously unreliable, as previous
predictions of the decline of the United States in the 1970s and 1980s amply demonstrated. Similarly,
projections of China’s future role, based on simple extrapolations from its current rate of economic
growth, are bound to deceive. Above all, China faces a complex array of severe domestic problems that
will dominate its policy priorities for many decades to come, and it is wholly speculative to assess the
nature of its likely international contributions beyond those concerns.
Chinese growth projections are exaggerated
Joseph Nye, professor Harvard University, October 2010 [The Washington Quarterly, Volume 33, Number 4, October
2010, p. 150]
Such projections should be viewed with some skepticism. China still lags far behind the United States
economically and militarily, and has focused its policies primarily on its region and on its economic
development. Even if China’s GDP passes that of the United States around 2027 (as Goldman Sachs
projects) the two economies would technically be equivalent in size but not in composition. China would
still have a vast underdeveloped countryside, and it will begin to face demographic problems from the
delayed effects of the one child per couple policy it enforced in the twentieth century.
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TURN EXTENSION—HIGHWAY INVESTMENT HURTS GROWTH
TURN: New highway investment only encourages congestion turning the disad.
Howard Shatz, RAND Corporation, 2011 [Highway Infrastructure and the Economy: Implications for Federal Policy, 2011
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2011/RAND_MG1049.pdf]
A separate analysis of gross public investment in roads, much of which was dedicated to the interstate
highway system, found that investment in roads contributed about 1.4 percent per year to U.S. growth
before 1973 and had above-average rates of return, but it contributed only about 0.4 percent per year after
1973 (Fernald, 1999). It also increased total factor productivity—the increase in output above the total
increase in inputs—before 1973 but not after. After 1973, congestion became a much more important
factor and had a negative effect on national productivity. The changes in productivity were larger for
those industries that used vehicles more intensively, so that the system changed the relative productivity
among U.S. industry sectors.
TURN: Infrastructure investment can hurt growth
Howard Shatz, RAND Corporation, 2011 [Highway Infrastructure and the Economy: Implications for Federal Policy, 2011
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2011/RAND_MG1049.pdf]
These economic outcomes may be gross or net because of the way transportation infrastructure could
reallocate economic activity. For example, new infrastructure may attract economic activity, resulting in
gross positive economic effects to the geographic area where the new infrastructure was built. However,
if all of that activity merely relocated from other areas, then those other areas would experience gross
economic losses and the net effect could be positive, zero, or even negative. Accounting for such gross
versus net economic effects has been a notable point of contention in the literature analyzing highway
infrastructure and the economy.
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NO THRESHHOLD
Additions will not impact the economy to the same degree as it did when built
Howard Shatz, RAND Corporation, 2011 [Highway Infrastructure and the Economy: Implications for Federal Policy, 2011
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2011/RAND_MG1049.p df]
There is some debate as to whether continued building of the interstate system could have had the same
positive effects on the economy in later years as it did in early years. As noted above, Aschauer (1989)
suggested that a slowdown in a broad measure of public investment was one cause of a large slowdown in
U.S. productivity growth starting in the 1970s. In contrast, focusing more specifically on highways from
1953 to 1989, Fernald (1999) noted that investment in highways after 1973 produced a zero or normal
rate of return—and therefore would not have large productivity effects— and that additions to an existing
network could not have the same productivity effects as creating the network in the first place.
The impact of highway investment declines overtime.
Howard Shatz, RAND Corporation, 2011 [Highway Infrastructure and the Economy: Implications for Federal Policy, 2011
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2011/RAND_MG1049.p df]
Considering the U.S. economy as a whole, Nadiri and Mamuneas (1996) found that highway capital led to
decreases in production costs and increases in output and had a net rate of return above that of private
capital for much of the 40 years from 1950 to 1989. However, this rate of return declined steadily,
consistent with the economic effects of building out the U.S. road network, until in the decade of the
1980s it fell below that of private capital.7 Finally, they found that highway capital accounted for about
25 percent of average annual U.S. productivity growth from 1950 to 1989, with most of this contribution
coming from the NLS highways. Consistent with the gradual completion of the interstate highway
system, they found that highway capital accounted for 32 percent of annual productivity growth from
1952 to 1963, 25 percent from 1964 to 1972, 23 percent from 1973 to 1979, and only 7 percent from 1980
to 1989.
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BUDGET DISADVANTAGE ANSWERS
The budget disadvantage says that the United States does not have the resources to continue to
invest in public infrastructure. The cost of investing in public and active transit infrastructure is too
expensive and will cause a substantial drain on federal revenue. The result is a sharp decline in economic
growth.
The affirmative has several answers including: That the disadvantage is not unique. The
argument basically says that the federal government will continue to increase spending on a number of
potential areas. Another argument turns the disadvantage, arguing that the plan will save money. One of
the principle affirmative advantages is that the plan will substantially decrease federal government
expenditures on health care and other hidden costs associated with inequitable transportation. There are
also several arguments that say the plan does not cause increases in spending or that increases in spending
do not hurt the economy. These arguments are challenges to the link to the disadvantage.
