MN Novice Packet 2012
Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
**Table of Contents**
Contents
**Table of Contents**.......................................................................................................................................... 1
**1AC – Mass Transit** ...................................................................................................................................... 2
Observation One: Inherency ............................................................................................................................... 2
Observation Two: Harms .................................................................................................................................... 3
Observation Two: Harms .................................................................................................................................... 4
Observation Three: Plan ..................................................................................................................................... 5
Observation Four: Solvency ............................................................................................................................... 6
Observation Four: Solvency ............................................................................................................................... 7
Observation Four: Solvency ............................................................................................................................... 8
EXT: Inherency................................................................................................................................................... 9
EXT: Inherency................................................................................................................................................. 10
**Harms Extensions** ....................................................................................................................................... 11
Racism ............................................................................................................................................................. 11
Residential Segregation ................................................................................................................................... 12
Economic Opportunity ...................................................................................................................................... 13
Economic Opportunity ...................................................................................................................................... 14
Civil Rights ....................................................................................................................................................... 15
Violence ........................................................................................................................................................... 16
Violence ........................................................................................................................................................... 17
Violence ........................................................................................................................................................... 18
Health............................................................................................................................................................... 19
Impact Framing: Probability .............................................................................................................................. 20
Impact Framing: Probability .............................................................................................................................. 21
Impact Framing: Util = Racist............................................................................................................................ 22
Morality Good – Comparative ........................................................................................................................... 23
Morality Good – O/W Extinction / Nuclear War ................................................................................................. 24
Morality Good – Rights ..................................................................................................................................... 25
Morality Good – Equality................................................................................................................................... 26
Morality Good -- Justice ................................................................................................................................... 27
EXT: Plan Boosts The Economy....................................................................................................................... 28
EXT: Plan Boosts The Economy....................................................................................................................... 29
EXT: Plan Boosts The Economy....................................................................................................................... 30
Solvency Extensions - Safety ........................................................................................................................... 31
Solvency Extensions - Ridership ...................................................................................................................... 32
Solvency Extensions - Racism.......................................................................................................................... 33
Solvency Extensions – Fed Key ....................................................................................................................... 34
Solvency Extensions – Fed Key ....................................................................................................................... 35
Solvency Extensions – Movements .................................................................................................................. 36
Cap Answers .................................................................................................................................................... 37
Mass Transit Popular........................................................................................................................................ 38
Gentrification Answers ...................................................................................................................................... 39
Oil Answers ...................................................................................................................................................... 40
Page 1 of 40
MN Novice Packet 2012
Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
**1AC – Mass Transit**
Observation One: Inherency
Status Quo mass transit is severely lacking across the US due to federal favoring of roads
over transit. Federal funds are crucial to effective co-ordination with the private sector and
catalyzing development of an equitable mass transit system
Puentes, 8 - Fellow and Director, Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative Brookings Institution (Robert,
"Strengthening the Ability of Public Transportation to Reduce Our Dependence on Foreign Oil” Congressional
Testimony, 9/9,
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/testimony/2008/9/09%20transportation%20puentes/0909_tra
nsportation_puentes.pdf)
2. Yet, most metropolitan areas are beset with limited transit and overall travel optionsIn addition to these struggles, the
reality is that the availability and accessibility of public transportation across the country's 100
largest metro areas is seriously lacking.Although nearly every metropolitan area enjoys bus service, more than
half is concentrated in just 10 largemetros like New York, Miami, and Seattle. Heavy rail—also referred to as subways—
exist in only 11 metroslike Philadelphia and San Francisco. Commuter rail is in only 14 metropolitan areas, primarily in
theNortheast and California. And light rail can be found in only 26, like Salt Lake City, Charlotte, and Denver.Therefore,
based simply on the amount of transit infrastructure available, 54 of the 100 largest metros do
not have any rail transit service and also have relatively weak bus systems. This includes large metros
likeOrlando and Indianapolis; fast growing metros like Raleigh and Jacksonville, FL and slow growing metroslike
Youngstown and Rochester, NY.This lack of metropolitan travel options means tens of millions of
Americans are tethered to their cars for their daily travel needs. That is, assuming they can afford the high
costs of owning a car.As employment has dispersed throughout metropolitan America, lower income workers are
findingthemselves increasingly isolated and therefore need to spend higher proportions of their income to reach theirjobs.
Many simply have no choice but to spend $4 for a gallon of gas.Information drawn from the three most recent years of the
American Housing Survey shows that only 55 percent of respondents reported that transit is even
available to them. More disturbing is that only one-thirdof respondents in newly-constructed housing reported that
transit was present. Transit was much morereadily available in center cities (82 percent) than in suburbs (52
percent).21One reason the metropolitan transportation system—which should serve as the connective tissue
within andbetween metropolitan areas—is woefully incomplete, is due to flaws in federal policy.Federal
transportation policy has long favored highway building over transit investments.22Transit
projectsare evaluated and funded differently than highways. The pot of available federal transit funding is so small that
the federal government oversees a competitive process for new transit funding, requiring multiple
hypercompetitive bureaucratic reviews that demonstrate a project's cost-effectiveness. Funding is
also subjectto annual congressional appropriations. Highways do not undergo the same level of
scrutiny or fundinguncertainty. Also, while highways typically receive up to 80 percent of federal
funds (and 90 percent forimprovements and maintenance), new transit projects' federal contribution is often less than half
of theproject cost.23Taken together, these biases ensure that state transportation policy pursued under
federal law works against many metropolitan areas' efforts to maintain modern and integrated
transportation networks3. The investments that have been made in transit are not having the effect they couldAt the convergence of these trends is
the realization that a substantial market exists for a new form ofwalkable, mixed-use urban development around transit stops in real estate markets as diverse as
suburbanNew Jersey, Atlanta, Dallas and Chicago. Overall, transit-oriented developments (TODs) are designed to weave transit stations into the fabric of the
surrounding community, and to increase the role of transit in the transportation system, and more generally the day-to-day life of the surrounding area.These transitoriented developments have the potential to lower household transportation expenses, reduceenvironmental and energy impacts, and provide real alternatives to
traffic congestion. Residents who live intransit-oriented housing typically use transit 2 to 5 times more than other commuters in the region. Inaddition, those
households are twice as likely to not own a car at all, and generally own half as many cars assimilar households not living in transit rich neighborhoods.24Other
research shows the benefit of TOD on household budgets. In just eight cities, more than 100,000federally assisted housing units sheltering more than 300,000
individuals are located in transit richneighborhoods. Approximately 65,500 of these units are covered by federal rental assistance contractsexpiring before the end of
2012.25A recent federal transit administration study shows that families that livein TOD neighborhoods spend just 9 percent of their household budget on
transportation, compared to 25percent for those in automobile-dependent suburbs.26While the share of spending on housing is equal, thetransportation savings are
critically important to low income families for whom transportation eats up adisproportionately large share of their annual income.The benefits of TOD could be
bolstered by synergies with other policies, notably policies that encourageurban infilling, such as the rejuvenation of brownfields, the development of urban enterprise
zones, locatingnew federal buildings in promising mixed-use, higher-density commercial areas, and the use of alternativemortgage products such as energy efficient
and locationally efficient mortgages. The results will givemetropolitan areas more flexibility and the nation expanded options for addressing large-scale
challenges.However, many of these benefits are not being realized. Although TOD is now starting to be recognized as aviable type of development, there is still a
widespread lack of understanding of its nature, its potential, thechallenges it faces, and the tools needed to overcome these challenges.For one, there is no
universally accepted premise about exactly what TOD should accomplish, nor are therestandard benchmarks for success. For example, some developments are
labeled TOD by virtue of theirproximity to a transit station, regardless of how well they capitalize on that proximity or capture the increasein land value. In addition,
there are multiple actors engaged in TOD projects including the transit agency,riders, neighbors, developers, lenders, and government at all levels. They often bring
different goals to thetable, pursue strategies that work at cross-purposes to each other, and lack unifying policy objectives.27In short, TOD requires synergy among
many different uses and functions that is difficult to achieve. As aresult, TOD almost always involves more complexity, greater uncertainty, and higher costs than
other formsof infill development. We need to make TOD easy and non-leveraged investments hard. In other words, weneed to flip the system.The federal
government can play a critical role in supporting the planning of such projects and corridors, coordinating with private sector developers and lenders, and promoting
metropolitan diversity in project selection. Such considerations would catalyze the nearly $75 billion in public dollars invested in rail transit over the past 11 years and
go a long way to reducing energy consumption as an explicit national goal.