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2AC Frontline: Budget Disadvantage Answers 1/3
Not Unique—Spending continues to increase at record levels
RCP 12 (Real Clear Politics, “Obama Claim Of Fiscal Discipline "Whopper Of The Year",” 5-24-12,
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/05/24/krauthammer_obama_claim_of_fiscal_discipline_is_whopper_of_the_year.html)
"That is what makes it whopper of the year," syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer says of a report
that federal spending, under the Obama administration, has risen at the lowest pace in 60 years. "This is
an unbelievable distortion of the truth . If you compare it to what was spent in the Bush years, particularly
if you take out the emergency spending that the two administrations agreed on in the end -- the bailouts -then you have an 8% increase , which is historic. You had it in 2009 alone, increases in the agencies of
20% and 50% in some of the agencies. Historically high and Obama increased it year after year."
Not Unique—Defense Spending Bill increases spending
AP 12 (Associated Press, “House panel backs $642 billion defense bill,” 5-10-12, http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/05/10/house-panel-oksmissile-defense-site-on-east-coast/)
The House Armed Services Committee on Thursday overwhelmingly backed a $642 billion defense bill
that calls for construction of a missile defense site on the East Coast, restores aircraft and ships slated for
early retirement and ignores the Pentagon's cost-saving request for another round of domestic base
closings. Despite the clamor for fiscal discipline, the committee crafted a military spending blueprint
that's $8 billion more than the level President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans agreed to last
summer in the deficit-cutting law. The spending plan calls for a base defense budget of $554 billion,
including nuclear weapons spending, plus $88 billion for the war in Afghanistan and counterterrorism
efforts. Obama had proposed a $551 billion defense budget, plus $88 billion for the war and
counterterrorism. The panel vote early Thursday morning was 56-5.
Turn: Health care cost savings with save the federal budget
Lindholm, 2011, (Raymond Lindholm, Georgia State University College of Law, Center for Health, Law, & Society) “Combating childhood
obesity: A survey of laws affecting the built environments of low-income and minority children”, Review of Environment and Health 2011
In addition to these medical and social ramifications, the childhood obesity epidemic carries with it
heavy economic consequences (13). The health care costs for obesity alone accounted for 27% of the
rise in health care spending between 1987 and 2001. The direct medical costs of childhood obesity are
nearly $4.34 billion a year (13). This number rises steeply if the obese child becomes an obese adult.
Adult health care costs related to obesity are estimated at an astounding $147 billion annually (13).
These are just the health-related costs directly attributable to obesity. Other costs include obesity related
job absenteeism, lower productivity, and further costs related to delayed learning, lower
education levels, lower earning potential and higher levels of poverty for obese children who grow to
be obese adults.
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2AC Frontline: Budget Disadvantage Answers 2/3
NO LINK: Twenty years of unspent money leaves billions of dollars
Building America’s Future Education Fund, 2011. Building America’s Future: Falling Apart and Falling
Behind, Transportation Infrastructure Report,
p. 18 Increased pork-barrel spending also breeds cynicism, undermining public trust in Washington’s use
of taxpayer dollars. Billions and billions of earmarked dollars— almost 1 in 3 dollars earmarked for
highway projects since 1991—remain unspent, because Congress directed funds to projects that later got
shelved, were mired in red tape, or didn’t even need the earmarked funds.8 Congress recently recouped
$630 million in unspent earmarks in the 2011 budget, an important step in recovering, and hopefully
redirecting to more productive purposes, taxpayer dollars.
No Link—There is no action on the debt ceiling until next year. The plan passes before the debt
limit gets extended.
Welna 12 (David, NPR's congressional correspondent, 2011 Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress, given
by the National Press Foundation, “Dire Predictions Amid Another Looming Fiscal Battle,” 5-29-12,
http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/05/29/153889383/dire-predictions-amid-another-looming-fiscal-battle)
Meanwhile, some Republicans and Democrats in the Senate have begun private talks about ways to
prevent falling off a fiscal cliff at year's end. One of them, Colorado Democrat Michael Bennet, says
everything depends on who wins in November. "Not to mix a metaphor, but these are huge tectonic plates
that are going to shift after this election, when it's not just the tax cuts expiring, but the sequester and the
debt ceiling and all the rest," he said. "And I think it's very unlikely that anything's going to be done
before the election." Lobbyist Trent Lott, a former Mississippi senator and Republican majority leader,
says he's seen many other lame-duck sessions after big elections, but none like the one coming up. "If
everything stays pretty much status quo, they might do some things in a lame-duck session, if it's like, you
know, the House stays Republican, the Senate stays Democrat and Obama stays in," he said. "Any other
mixture or any other result, it'll probably all be pushed until next year ."