Page 2 of 40
MN Novice Packet 2012
Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
Observation Two: Harms
First, Equal access to education opportunities is impossible without Mass Transit. Inadequate
access to transportation is the difference between attending and missing school for some
minority students.
Sanchez at al 03
(Thomas W. Sanchez, Rich Stolz, and Jacinta S. Ma, homas W. Sanchez is an associate professor of Urban Affairs and Planning and
research fellow in the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech in Alexandria, Virginia. Rich Stolz is Senior Policy Analyst at Center for
Community Change. Jacinta S. Ma is a Legal and Policy Advocacy Associate at The Civil Rights Project at Harvard, “Moving to Equity:
Addressing Inequitable Effects of Transportation Policies on Minorities” DM)
Although the large majority of K–12 students do not need to rely on public transit to get to school, for those
who do, access to that transportation may mean the difference between attending and missing
school. For instance, during efforts to obtain free student transit passes from the Metropolitan
Transportation Commission serving the San Francisco Bay area, evidence was presented that
students without access to public transportation would not attend school.133 A number of high
school students in Oakland and El Cerrito, which have significant minority populations, testified that they
needed free transit passes because their families sometimes had to decide between food and bus fare.134 In
Portland, Oregon, the school district does not provide bus service for students living within 1.5
miles of a school. Sisters in Action for Power, an organization focusing on the interests of low-income girls and
girls of color, pressed for free rides to high school on public buses after its survey of more than
2,000 students found that 11 percent reported missing school due to their inability to meet
transportation costs.135 Students in Providence, Rhode Island, in an informal survey of more than 500 high school
students, found that a number of students whose families were unable to afford bus passes stayed home and missed
school, especially during harsh winter days, and others got detention for being late because of the amount of time it took
them to walk to school.136 Currently, students attending Providence public high schools who live within three miles
of their school must walk or provide their own means of transportation . Limited funding for schools makes it
difficult for school districts to transport all children in school buses. Recent severe cuts in school budgets makes it likely that
more school districts will need to reduce the transportation services they provide and that more children will need to rely on
public transportation to attend school. Transportation policies should recognize and address this growing need. In
addition, education reform laws do not always consider the impact of access to transportation . For example,
states authorizing charter schools do not always require that the schools provide transportation to students.137
Some states that require charter schools to provide transportation to students only require that they follow the
same standards of other schools in the district, such as providing transportation only to those residing in the
school district in which the charter school physically exists even though charter schools generally can enroll
students from surrounding school districts. Failure to provide transportation may reinforce the
segregative effect of charter schools by eliminating the option of low-income minority students
to enroll in these schools due to a lack of transportation.138 Another education reform law, the No Child
Left Behind Act,139 allows students to transfer from “failing” schools, which are often schools with predominantly minority
populations. It does not require that transportation be provided to students who wish to transfer. Although this provision has
the potential to reduce segregated schools, not providing transportation to nonfailing schools means that
many minority students will not be able to take advantage of this option. Lack of access to
transportation also affects access to higher education. Many people of color, for financial and
other reasons, attend local community colleges or do not live on campus, often requiring that
they find transportation other than walking. For example, minority students make up 30 percent of
community college enrollment nationally and their enrollment is often higher in urban areas.140 It is likely
that at least some of these students rely on public transportation. These students are likely to experience
long or inconvenient commutes as many colleges were designed to serve a region and not
necessarily to be accessible by public transportation. It is not known how many students who cannot afford a
car decide not to go to college or drop out in the face of an overly arduous commute on inadequate public transportation.
Federal and local transportation policies must find ways to better serve the transportation needs
of those most dependent on public transportation or the dream of equal access to educational
opportunities will remain deferred for many students of color.
Page 3 of 40
MN Novice Packet 2012
Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
Observation Two: Harms
Second, racism permeating the urban transit systems has left minority communities cut off
from job opportunities and economically held back.
Robert D. Bullard is the Ware Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Director of the Environmental Justice
Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University, “WEB SPECIAL: The Anatomy of Transportation Racism,” 2004
(http://urbanhabitat.org/highwayrobbery)
Martin Luther King, Jr., recognized that racism in its many forms was holding Blacks back economically and
that Blacks were being denied the basic rights that white Americans took for granted . In his speeches, he made it
clear that the racism being fought in the Montgomery transit system was not an isolated occurrence, but that
racism permeated every American institution. "When you go beyond the relatively simple though serious problems such as
police racism, however, you begin to get into all the complexities of the modern American economy. Urban transit systems in most
American cities, for example, have become a genuine civil rights issue—and a valid one—because the
layout of rapid-transit systems determines the accessibility of jobs to the Black community. If transportation
systems in American cities could be laid out so as to provide an opportunity for poor people to get to
meaningful employment, then they could begin to move into the mainstream of American life. A good example of
this problem is my home city of Atlanta, where the rapid-transit system has been laid out for the convenience of the white upper-middle-class
suburbanites who commute to their jobs downtown. The system has virtually no consideration for connecting the poor
people with their jobs. There is only one possible explanation for this situation, and that is the racist
blindness of city planners." By linking the unequal treatment on and access to buses with the violation of constitutionally guaranteed
civil rights, the MIA and their leaders built on the foundation laid by the United Defense League boycott in Baton Rouge. The Montgomery
bus boycott was a turning point for many reasons. It introduced nonviolent direct action to the Black South and
demonstrated the collective power of a united Black community. The basic organizing principles that came out of
Montgomery were implanted in the nationwide civil rights movement and changed America forever. The Black masses
would no longer be treated as second-class citizens, relegated to the back of the bus. They demanded to be treated as
Americans.