No Link to spending - Public-Private partnerships will provide funding
Lane 11 (Petra Todorovich, director of America 2050, a national urban planning initiative, assistant visiting professor at the Pratt Institute Graduate Center for
Planning and the Environment and a member of the Board of Advisors of the Eno Transportation Foundation, Masters in City and Regional Planning from the
Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University; Daniel Schned, associate planner for America 2050 at Regional Plan Association part-time
lecturer at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public; and Robert Lane, senior fellow for urban design at Regional Plan Association and a founding
principal of Plan & Process LLP. Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, “High-Speed Rail: International Lessons for U.S. Policy Makers,”
September 2011, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Policy Focus Report)
Public-private partnerships (sometimes referred to as P3s) generally constitute any arrangement between a
government sponsor and a private sector entity in which the private entity provides one or more stages of
the project delivery process—designing, building, operating, owning or leasing, maintaining, and
financing parts of the infrastructure. These partnerships offer the benefit of flexibility to suit the specific
needs of the public sector while encouraging different models of private involvement and investment
(Geddes 2011). Public-private partnerships are considered an especially attractive solution for financing
infrastructure projects. For example, the Florida Department of Transportation was already in the process
of finding a private partner to design, build, operate, maintain, and finance the state’s high-speed rail line
before the project was cancelled in February 2011 (Haddad 2010).
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2AC Frontline: Budget Disadvantage 3/3
No Internal link. Deficit spending will not cause US collapse. The plan will create enough jobs to
save the economy.
Stiglitz 12 (Joseph E. Stiglitz, University Professor at Columbia University, and a Nobel laureate in Economics, “Stimulating the Economy in
an Era of Debt and Deficit, The Economists’ Voice http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/ev March, 2012)
The first priority of the country should be a return to full employment . The underemployment of labor is a
massive waste and, more than anything else, jeopardizes our country’s future, as the skills of our young
get wasted and alienation grows. As the work of Jayadev5 as well as the IMF6 convincingly shows,
austerity in America will almost surely weaken growth . Moreover, as the work of Ferguson and Johnson7
shows, we should view with suspicion the claim (e.g. by Rogoff and Reinhardt) that exceeding a certain a
debt-to-GDP ratio will trigger a crash. Even if this notion were true on average, the U.S. is not an average
country. It is a reserve currency country , with markets responding to global instability—even when
caused by the U.S.—by lowering interest rates. The U.S. has managed even bigger deficits. Unlike the
countries of Europe, there is no risk that we will not pay what we owe. To put it bluntly, we promise to
repay dollars, and we control the printing presses. But a focus on the ratio of debt-to-GDP is simply
economic nonsense . No one would judge a firm by looking at its debt alone. Anyone claiming economic
expertise would want to look at the balance sheet—assets as well as liabilities. Borrowing to invest is
different from borrowing for consumption. The failure of the deficit hawks to realize this is consistent
with my earlier conclusion that this debate is not about the size of the deficit, but about the size of the
government and the progressivity of the tax system.
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Econ Defense: 2AC
US and global economy is resilient
Behravesh 6 (Nariman, most accurate economist tracked by USA Today and chief global economist and
executive vice president for Global Insight, Newsweek, “The Great Shock Absorber; Good
macroeconomic policies and improved microeconomic flexibility have strengthened the global economy's
'immune system.'” 10-15-2006, www.newsweek.com/id/47483)
The U.S. and global economies were able to withstand three body blows in 2005--one of the worst
tsunamis on record (which struck at the very end of 2004), one of the worst hurricanes on record and the
highest energy prices after Hurricane Katrina--without missing a beat. This resilience was especially
remarkable in the case of the United States, which since 2000 has been able to shrug off the biggest
stock-market drop since the 1930s, a major terrorist attack, corporate scandals and war. Does this mean
that recessions are a relic of the past? No, but recent events do suggest that the global economy's
"immune system" is now strong enough to absorb shocks that 25 years ago would probably have
triggered a downturn. In fact, over the past two decades, recessions have not disappeared, but have
become considerably milder in many parts of the world. What explains this enhanced recession
resistance? The answer: a combination of good macroeconomic policies and improved microeconomic
flexibility. Since the mid-1980s, central banks worldwide have had great success in taming inflation. This has meant that long-term interest
rates are at levels not seen in more than 40 years. A low-inflation and low-interest-rate environment is especially conducive to sustained, robust
growth. Moreover, central bankers have avoided some of the policy mistakes of the earlier oil shocks (in the mid-1970s and early 1980s), during
which they typically did too much too late, and exacerbated the ensuing recessions. Even more important, in recent years the Fed has
been particularly adept at crisis management, aggressively cutting interest rates in response to stockmarket crashes, terrorist attacks and weakness in the economy. The benign inflationary picture has also benefited from
increasing competitive pressures, both worldwide (thanks to globalization and the rise of Asia as a manufacturing juggernaut) and domestically
(thanks to technology and deregulation). Since the late 1970s, the United States, the United Kingdom and a handful of other countries have been
especially aggressive in deregulating their financial and industrial sectors. This has greatly increased the flexibility of their economies and
reduced their vulnerability to inflationary shocks. Looking ahead, what all this means is that a global or U.S. recession will likely be avoided in
2006, and probably in 2007 as well. Whether the current expansion will be able to break the record set in the 1990s for longevity will depend on
the ability of central banks to keep the inflation dragon at bay and to avoid policy mistakes. The prospects look good. Inflation is likely to remain
a low-level threat for some time, and Ben Bernanke, the incoming chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, spent much of his academic
career studying the past mistakes of the Fed and has vowed not to repeat them. At the same time, no
single shock will likely be big enough to derail the expansion. What if oil prices rise to $80 or $90 a barrel? Most
estimates suggest that growth would be cut by about 1 percent--not good, but no recession. What if U.S. house prices fall by 5 percent in 2006 (an
extreme assumption, given that house prices haven't fallen nationally in any given year during the past four decades)? Economic growth would
slow by about 0.5 percent to 1 percent. What about another terrorist attack? Here the scenarios can be pretty scary, but an attack on the
order of 9/11 or the Madrid or London bombings would probably have an even smaller impact on overall
GDP growth.