Third, Racism in all forms must be unconditionally confronted regardless of consequence. It
creates the conditions for all forms of violence to exist and endorses fear and injustice that
threatens the existence of society
Memmi 2k
MEMMI Professor Emeritus of Sociology @ Unv. Of Paris Albert-; RACISM, translated by Steve Martinot,
pp.163-165
The struggle against racism will be long, difficult, without intermission, without remission, probably never
achieved, yet for this very reason, it is a struggle to be undertaken without surcease and without concessions.
One cannot be indulgent toward racism. One cannot even let the monster in the house, especially not in a mask.
To give it merely a foothold means to augment the bestial part in us and in other people which is to diminish
what is human. To accept the racist universe to the slightest degree is to endorse fear, injustice, and violence.
It is to accept the persistence of the dark history in which we still largely live. It is to agree that the outsider will
always be a possible victim (and which [person] man is not [themself] himself an outsider relative to someone
else?).Racism illustrates in sum, the inevitable negativity of the condition of the dominated; that is it
illuminates in a certain sense the entire human condition. The anti-racist struggle, difficult though it is, and always in question, is
nevertheless one of the prologues to the ultimate passage from animality to humanity. In that sense, we cannot fail to rise to the racist challenge. However, it
remains true that one’s moral conduct only emerges from a choice: one has to want it. It is a choice among
other choices, and always debatable in its foundations and its consequences. Let us say, broadly speaking, that the
choice to conduct oneself morally is the condition for the establishment of a human order for which racism is
the very negation. This is almost a redundancy. One cannot found a moral order, let alone a legislative order, on racism because racism signifies
the exclusion of the other and his or her subjection to violence and domination. From an ethical point of view, if one can
deploy a little religious language, racism is “the truly capital sin.”fn22 It is not an accident that almost all of humanity’s spiritual
traditions counsel respect for the weak, for orphans, widows, or strangers. It is not just a question of theoretical counsel respect
for the weak, for orphans, widows or strangers. It is not just a question of theoretical morality and disinterested commandments. Such unanimity in the safeguarding
of the other suggests the real utility of such sentiments .
All things considered, we have an interest in banishing injustice,
because injustice engenders violence and death. Of course, this is debatable. There are those who think that if one is strong enough, the
assault on and oppression of others is permissible. But no one is ever sure of remaining the strongest. One day, perhaps, the roles will be reversed. All unjust
society contains within itself the seeds of its own death. It is probably smarter to treat others with respect so
that they treat you with respect. “Recall,” says the bible, “that you were once a stranger in Egypt,” which means both that you ought to respect the
stranger because you were a stranger yourself and that you risk becoming once again someday. It is an ethical and a practical appeal – indeed, it is a contract,
however implicit it might be. In short,
the refusal of racism is the condition for all theoretical and practical morality. Because,
the ethical choice commands the political choice. A just society must be a society accepted by all. If
this contractual principle is not accepted, then only conflict, violence, and destruction will be our lot. If it is
accepted, we can hope someday to live in peace. True, it is a wager, but the stakes are irresistible.
in the end,
Page 4 of 40
MN Novice Packet 2012
Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
Observation Three: Plan
Text:
The United States federal government should substantially increase its investment in equitable
mass transit.
Page 5 of 40
MN Novice Packet 2012
Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
Observation Four: Solvency
First. Success in meeting the current transportation needs of increased ridership relies on
federal action. It creates predictability for private sector investment that prevents those
industries from investing overseas.
Melaniphy, 12 -President & CEO American Public Transportation Association (Michael, Testimony before
The Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies of the Senate
Committee on Appropriations, 3/21,
http://www.apta.com/gap/testimony/2012/Pages/120319_SenateTestimony.aspx)
APTA’s highest priority continues to be the enactment of a well-funded, multi-modal surface transportation authorization
bill.We recognize the challenge that the absence of an authorization bill places on the Appropriations Committee, yet we
must stress the tremendous needs that persist for public transportation agencies throughout the country, and remind
Congress that investment in transportation infrastructure puts Americans to work. Failure to invest will force
private sector businesses in the transit industry and other industries to lay off employees and to
invest overseas, while increased federal investment addresses the need for much-needed capital
investments and the growth of the industry. For the nation’s tens of millions of transit riders, any cuts will
mean less service, fewer travel options, higher costs and longer commutes. Americans took 10.4
billion trips on public transportation in 2011, a 2.31% increase from 2010 and the second highest annual ridership total since
1957.Only ridership in 2008, when gas rose to more than $4 a gallon, surpassed last year’s ridership, and today gas prices
are continuing to rise.
About APTA
APTA is a nonprofit international association of 1,500 public and private member organizations, including transit systems and high-speed, intercity and commuter rail
operators; planning, design, construction, and finance firms; product and service providers; academic institutions; transit associations and state departments of
transportation. Overview of FY 2013 Funding Requests First, let me applaud the Senate for its work on passing the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century
Act (MAP-21), with strong bipartisan support. It has been more than two years since the expiration of SAFETEA-LU, and we are excited to see progress being made
towards a new authorization law. However, in the absence of a finalized piece of legislation, APTA continues to look towards existing law, appropriations, and current
It is important that steady and growing investment continue
despite economic or fiscal situations, as demand and long-term planning requirements for
transportation investment continue as well. In the Obama Administration’s FY 2013 Budget Proposal, along with their proposed sixbudget proposals for appropriations request guidance .
year surface transportation authorization proposal, the President requests $10.8 billion for public transportation programs in FY 2013 and would additionally include
$50 billion for a one-time state of good repair investment program, spread across highway and transit programs. The President’s proposal also requests $2.5 billion
for high-speed and intercity passenger rail. APTA applauds the President’s proposed public transportation budget request. While we recognize the growing
pressures that are impacting general fund budget authority allocations, APTA urges Congress to resist efforts to make further cuts to general fund components of the
federal transit program, such as Capital Investment Grants and research, as these are important elements of federal surface transportation investment. In particular,
many in the transit industry were particularly concerned about cuts in FY 2012 to the Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP), an important program that
produces basic research that is used by transit agencies nationwide to improve efficiency, safety and technical capacity. Finally, we encourage Congress to fund the
Rail Safety Technology Grants program (Section 105) of the Rail Safety Improvement Act (RSIA) at a level significantly higher than the $50 million authorized
annually through FY 2013, to assist with the implementation of congressionally mandated positive train control systems. The federal deadline for implementation of
positive train control systems is rapidly approaching, and to date, Congress has not provided the necessary funding to support implementation of this important safety
program.