Economic decline doesn’t cause war
Ferguson 6 (Niall, Professor of History – Harvard University, Foreign Affairs, 85(5), September / October, Lexis)
Nor can economic crises explain the bloodshed. What may be the most familiar causal chain in modern
historiography links the Great Depression to the rise of fascism and the outbreak of World War II. But
that simple story leaves too much out. Nazi Germany started the war in Europe only after its economy had
recovered. Not all the countries affected by the Great Depression were taken over by fascist regimes, nor
did all such regimes start wars of aggression. In fact, no general relationship between economics and
conflict is discernible for the century as a whole. Some wars came after periods of growth, others were
the causes rather than the consequences of economic catastrophe, and some severe economic crises were
not followed by wars.
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U.S. isn’t key to the global economy
ML 6 (Merrill Lynch, “US Downturn Won’t Derail World Economy”, 9-18,
http://www.ml.com/index.asp?id=7695_7696_8149_63464_70786_71164)
A sharp slowdown in the U.S. economy in 2007 is unlikely to drag the rest of the global economy down
with it, according to a research report by Merrill Lynch’s (NYSE: MER) global economic team. The good
news is that there are strong sources of growth outside the U.S. that should prove resilient to a consumerled U.S. slowdown. Merrill Lynch economists expect U.S. GDP growth to slow to 1.9 percent in 2007
from 3.4 percent in 2006, but non-U.S. growth to decline by only half a percent (5.2 percent versus 5.7
percent). Behind this decoupling is higher non-U.S. domestic demand, a rise in intraregional trade and
supportive macroeconomic policies in many of the world’s economies. Although some countries appear
very vulnerable to a U.S. slowdown, one in five is actually on course for faster GDP growth in 2007.
Asia, Japan and India appear well placed to decouple from the United States, though Taiwan, Hong Kong
and Singapore are more likely to be impacted. European countries could feel the pinch, but rising
domestic demand in the core countries should help the region weather the storm much better than in
previous U.S. downturns. In the Americas, Canada will probably be hit, but Brazil is set to decouple.
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Econ Resilient: 1AR
Economy resilient
Main Wire 8 (Reporting the Congressional Budget Office Summer Report on Economic Assessments,
“FOMC Seen Hiking FFR Through '09,'10”, 9-9, Lexis)
However, the economic outlook could also improve sooner than CBO is currently forecasting. During the
past 25 years, the economy has been resilient in the face of adverse shocks; since 1983, it has
experienced only two relatively mild recessions, and inflation has been much more contained than in
earlier years. Some economists attribute that long period of relative stability to a number of developments
-- for example, less economic regulation, greater competition in labor and product markets (including
globalization), and more-effective monetary policy. They argue that the economy has become more
competitive and more flexible, able to respond to shocks because prices can adjust more quickly to reflect
relative scarcities. (According to that view, scarce goods and services can be quickly redirected to their
most valued uses, and a price shocks negative effect on output will be muted.) The current turbulence in
the financial markets is testing that argument, but up to now, the economy has coped with the severe
shocks of the past year relatively well.
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Doesn’t Cause War: 1AR
Economic decline doesn’t cause war –--Studies prove
Miller 00 (Morris, Economist, Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Administration – University of Ottawa, Former Executive Director and
Senior Economist – World Bank, “Poverty as a Cause of Wars?”, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, Winter, p. 273)
The question may be reformulated. Do wars spring from a popular reaction to a sudden economic crisis that
exacerbates poverty and growing disparities in wealth and incomes? Perhaps one could argue, as some scholars do, that it is some
dramatic event or sequence of such events leading to the exacerbation of poverty that, in turn, leads to this deplorable
denouement. This exogenous factor might act as a catalyst for a violent reaction on the part of the people or on the part of the
political leadership who would then possibly be tempted to seek a diversion by finding or, if need be, fabricating an enemy and
setting in train the process leading to war. According to a study undertaken by Minxin Pei and Ariel Adesnik of the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, there would not appear to be any merit in this hypothesis. After studying
ninety-three episodes of economic crisis in twenty-two countries in Latin America and Asia in the years since the
Second World War they concluded that:19 Much of the conventional wisdom about the political impact of economic
crises may be wrong ... The severity of economic crisis – as measured in terms of inflation and negative growth - bore
no relationship to the collapse of regimes ... (or, in democratic states, rarely) to an outbreak of violence ... In the cases
of dictatorships and semidemocracies, the ruling elites responded to crises by increasing repression (thereby using one form of
violence to abort another).
No resources
Duedney 91 (Daniel, Hewlett Fellow in Science, Technology, and Society – Princeton University, “Environment and Security: Muddled
Thinking?”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April)
Poverty wars. In a second scenario, declining living standards first cause internal turmoil, then war. If
groups at all levels of affluence protect their standard of living by pushing deprivation on other groups, class war and revolutionary upheavals
could result. Faced with these pressures, liberal democracy and free market systems could increasingly be replaced by authoritarian systems
capable of maintaining minimum order.9 If authoritarian regimes are more war-prone because they lack democratic control, and if revolutionary
regimes are war-prone because of their ideological fervor and isolation, then the world is likely to become more violent. The record of previous
depressions supports the proposition that widespread economic stagnation and unmet economic expectations contribute to international conflict.
Although initially compelling, this scenario has major flaws. One is that it is arguably based on unsound economic
theory. Wealth is formed not so much by the availability of cheap natural resources as by capital formation through savings and more efficient
production. Many resource-poor countries, like Japan, are very wealthy, while many countries with more extensive resources are poor.
Environmental constraints require an end to economic growth based on growing use of raw materials, but not necessarily an end to growth in the
production of goods and services. In addition, economic decline does not necessarily produce conflict. How
societies respond to economic decline may largely depend upon the rate at which such declines occur.
And as people get poorer, they may become less willing to spend scarce resources for military forces. As
Bernard Brodie observed about the modern era, “The predisposing factors to military aggression are full
bellies, not empty ones.” The experience of economic depressions over the last two centuries may be
irrelevant, because such depressions were characterized by under-utilized production capacity and falling resource prices. In the 1930s
increased military spending stimulated economies, but if economic growth is retarded by environmental constraints, military spending will
exacerbate the problem.
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No timeframe
Russett 83 (Bruce, Dean Acheson Professor of International Relations and Political Science – Yale University, “Prosperity and Peace:
Presidential Address”, International Studies Quarterly, 27(4), p. 384)
The ‘optimism’ argument seems strained to me, but elements of Blainey’s former thesis, about the need to
mobilize resources before war can be begun, are more plausible, especially in the 20th century. Modern
wars are fought by complex organizations, with complex and expensive weapons. It takes time to design
and build the weapons that military commanders will require, and it takes time to train the troops who
must use them. Large bureaucracies must plan and obtain some consensus on those plans; and even in a
dictatorship the populace in general must be prepared, with clear images of who are their enemies and of
the cause that will justify war with them. In short, preparations for war take time. Just how long a lag we
should expect to find between an economic downturn and subsequent war initiation is unclear. But surely
it will be more than a year or two, and war may well occur only after the economy is recovering.
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A2 Food Prices
No impact to food prices – the poorest are insulated from global markets
Paarlberg 8 (Robert, Professor of Political Science – Wellesley College, “It's Not the Price that Causes Hunger”, The International Herald
Tribune, 4-23, Lexis)
International prices of rice, wheat and corn have risen sharply, setting off violent urban protests in roughly a dozen countries in Asia, Africa and
Latin America. But is this a ''world food crisis?'' It is certainly a troubling instance of price instability in international commodity markets, leading
to social unrest among urban food-buyers. But we must be careful not to equate high crop prices with hunger around the
world. Most of the world's hungry people do not use international food markets, and most of those who
use these markets are not hungry. International food markets, like international markets for everything else, are used
primarily by the prosperous and secure, not the poor and vulnerable. In world corn markets, the biggest importer by far is Japan.
Next comes the European Union. Next comes South Korea. Citizens in these countries are not underfed. In the poor countries of Asia, rice is the
most important staple , yet most Asian countries import very little rice. As recently as March , India was keeping imported rice out of the country
by imposing a 70 percent duty. Data on the actual incidence of malnutrition reveal that the regions of the world where people are
most hungry, in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, are those that depend least on imports from the world market. Hunger
is caused in these countries not by high international food prices, but by local conditions, especially rural poverty linked
to low productivity in farming. When international prices are go up, the disposable income of some import-dependent
urban dwellers is squeezed. But most of the actual hunger takes place in the villages and in the countryside , and it
persists even when international prices are low. When hunger is measured as a balanced index of calorie deficiency,
prevalence of underweight children and mortality rates for children under five, we find that South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa in 2007 had
hunger levels two times as high as in the developing countries of East Asia, four times as high as in Latin America, North Africa or the Middle
East, and five times as high as in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The poor in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are hungry even though their
connections to high-priced international food markets are quite weak. In the poorest developing countries of Asia, where nearly 400 million
people are hungry, international grain prices are hardly a factor, since imports supply only 4 percent of total consumption - even when world
prices are low. Similarly in sub-Saharan Africa, only about 16 percent of grain supplies have recently been imported, going mostly into the more
prosperous cities rather than the impoverished countryside, with part arriving in the form of donated food aid rather than commercial purchases at
world prices. The region in Africa that depends on world markets most heavily is North Africa, where 50 percent of grain supplies are imported.