The Need for Federal Transit Investment
In previous testimony to this subcommittee, APTA presented the case for increasing federal investment in public
transportation. The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that a one-time investment $78 billion is
needed to bring currently operating transit infrastructure up to a state of good repair, and this does
not include annual costs to maintain, expand or operate the existing system. Research on transit needs shows that capital
investment from all sources - federal, state, and local - should be doubled if we are to prepare for
future ridership demands. APTA’s overall funding recommendation continues to be informed by our
recommendations for surface transportation authorization and the estimated federal funding growth required to meet at least
50 percent of the $60 billion in annual transit capital needs. These levels are intended to support a projected doubling of
transit ridership over the next 20 years. It is important to stress that the demand for public transportation and
the need for federal leadership will not diminish in the months and years ahead. As gasoline prices
continue to increase, Americans are turning to public transportation in record numbers, just as they did in 2008 when gas
reached an average price of $4.11 per gallon. Public transportation is a vital component of the nation’s total
transportation infrastructure picture, and with ridership projected to grow, dependable public
transportation systems will be vital to the transportation needs of millions of Americans. While
Congress continues to consider how to proceed on a well-funded, multi-modal surface transportation bill, it remains critically
important that annual appropriations bills support both current and growing needs.
Federal Transit Administration Programs
Capital Investment Grants (New Starts) – APTA was pleased to see the Senate continue to support the New Starts program
in MAP-21. The New Starts program is the primary source of federal investment in the construction or expansion of heavy
rail, light rail, commuter rail, and bus rapid transit projects. The success of these major, multi-year capital
projects requires predictable support by Congress and the FTA. Congress established Full Funding Grant
Agreements (FFGAs) to provide this predictability. A continued commitment to federal investment will also
influence the willingness of private financial markets to finance public transportation projects
and it will help ensure that the bond ratings will remain high and interest rates will remain low.We
urge the Congress to recognize the importance of long-term, predictable funding for all highway
and transit programs, including New Starts. APTA believes that the New Starts program should
grow at the same rate as the rest of the transit program, as it is essential to enhancing our nation’s mobility, accessibility
and economic prosperity, while promoting energy conservation and environmental quality.
Page 6 of 40
MN Novice Packet 2012
Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
Observation Four: Solvency
Second. Equity demands bringing mass transit to urban populations. It is an essential
prerequisite to everything the low-wage workforce does. Transportation’s ties to the civil
rights movement means action now can create successful political movements to restore
justice.
Mann et al 2006. (Eric Mann, Kikanza Ramsey, Barbara Lott-Holland, and Geoff Ray are members of the Labor/Community Strategy Center an
organization that has a particular focus on civil rights, environmental justice, public health, global warming, and the criminal legal system.. “An Environmental
Justice Strategy for Urban Transportation”. http://urbanhabitat.org/files/ 1%20Eric%20Mann.pdf).
Across the United States, federal and state transportation funds favor suburban commuters and auto owners at the cost of the urban poor, the working class, the
lowest income communities of color, the elderly, high school students, and the disabled. People dependent on public transit for their transportation needs suffer
dilapidated buses, long waits, longer rides, poor connections, service cuts, overcrowding, and daily exposure to some of the worst tail-pipe toxins. The movement for
first-class, regional transportation systems that give priority to the transitdependent requires the mobilization of those excluded and marginalized from politics-as-
Equity demands a mass movement of funds from the highway
and rail interests to bus systems, from suburban commuters, corporate developers, and rail
contractors to the urban working class of color. Such a transformation will not happen—cannot
happen— until a mass movement of the transit-dependent is built from the bottom up. A Transit Strategy for
usual, and will challenge the pro-corporate consensus.
the Transit-Dependent In 1993, the Labor/Community Strategy Center (LCSC) in Los Angeles founded the Bus Riders Union (BRU)—now the largest multi-racial
grassroots transportation group in the U.S.—with more than 3,000 members representing the roughly 400,000 daily bus riders. The BRU’s 12 years of organizing,
significant policy and legal victories, and analytical and theoretical expertise can be used as a resource for the urgent work of mass transit reconstruction in U.S.
. We
must aim to: reduce suburban sprawl; promote ecological and environmental public health;
create non-racist public policy; and focus on the transportation needs of society’s most
oppressed and exploited. The needs of the working class and communities of color are both an
end in themselves and an essential building block of any effective organizing plan. The transiturban communities. The needs and the leadership capacity of the urban working class of color must play a central role in developing sustainable communities
dependent are defined as those who depend on public transportation for their mobility and personal viability because of
income (unable to afford the purchase or maintenance of a car), age (too young or too old to drive), or disability. It is the
lowwage workers, the people of color, the elderly, the high school students, and the disabled who must be at the center of
any viable transit strategy. The deterioration of urban public transportation is racially coded and must
be addressed with an explicitly anti-racist perspective. In every major urban area in the United
States, the low-wage workforce is at the center of the region’s political economy—the domestic,
department store, convenience store, electronic assembly, garment, hotel, and restaurant
workers, the security guards, and the street vendors. These workers often have children, rent
apartments rather than own homes, use public transportation, and have family incomes of
$15,000 to $20,000 a year. Everything they do—transporting children to and from schools and
childcare facilities; going to work; looking for work; attending community colleges; even
enjoying modest forms of recreation— depends upon a viable public transportation system. Public
Health vs. Culture of the Automobile Any serious movement that prioritizes public health over corporate profit, especially with regard to toxins and air pollution, must
draw some very radical political and policy conclusions. As Barry Commoner, the noted environmental scientist, observed, the only effective way to radically reduce
airborne toxins is to ban them before they are produced. With regard to the internal combustion engine and the auto industry, it would be best if there were the most
stringent restrictions on auto emissions, combined with some radical restrictions on auto use. The problem is that there can be no effective mass movement to
drastically reduce fossil fuel and automobile usage until there is a well-developed public transportation system. This brings us up against the legendary
automobile/highway lobby, and something else: the deeply ingrained culture of the automobile, which cuts across every social and economic class in this society, not
just the white, middle-class suburbanites. Unfortunately, the car culture has won the hearts and minds of many low-income people, including Blacks and Latinos.