Yet food consumption in North Africa is so high (average per capita energy consumption there is about 3,000 calories per day, comparable to
most rich countries) that increased import prices may cause economic stress for urban consumers (and perhaps even street demonstrations) but
little real hunger. Import dependence is also high in Latin America (50 percent for some countries) but again high world prices will not mean
large numbers of hungry people, because per capita GDP in this region is five times higher than in sub-Saharan Africa. There is a severe
food crisis among the poor in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, but it does not come from high world prices. Even
in 2005 in sub-Saharan Africa, a year of low international crop prices, 23 out of 37 countries in the region consumed less than their nutritional
requirements. Africa's food crisis grows primarily out of the low productivity, year in and year out, of the 60 percent of all
Africans who plant crops and graze animals for a living. The average African smallholder farmer is a woman who has no improved seeds, no
nitrogen fertilizers, no irrigation and no veterinary medicine for her animals. Her crop yields are only one third as high as in the developing
countries of Asia, and her average income is only $1 a day.
Lack of infrastructure and distribution networks cause famine – not high prices
Khosla 7 (Vinod, Founder – Sun Microsystems and Khosla Ventures, “Food versus Fuel” or the “Salve
for Africa”?, http://www.khoslaventures.com/presentations/FOODvFUEL.pdf)
Despite its misplaced pessimism about corn-ethanol, the excerpted section does note that the advent of cellulosic ethanol would mitigate the
purported prices rises; as production capacity for cellulosic ethanol ramps up, it will be competitive, even without further improvements in
technology. Cellulosic ethanol will act as price-ceiling on corn ethanol, much as corn ethanol can do for oil today. Nonetheless, the
pessimism that the world’s poor starve because we don’t produce enough food is absurd. The Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) notes that there is more food per-capita today than ever before – the lack
of infrastructure, income, and distribution networks are the real causes of hunger, and not corn prices
(indeed, the U.S exports just 17% of its corn production, and the majority of even this exported crop is used for livestock feed). Instead of
rebelling against corn ethanol, the developing world (and Africa in particular) has been pushing the western world for agricultural subsidy
reductions in the West, noting that their farmers cannot compete (and earn income) against such heavily discounted products. Critics conjure up
images of starving children as innocent byproducts of corn ethanol; meanwhile, the EU actually pays farmers not to grow food (and thus to
reduce supply). The (subsidized) low prices of agricultural products like corn have made foreign farmers in
poor countries uneconomic producers. According to the New York Times (Aug 18, 2007), “CARE, the big global charity, had
decided to stop selling subsidized American farm products in poor African countries because the program was inefficient and undercut local
farmers.” Corn ethanol, by helping make corn more economic to grow and hence reducing corn subsidies, is
actually helping the poor .
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Market reactions solve – production will increase to meet demand
Khosla 7 (Vinod, Founder – Sun Microsystems and Khosla Ventures, “Food versus Fuel” or the “Salve for Africa”?,
http://www.khoslaventures.com/presentations/FOODvFUEL.pdf)
Markets have already reacted to the higher-corn demand with increases supply, which have already
dropped prices to about $3.50 per bushel. The ProExporter Network’s data shows us that while total corn
demand in 2007/08 is estimated to be approximately 900 million bushels higher than 2006/07, total
supply will increase by a 1.6 billion bushels (sufficient for about 4.8 billion gallons of ethanol or a big
proportion of 2007 production!).12
Billions won’t die – their data is wrong
Khosla 7 (Vinod, Founder – Sun Microsystems and Khosla Ventures, “Food versus Fuel” or the “Salve
for Africa”?, http://www.khoslaventures.com/presentations/FOODvFUEL.pdf)
Stopping bad policy is a worthwhile goal, but we should not abandon all biofuels. There is no doubt that we can produce biofuels in the right or
wrong way. However, at each step, we need to evaluate the costs of biofuels vs. the long-term costs of continuing with our current path. There
exists vast tracts of underutilized pastureland worldwide and good energy crop practices can improve the sustainability of farming while meeting
our energy needs. Lester Brown’s assertions that food supplies are likely to be threatened by corn ethanol (800M
motorists vs. 2 billion poor people) is illogical and ill-thought out – the data is extrapolated from corn
ethanol projections (without a basic understanding that cellulosic, and not corn ethanol, is the long term
future) is flawed at best. To repeat what we have cited before: taking this “logic” to Brown’s idealistic vision of wind power – it would
be akin to extrapolating to “if we produced all our electricity with wind 75% of the planet would be without electricity 75% of the time (or
worse!)”. Irrational, fear-mongering extrapolation of data leads to irrational results.
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1AC (Short Version)
The Plan
Greetings, my partner and I feel it is time to address some our local and
national transportation problems. We offer for your consideration, the
following plan:
The US Federal Government should substantially increase its transportation infrastructure
investment in the US by increasing transportation equity in planning and development
including increases in active transportation infrastructure and public transit.
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1AC (Short Version)
OBSERVATION ONE—Inherency: the barrier to change
Current transportation funds are directed away from areas of greatest need.
Low-income and communities of color lack access to centers of power excluding them from
necessary transportation funding and negatively impacting public health.
The Leadership Conference Education Fund, 2011. Transportation Policy and Access to Health Care, p.2.
a. Disproportionate investment in expanding road networks and car-based transportation
For several decades, we have invested the overwhelming majority of federal transportation funds in new highway construction.