Given the centuries of housing segregation and discrimination, it is not surprising that a fancy car has become one of the few attainable symbols of status and
upward mobility in communities of color. This cultural attachment can only be challenged if the public transportation system can at least meet the people’s transit
needs as efficiently as the car. Public Health vs. Corporate Science If organizers are indeed successful in using public health arguments to challenge the cultural
obsession with the automobile, we will still be faced with overcoming the corporate counter-attack on public health science. In the debate about air toxins, corporate
‘scientists’ have shown themselves to be masters of the art of obfuscation and sometimes, outright lying. It is generally agreed that most criteria pollutants and air
toxins take years, or even decades, to generate cancers and other diseases. But that is all the more reason to restrict their production in the present. However,
organizers from impacted communities have found that approaching government regulatory agencies, such as the Air Quality Management District of Southern
California (AQMD), and talking to them in common-sense public health terms— “your chemicals are killing me,” or “my daughter cannot breathe from the asthma,” or
“if you know a chemical is carcinogenic, why do you produce it in the first place?”—gets them nowhere. The offending industries characteristically respond with a
battery of scientists and lawyers arguing for multi-causality, meaning that the cancer or leukemia could have been caused by the chemical plant in question, or an oil
refinery down the road, or any of the many known carcinogens in our air and water. They may have debates about actual exposure levels (“We acknowledge emitting
known carcinogens into the air but we cannot be sure that your daughter was directly exposed to those emissions”) and dosage levels—reflected in parts per million
and even cancers per million! They may acknowledge the link between benzene and leukemia, but will deny that the benzene emissions from their cars is sufficient to
cause leukemia, just as cigarette companies argued that their products are neither addictive nor deadly. To spend a day dealing with the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) or the AQMD, or any other similar agency, is to feel a sense of futility and exhaustion. It is as if the people are on trial and have to carry the burden of
proof even as the system asserts that known polluters and carcinogens are innocent until proven guilty. Over the years, however, we have found that public health
education is a powerful organizing tool. Low-income residents come to enjoy the science as much as anyone else, and they enjoy challenging corporate science.
They understand that a social movement, while rooted in passion and direct experience, can be greatly strengthened by a little knowledge of anatomy, physiology,
toxicology, and epidemiology. The victory of the Bus Riders Union in forcing the MTA to abide by its clean-fuel standards and drop its plans to purchase diesel buses
is a positive example of grassroots science defeating corporate science in the arena of public policy and public debate. Transportation Justice Demands A
comprehensive list of demands for a renewed transportation justice movement will be long, but following the successful Future of Transportation organizing
conference in Los Angeles this year, we currently see the following as central to any serious movement. Low-priced public transportation— 24/7 A common complaint
across the country is that urban and rural bus systems are coming undone at the seams but the government continues to fund the insatiable highway lobby (80% of
all federal funds) and boondoggle rail projects. At $200 million per mile for ‘light rail’ and $350 million per mile for subways—in construction costs alone—these
projects generate constant budget deficits. This in turn leads to massive fare increases and service cuts in urban and rural bus systems all over the United States and
Canada, forcing low-income people to fall back on unreliable, gas-guzzling, often uninsured cars. What is needed instead is aptly expressed by the chant: “We need
a 50-cent fare/and $20 passes/mass transportation/ belongs to the masses.”
------------------------------------------------------ CONTINUED BELOW----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
Observation Four: Solvency
------------------------------------------------------ CONTINUED FROM ABOVE -----------------------------------------------------------
A clean fuel, bus-centered mass transit system As a model, the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union plan proposes the deployment of 600 buses and 50 community
jitneys, covering hundreds of miles and hundreds of thousands of riders, for a $1.5 billion price tag, which includes capital and operating costs. This plan is in sharp
contrast to the typical ‘light rail’, which covers six to eight miles and serves no more than 15,000 riders for the same price. The efforts of the rail lobbyists to
characterize the Riders Union and other civil rights groups as “narrow and protest-based” (read Black, Latino, Asian, female, and low-income, as opposed to the
white, suburban, privileged, car-riding constituencies who supposedly embody the “broader” view) can easily be repudiated. Plus, a growing number of transit
planners are coming around to accepting the idea that replacing automobiles on the existing highways and surface streets with a clean fuel, bus-centered, rapid
transit system, is the way to go. Paying attention to dirty-atsource clean fuels As Clayton Thomas-Muller from the Indigenous Environmental Network has pointed out,
many clean fuels, such as compressed natural gas and hydrogen, are very dirty at the source. There are growing violations of Indigenous peoples’ sovereignty and
impacts on public health from coal mining, oil exploration, the extraction of natural gas, and other ‘dirty-atsource’ energy schemes. We need less energy altogether
and a focus on truly renewable energy sources. We need to place public health and the survival of Third World nations at the center of our U.S. environmental
organizing work. The U.S., with just six percent of the world’s population, consumes and abuses 25 percent of the world’s resources. We need a radical restriction of
this toxic lifestyle, beginning with a major challenge to the auto industry. As nations around the world face devastating extreme weather events, we have to take this
message to the Black, Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Indigenous communities, as well as the white middle-class and workingclass communities: the future of the
Mass Transit: The Heart of the New Revolution Transportation is a great multifaceted issue
around which to build a movement, because it touches so many aspects of people’s lives.
Transportation affects public health, access to jobs, childcare, housing, medical care, education,
and more. It is inextricably tied to the history of the civil rights movement now and in the past.
Now it has taken on a life and death urgency because of the public health crisis and global
warming brought on by the automobile. Public transportation can be a great unifier—bringing
together people of all races and classes who seek a saner, healthier world in which wars for oil
and energy are exposed and opposed.
planet is at stake.
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Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
EXT: Inherency
Metro areas are increasing in population and economic importance, but mass transit not up to
the task
BAF, 2011 Transportation Infrastructure Report 2011 Building America’s Future Falling Apart and Falling
Behind Building America’s Future Educational Fund Building America’s Future Educational Fund (BAF Ed
Fund) is a bipartisan coalition of elected officials dedicated to bringing about a new era of U.S. investment in
infrastructure www.bafuture.com
And it’s not just business that has changed faster than our infrastructure. America’s transportation network is not set up to
accommodate the needs of our 21st-century lives. Passenger travel is expected to rise as the economy
recovers and our population grows, with total vehicle-miles traveled likely to increase by 80% in
the next 30 years.11 An additional one billion commercial air passengers are expected to fly each year by 2015, a 36%
increase from 2006.12 The vast majority of this increased traffic will occur in the urban centers and surrounding suburbs
where the U.S. population—and its economic activity—is overwhelmingly concentrated. The 100 largest U.S.