People from
urban areas and people of color are significantly underrepresented in the institutions that decide how to
invest transportation funds for metropolitan areas, which results in a strong preference for transportation
benefiting suburbs and outlying areas. As a result, we now have a landscape of metropolitan sprawl and a
predominately car-based transportation system across the country.
b. Transportation investments to date have limited access to health care for low-income people
Because a very small percentage of federal funds have been used for affordable public transportation and
for active transportation (i.e. walking, biking) opportunities, people without access to cars have been
isolated from opportunities and services—including health care providers. By underinvesting in walkable
communities, rapid bus transit, rail, and bicycle-friendly roads, our policies contribute to high
concentrations of poor air quality, pedestrian fatalities, obesity, and asthma in urban areas. All of these
public health risks have disproportionately affected low-income people and people of color.
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1AC (Short Version)
TWO—HARM: PUBLIC HEALTH.
A. Inactive transportation has increased obesity in US
The Leadership Conference Education Fund, 2011, Transportation Policy and Access to Health Care, p2-3.
Streets and highways without sidewalks present an unnecessary barrier to walking.10 Auto-oriented
transportation and limited access to walkable streets have resulted in an unhealthy, sedentary lifestyle
with material consequences for public health.11 Over the past 25 years, childhood obesity has steadily
increased as walking trips among children have steadily decreased.12 Obesity and related illnesses
disproportionately affect low-income people and people of color,13 and these public health hazards cost
billions of dollars annually.14 Obesity costs account for approximately 9 percent of all health care spending in the U.S., and part of
these costs are attributable to auto-oriented transportation that inadvertently limits opportunities for physical activity.15
B. Mortality rate from obesity is very high--Over 160,000 deaths a year.
Weight-control Information Network, 2010, “Overweight and Obesity Statistics,”
National Institute of Diabetes
and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, February 2010, http://win.niddk.nih.gov/statistics/index.htm
Most studies show an increase in mortality rates associated with obesity.Individuals who are obese have a
significantly increased risk of death from all causes, compared with healthy weight individuals (BMI 18.5
to 24.9). The increased risk varies by cause of death, and most of this increased risk is due to
cardiovascular causes.[11] Obesity is associated with over 112,000 excess deaths due to cardiovascular
disease, over 15,000 excess deaths due to cancer, and over 35,000 excess deaths due to non-cancer, noncardiovascular disease causes per year in the U.S. population, relative to healthy-weight individuals.
C. Decreased life expectancy for young adults is too high and getting worse.
Lindholm, 2011, (Raymond Lindholm, Georgia State University College of Law, Center for Health, Law, &
Society) “Combating childhood obesity: A survey of laws affecting the built environments of low-income and
minority children”, Review of Environment and Health 2011
Nationally, an estimated 10.58 million children between 10 and 17 years of age are overweight and obese
(5). This alarming number is of great concern due primarily to the major economic and health
implications that obesity carries over the course of a child’s lifetime. Overweight children are at an
increased risk of becoming obese adults, and as many as 80% of obese adolescents will become obese
adults (8). In turn, obese adults face major health problems as well as shortened life expectancy, ranging
anywhere from 8 years in the case of highly obese middle-aged white-American females to 20 years for
severely obese black-American males (9). Decreased life expectancy for obese young adults today is
estimated to reach as high as 25% (10). Because of the major health implications that accompany
overweight and obesity, for the first time in modern history, experts are predicting that the children of
today will have a lower life expectancy than their parents (9).
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1AC (Short Version)
FOUR: SOLVENCY
Now is an important time for securing social equity in transportation. Follow Rosa Parks’
example in the 21st Century.
Litman and Brenman, 2011. (Todd Litman--Victoria Policy Institute and Marc Brenman—Social Justice
Constituency and Senior Policy Advisor to the City Project) “New Social Equity Agenda for Sustainable
Transportation (Draft for Discussion)”, March 3, 2011, p.2.
On 1 December 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Louise McCauley Parks, an African American
woman, refused to obey a bus driver’s order to give her seat to a white passenger. This began the
Montgomery Bus Boycott, a major event in the U.S. civil rights movement which helped achieve more equitable public policies.
How much progress has occurred since? Racial discrimination is now illegal in business, education and employment, and various policies and
programs exist to protect minority groups. However, many people still suffer inequities in their ability to access public services and economic
opportunities.
In terms of transportation, most Montgomery, Alabama African American residents who can drive and afford an
automobile are probably better off now because they have more mobility and do not face daily racial
discrimination. However, residents of all races who either cannot drive or would prefer to use alternative
modes (because they dislike driving, want to save money, or enjoy the physical activity and social
interactions of walking, cycling and public transit) are probably worse off because their communities are
less walkable, bus service declined and development patterns are more sprawled. Transport system
discrimination has changed: it results less from race or ethnicity and more from disability and poverty.
This is an important and timely issue. A number of demographic and economic trends are increasing
consumer demand for alternative modes and more accessible, walkable communities (Litman 2006), and many
citizens, public officials and practitioners sincerely want to address social equity objectives (Sanchez and Brenman 2007). It is therefore
important to develop comprehensive and practical methods for evaluating transportation social equity
impacts and achieving social equity objectives.