metropolitan regions house almost two-thirds of the population and generate nearly threequarters of our GDP. In 47 states—even those traditionally considered ‘rural,’ like Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa—the
majority of GDP is generated in metropolitan areas.13 And over the next 20 years, 94% of the nation’s economic growth will
occur in metropolitan areas.14 Metropolitan areas are already home to the most congested highways,
the oldest roads and bridges, and the most overburdened transit systems—and the strains on
the transportation system are only bound to get worse. By 2035, an estimated 70 million more
people will live in U.S. metropolitan regions. More people bring more commerce and greater
transportation demands. Every American accounts for about 40 tons of freight to be hauled each year—so an
additional 2.8 billion tons of freight will be moved to and from major metropolitan regions in 2035.15 Our transportation
system is simply not up to the task. Our transportation system has also not adapted to the
energy realities of the 21st century. Air pollution and carbon emissions—the majority of which in
the United States are generated by transportation—threaten the environment. Reliance on
foreign oil has imperiled our national security. And fluctuating gas prices are making Americans’
car-dependent lifestyles simply unaffordable. We are increasingly aware that for all these reasons a transportation system largely run on gasoline is environmentally and economically unsustainable. In a global economy,
businesses need access to manufacturing plants and distribution centers, to international gateways like ports and airports,
and to consumers in both metropolitan and rural regions. People need reliable and efficient ways to commute
to work and go about their daily lives. We need a modern infrastructure system if we are to meet
both needs. And if we don’t create a transportation system that functions reliably and costeffectively in the 21st century, companies operating in this globalized world can simply choose
to do their business elsewhere—taking U.S. jobs and revenues with them.
Federal mass transit spending decreasing – the House just gutted mass transit funding
Building America’s Future, 12 – a bipartisan coalition ofelected officials dedicated to bringing about a
new era of U.S. investment in infrastructurethat enhances our nation’s prosperity and quality of life (“BAF
Strongly Opposes House Effort to Slash Mass Transit Funding,” 2/3, http://www.bafuture.org/news/pressrelease/baf-strongly-opposes-house-effort-slash-mass-transit-funding)
The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee overturned 30 years of bipartisan policy today by
removing the certainty of funding for our public transit systems. This change will make it
impossible for transit systems to plan for the future and serve their ever growing
constituencies. In response, Building America’s Future co-chairs Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I-NYC) and former
Governor Ed Rendell (D-PA) issued the following: Mayor Bloomberg: "The bill passed by the House Ways and Means
Committee today illustrates once again how dysfunctional Congress has become. By removing the gas tax as the
method of funding mass transit, House leadership is threatening the future of a program, in place since
the Reagan administration that is actually working well. The lifeblood of New York City is our buses, subways and commuter
rails. Eight million people take mass transit every day in New York which helps to cut traffic, reduce pollution, spur our
economy and improve public health. The bill passed today ignores the needs of cities across the country
by relegating transit to an "alternative" transportation with an uncertain funding stream. Our
country is being left behind as the world races ahead with 21st century infrastructure investments, this bill would take us
even further from our competitors.”Former Governor Rendell: “Transit has had a vital role to play in our nation’s
transportation system. At a time when our roads are choking under growing traffic congestion, it makes no sense to take
away a dedicated source of funding and force public transportation to compete against education and other important
programs for increasingly scarce dollars. A transportation bill without transit is no transportation bill at all. The nation’s
millions of transit riders deserve better than this.”
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Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
EXT: Inherency
Federal government spending is misguided, hasn’t kept up with changes and privileges
highways over urban mass transit
BAF, 2011 Transportation Infrastructure Report 2011 Building America’s Future Falling Apart and Falling
Behind Building America’s Future Educational Fund Building America’s Future Educational Fund (BAF Ed
Fund) is a bipartisan coalition of elected officials dedicated to bringing about a new era of U.S. investment in
infrastructure www.bafuture.com
Government transportation spending, at all levels of government, is overwhelmingly directed
toward roads. Since 1956, the largest portion of public funding for transpor¬tation infrastructure
was dedicated to building and maintaining highways.1 Although a small portion (15%) of the federal gas tax
is dedicated to a fund for mass transit, the vast majority of federal gas tax revenue is spent on highways. The same is true
for state gas taxes: 30 states are actually constitutionally or statutorily required to spend 100% of their gas tax revenues on
roads. The disproportionate channeling of transportation dollars toward highways has
encouraged more and more construction of roads, even as the demand rises for other forms of
transportation.
Status quo focused on highways
BAF, 2011 Transportation Infrastructure Report 2011 Building America’s Future Falling Apart and Falling
Behind Building America’s Future Educational Fund Building America’s Future Educational Fund (BAF Ed
Fund) is a bipartisan coalition of elected officials dedicated to bringing about a new era of U.S. investment in
infrastructure www.bafuture.com
In contrast to its highway funding programs, USDOT encourages greater state contribu¬tions to transit projects. Since the
majority of states are constitutionally or statutorily prohibited from using state gas taxes for public transit projects, USDOT’s
funding requirements are a tough imposition on states. Unwilling or unable to match federal contributions
with general revenue funds, states may be more inclined to seek funding for more road projects
than for new transit projects. The problem is that we cannot build enough roads to meet our growing transportation
needs. We’ve built enough new roads between 1988 and 2008—an additional 131,723 miles of
roads—to circle the globe more than five times.3 But despite all of the resources expended on
new highways, we haven’t fixed the roads and bridges that are falling apart, and we haven’t
solved our congestion problems.
Merely expanding our already extensive highway system is not a plan for the future. We need a
new national vision for building and maintaining an efficient transportation that meets the needs
of a 21st-century economy.
Current transportation spending is heavily tilted towards highways
Milkowsky 2011(Brina Milikowsky, researcher, Building America’s Future Educational Fund,
BUILDING AMERICA’S FUTURE: FALLING APART AND FALLING BEHIND, Transportation
Infrastructure Report 2011, p. 16.)
Government transportation spending, at all levels of government, is overwhelmingly directed toward roads. Since 1956, the
largest portion of public funding for transportation infrastructure was dedicated to building and maintaining highways.1
Although a small portion (15%) of the federal gas tax is dedicated to a fund for mass transit, the vast majority
of federal gas tax revenue is spent on highways. The same is true for state gas taxes: 30 states are actually
constitutionally or statutorily required to spend 100% of their gas tax revenues on roads. The disproportionate
channeling of transportation dollars toward highways has encouraged more and more construction of roads,
even as the demand rises for other forms of transportation.
Funding low now for mass trans – all the funding is going to highways
Milkowsky 2011(Brina Milikowsky, researcher, Building America’s Future Educational Fund,
BUILDING AMERICA’S FUTURE: FALLING APART AND FALLING BEHIND, Transportation
Infrastructure Report 2011, p. 16.)
Meanwhile, underinvestment in airports, in commuter and freight rail, and in ports costs us jobs, economic growth, and
access to overseas markets. Compared to the significant sums dedicated to roads, government
spending on other modes of transportation is relatively meager. The U.S. Department of Transportation
(USDOT) spends about $10.2 billion a year on public transit, or less than a quarter of what it
spends on highways.
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Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
**Harms Extensions**
Racism
Transit policy reflects deeply ingrained racism—it is fundament to the symbolic and practical
manifestation of racism in the U.S.
Environmental Justice Resource Center, “Suburban Sprawl and Transportation Racism,” The Black
Commentator, September 23rd, 2004 (http://www.blackcommentator.com/106/106_transportation_racism.html)
In the United States, all communities do not receive the same benefits from transportation advancements
and investments. "Suburban sprawl is in part driven by race and class dynamics. Transportation spending
has always been about opportunity, fairness, and equity," according to Clark Atlanta University professor Robert D. Bullard.
The modern civil rights movement has its roots in transportation. For more than a century, African
Americans and other people of color have struggled to dismantle transportation apartheid policies that use
tax dollars to promote economic isolation and social exclusion. The decision to build highways,
expressways, and beltways has far-reaching effects on land use, energy policy, and the environment.
Similarly, the decisions by county commissioners to limit and even exclude public transit to job-rich
suburban economic activity centers have serious mobility implications for central city residents. Writing in the
Foreword to Dr. Bullard’s and Angel O. Torres’s book, Highway Robbery: Transportation Racism & New Highways to Equity, Congressman
John Lewis (D-GA) states, "Our struggle is not over. Today those physical signs are gone, but the legacy of "Jim
Crow" transportation is still with us. Even in a city like Atlanta, Georgia, a vibrant city with a modern rail and
public transit system, thousands of people have been left out and left behind because of discrimination.
Like most other major cities, Atlanta’s urban center is worlds apart from its suburbs." The cash-strapped
Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) is the nation’s ninth largest transit system and the only major transit system that does
not receive any regional or state funding. By comparison, the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (Boston) gets 20 percent of the state’s
sales tax, or about $680 million dollars a year. Clearly, MARTA is regional only in name – covering only Fulton and DeKalb Counties and the
City of Atlanta. From its inception in the 1960s, race blocked MARTA from becoming a five-county regional system. For many suburban
whites, MARTA stood for "Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta." Several suburban Atlanta counties have set up their own "separate and
unequal" bus systems, some with the assistance of the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority or GRTA, that are marginally linked to
MARTA. Follow the transportation dollars and one can tell who is important and who is not. Between fiscal
year 1992 and 1999, states had more than $33.8 billion in federal funds available to spend on either
highways or public transit, but spent only 12.5% of that sum on transit. Georgia and twenty-nine other states restrict the
use of the gasoline tax revenue for funding highway programs only. Because Atlanta-area jobs have moved to suburbs, where public transit is
minimal, they are virtually inaccessible to non-drivers. Thirty-nine percent of all black households in Atlanta do not have access to cars, and in
2000, only 34% of the region's jobs were within a one-hour public transit ride of low- income urban neighborhoods. The current federal
funding scheme continues to be biased against metropolitan areas. Generally, states spend less than 20 percent of
federal transportation funding on transit. Public transit has received roughly $50 billion since the creation of the Urban Mass Transit
Administration over thirty years ago while roadway projects have received over $205 billion since 1956. From 1998-2003, TEA-21
transportation spending amounted to $217 billion. This was the "largest public works bill enacted in the nation’s history." Although local
governments within metropolitan areas own and maintain the vast majority of the transportation
infrastructure, they receive only about 10 percent of every dollar they generate.
Lack of mass transit prevents people of color from escaping in times of disaster.
Center for Social Inclusion 2006. (“Racism and Racial Discrimination in the U.S.: Federal
Disinvestment in Opportunity for Marginalized Communities”. The Center for Social Inclusion is a
national policy strategy organization that works to dismantle structural racial inequity and increase
well-being for all. http://www.assetfunders.org/library/documents/CSIonUSandCERD.pdf)
Poor people of color are more vulnerable to disasters than even poor Whites, because they are more likely to live in
concentrated poverty neighborhoods and rely much more on public transportation. Because they are less likely to have
insurance and access to credit, poor people of color also have a harder time rebuilding their lives after a disaster. In
New Orleans, a history of racial exclusion led to the isolation of poor Blacks in the floodprone Lower 9 th Ward of New
Orleans. Historically, the Lower 9th was undesirable land – a swamp – where poor freed Blacks and immigrant laborers from Ireland, Germany and Italy, unable to afford housing
in other, higher, areas of the city, were forced to endure rampant flooding and disease.23 Over time, suburbanization policies and racial preferences helped Europeans to move,
while redlining and other forms of racial segregation kept African Americans stuck in the Lower 9th Ward. Prior to the broken levees, the Lower 9th Ward was almost exclusively
Black and 36% of its residents were poor.24 Systematic disinvestment in federal disaster management poses risks to many Americans, especially as climate change increases the
. But given that many poor people of color are
trapped in concentrated poverty neighborhoods, they are at greater risk of damage, injury, and death and less able to
rebuild their lives after a disaster. These areas tend to be more geographically vulnerable, and residents often have less
access to cars and other means of escape. The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been and
continues to be under-resourced to meet the needs of its citizens in times of disaster, often with devastating
consequences for marginalized communities. Two years prior to Katrina, in 2003, FEMA became part of the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The Government Accountability Office documented a decline in funding for
all-hazards programs within DHS, and predicted a further decrease of more than $200 million from 2005 to 2006. 25
risk of hurricanes along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, and tornadoes and other severe weather inland
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Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
Residential Segregation
Underinvestment in transit entrenches residential segregation, inefficient land use
Thomas W. Sanchez, Associate Professor, Urban Affairs and Planning, Virginia Tech, Rich Stolz, and Jacinta S. Ma, MOVING TO EQUITY: ADDRESSING INEQUITABLE
EFFECTS OF TRANSPORTATION POLICIES ON MINORITIES, Center for Community Change and The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University, 20 03, p. 17.
One of the central indirect effects is the reinforcement of residential segregation. The form that we currently think of as “the
city” is a product of both land use and transportation investment decisions. Highway investments in combination with federal
housing and lending policies leading to post–World War II suburbanization played a significant role in “white flight” from
central cities to suburbs, which had a profound impact in defining urban form and racial segregation patterns.96 Highway
investment encourages the development of suburbs located increasingly farther away from central cities and has played an
important role in fostering residential segregation patterns and income inequalities.97 Inequitable or inefficient land use
patterns such as those resulting in residential segregation often are reinforced by policies, such as transportation
investment decisions, that were established several decades ago. As many researchers have documented, residential
segregation greatly influences minorities’ access to housing, education, and economic opportunities. More research,
however, needs to be performed examining the relationship between transportation policies and residential segregation and
how it should be addressed.