Need to mandate equitable distribution of active transportation resources
Garcia et al, 2009. (Robert Garcia--The City Project, Los Angeles, CA, America Bracho and Patricia Cantero-Latino Health Access, Santa Ana, CA, and Beth Glenn—School of Public Health and Johnsson Comprehensive
Cancer Center, UCLA), “’Pushing Physical Activity, and Justice’”, Preventive Medicine, 49 (2009) 330–33
Increasing the availability of safe-space for physical activity (Babey et al., 2008), opportunities to engage
in physical activity during the school day (Cawley et al., 2007), and access to and use of public transportation (Lachapelle and Frank, 2009) are environmental strategies that have been found to be related to
increased physical activity levels. Low-income, ethnic minority families are less likely to have access to parks or other space for
physical activity (Estabrooks et al., 2003), less likely to engage in physical activity during leisure time (Brown et al., 2005) and are more
dependent on public transportation (Mather, 2009). Evidence is accumulating that promoting mass transit use may
be a
promising strategy to increase physical activity levels (Lachapelle and Frank, 2009). However, lowincome and minority communities, those most likely to need public transit and who may be more likely to
benefit from its use from a physical activity standpoint often have poorest access to these resources. Thus,
these environmental change approaches hold the promise of being particularly beneficial for
socioeconomically marginalized groups. Therefore, we propose that efforts should be made to mandate
the equitable distribution of public resources that will ultimately increase physical activity levels in the
population.
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1AC (Short Version)
Investing in active transportation is the best policy for decreasing obesity
Oglilve et al, 2011, (David Ogilvie--Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit and the UKCRC Centre for Diet and Activity
Research (CEDAR); Fiona Bull--School of Sport, Exercise and Health Science, Loughborough University, UK, and the School of Population
Health, University of Western Australia. Jane Powell--University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. Ashley R. Cooper--Department of
Exercise, Nutrition and Health Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK. Christian Brand--Environmental Change Institute, University of
Oxford, Oxford, UK. Nanette Mutrie---Department of Sport, Culture and the Arts, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK. John Preston--School
of Civil Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton, UK. Harry Rutter--National Obesity Observatory, Oxford, UK. “An
Applied Ecological Framework for Evaluating Infrastructure to Promote Walking and Cycling: The iConnect Study” American Journal of Public
Health March 2011, Vol 101, No. 3 |
Interest in the relation between transportation and public health traditionally has focused on adverse local
effects of motor traffic such as noise, air pollution, and injuries1 but now also recognizes the potential
health benefits of promoting walking and cycling and the wider adverse effects of dependence on motor
vehicles.2 Walking and cycling offer an ideal opportunity for people to incorporate physical activity into
their daily lives, reducing their risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes and coronary heart disease.3,4 A
population shift toward more ‘‘active travel’’ also could help reduce traffic congestion and carbon
emissions, to which the use of motor vehicles makes a large and inequitably distributed contribution.5–9
Improving the infrastructure for walking and cycling recently has been identified as one of the most
important policy recommendations for tackling obesity in both the United States and the United
Kingdom.9,10 Such recommendations are largely based on evidence from cross- sectional studies
showing that certain characteristics of the physical environment—such as the design of residential
neighborhoods and the availability of routes for walking and cycling— may be associated with patterns of
physical activity in general and walking and cycling in particular.11,12 However, evidence is limited
from studies of actual interventions to show that altering transportation infrastructure or other aspects of
the built environment has led to an increase in walking or cycling or a modal shift away from car use, let
alone changes in overall physical activity or carbon emissions.13–15
Transportation infrastructure must be improved to solve social exclusion and improve health of
minority and low-income communities
The Leadership Conference Education Fund, 2011, Transportation Policy and Access to Health Care, p.1.
Transportation policy can make a positive impact on health conditions by increasing options for
commuters, reducing air pollution, and creating better connections to health services. Conversely,
transportation policy that fails to take into account the needs of low-income and minority communities
can have extreme and cascading health consequences.
Lack of access to affordable transportation is a major contributor to health disparities. It isolates
low-income people from health care facilities and forces families to spend a large percentage of their
budgets on cars and other expensive options, at the expense of other needs, including health care.1 Our
transportation policy also generates public health problems that disproportionately affect low-income
communities and communities of color. As Congress considers a reauthorization of our nation’s surface
transportation programs, which will allocate significant federal funds to transportation infrastructure, civil
and human rights advocates have an opportunity to advance public health through participation in the
transportation policy making process.
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1AC (Short Version)
Need to shift direction of programming
Bradley, et al. 2011. Road to Recovery: Transforming America’s Transportation Infrastructure. (Bill Bradley—former US Senator,
Currently Managing Director Allan and Company; Thomas J. Ridge—Former Pennsylvania Governor and Secretary of Homeland Security,
Currently CEO of Ridge Global; David M. Walker, former US Comptroller General and Current CEO of Comeback America Initiative) Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace
p. 50-1 A paradigm shift is needed in the way Americans think about transportation, the services they
demand from the nation’s transportation system, and the investments they make in this system. The
country needs to shift its focus from seeking mobility to providing greater access, from increasing the
speed of travel to improving the reliability and efficiency of transportation services, and from building
singular transportation projects to efficiently managing transportation networks. The national concept of
transportation has evolved from a glorification of the “freedom of the open road” to an appreciation of the
more fundamental freedom of economic, social, and environmental sustainability
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