Current transit policy spurs housing segregation—limits economic, educational opportunities
Leadership Conference Education Fund, GETTING HOME: TRANSPORTATION EQUITY AND ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE HOUSING, 7—11, p. 3.
In spite of fair housing laws and decades of efforts toward integration, many Americans live in communities that are
segregated by race and income.7 While segregation has multiple causes and serious effects for low-income people and
people of color, it is clear that transportation policy has played a key role in developing our segregated landscape.
Segregation and lack of affordable housing result from several government actions and the private decisions that they
motivate. Investments in highways and corridors out of urban cores have encouraged sprawl. They have not been the only
drivers: Several federal housing policies and private sector practices, such as redlining by banks and insurance companies
and racial steering by the real estate industry, have also enabled sprawl and explicitly excluded people of color.8 White
flight reinforced the preference for suburban and exurban building. Relatively cheap land and limited regulation of land use
made building on the periphery a sensible choice for developers—and gave home buyers seemingly high value for their
investment. And local financing of services and schools cemented the middleclass preference for leaving urban cores:
schools in white, middle-class suburbs are financed by property taxes and bond issues from within their jurisdictions.
Schools in poorer jurisdictions are penalized by the low tax base that their jurisdictions can generate. As a result, the choice
of which home to purchase is more than a housing choice: it is also a choice of schools—a choice that drives many middleclass families’ decisions.9 In short, the real cost of segregation goes beyond living conditions and access to job opportunity.
It also interferes with access to education and drives up nonhousing costs for the people whom it affects. Segregated
communities result from several policy choices and the private decisions they incentivized. To achieve integrated, affordable
communities, strategies are needed that address the multiple causes and effects of our policy choices to date.
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Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
Economic Opportunity
Transit is key to employment equity—many persons lack access to transportation to
employment opportunities
Leadership Conference Education Fund, GETTING TO WORK: TRANSPORTATION POLICY AND ACCESS TO JOB OPPORTUNITIES, 7—11, p. 1.
Equal access to employment opportunity is a cornerstone of civil rights law and policy. Federal statutes such as Title VII of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are designed to level the playing field by combating discriminatory practices by employers.
However, employers are not the only decision makers who affect equal access to opportunity. For decades, metropolitan
areas have been expanding outward, and jobs have been moving farther away from the low-income and minority people
who disproportionately remain in urban cores. For many of these people, inadequate or unaffordable transportation is a
significant barrier to employment. As jobs move to auto-dependent suburbs, those without access to cars—including lowincome workers and people with disabilities—lose out on employment opportunities. Many workers without access to a car
spend hours on multiple buses traveling to remote work places; some are unable to get to these jobs at all. Low-income
people who do have access to cars spend a large percentage of their household resources on transportation at the expense
of other necessities. Congress is now considering the surface transportation reauthorization bill, which will allocate funds for
highways, rail, bus, and other modes of transportation across this country. The projects that it funds will not only affect
Americans’ access to existing jobs, they will generate hundreds of thousands of new jobs. For these reasons, the
transportation bill will have a significant impact on employment opportunity. Congress must address the issue of equal
access to job opportunity as it considers the surface transportation reauthorization bill. This authorization process presents
civil and human rights advocates with an opportunity to engage members of Congress, educate stakeholders, and elevate
the visibility of social justice concerns in transportation policy.
Transportation equity is vital to economic opportunity
Leadership Conference Education Fund, WHERE WE NEED TO GO: A CIVIL RIGHTS ROADMAP FOR TRANSPORTATION EQUITY, 3—11, p. 2.
Our civil rights laws bar employers, federal, state, and local governments, and public accommodations from discriminating in
access to health care, employment opportunities, housing, education, and voting. Although our laws promise to open doors
to opportunity, this is a hollow promise for people who are physically isolated from jobs, schools, stores that sell healthy
food, and health care providers. As our metropolitan areas have expanded and jobs and services have become more
diffuse, equal opportunity depends upon equal access to affordable transportation. Transportation investment to date has
produced an inhospitable landscape for low-income people, people with disabilities, seniors, and many people in rural
areas. People of color are disproportionately disadvantaged by the current state of transportation. The cost of car
ownership, underinvestment in public transportation, and a paucity of pedestrian and bicycle-accessible thoroughfares have
isolated urban and low-income people from jobs and services. Because many people with disabilities do not have the option
to drive cars, lack of access to other modes of transportation disproportionately harms them. Similarly, seniors and people in
rural areas often have limited transportation choices. This is the civil rights dilemma: Our laws purport to level the playing
field, but our transportation choices have effectively barred millions of people from accessing it. Traditional
nondiscrimination protections cannot protect people for whom opportunities are literally out of reach.
The current transportation system creates special divides – prevents residents of color from
getting good jobs.
Themba-Nixon et al -- 2001.(Makani Themba-Nixon, Julie Quiroz-Martinez, Vernellia R. Randall, and
Gavin Kearney work for Transnational Racial Justice Initiative (TRJI), a program of the Applied
Research Center in partnership with the Committee Against Anti Asian Violence (CAAAV), CAUSA
and the Center for Third World Organizing.. “The Persistence of White Privilege and Institutional
Racism in US Policy”. 2001. PDF)
Across the US, there is a migration of job opportunities from the central cities to the periphery of metropolitan areas.
This is partly in response to demographic shifts discussed earlier and also due to the ability of exclusive suburban
municipalities to offer tax incentives to business and industry. 109 A recent report by a Minnesota state agency found that
approximately three-fourths of all job opportunities in the Twin Cities are located outside of the central cities where
affordable housing is often scarce, while the majority of people of color live in the central cities.110 This is consistent
with national trends. In the five-year span between 1993 and 1998, 14 million jobs were created in the US, but only 13
percent of these jobs were located in central cities.111 Similarly, by 1993, 60 percent of all offices in the US were
located in suburban municipalities as compared to only 25 percent in 1970.112 The effect of this spatial divide between
residents of color and employment opportunities is exacerbated by inadequate, often discriminatory, metropolitan
transportation systems in the Twin Cities and around the country.
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Ryan Zelmer
Economic Opportunity
Current transportation policies exclude marginalized communities from good opportunity –
creates isolation.
Center for Social Inclusion 2006. (“Racism and Racial Discrimination in the U.S.: Federal
Disinvestment in Opportunity for Marginalized Communities”. The Center for Social Inclusion is a
national policy strategy organization that works to dismantle structural racial inequity and increase
well-being for all. http://www.assetfunders.org/library/documents/CSIonUSandCERD.pdf)
In all of the public spheres listed in Article 1, U.S. policies create conditions that disproportionately exclude
marginalized communities and groups from enjoying fundamental freedoms and opportunities, such as good jobs and
good schools. Some policies may be facially race-neutral but perpetuate the historic racial exclusion that is embedded in
our institutions. Present-day federal transportation, housing, education and fiscal policies perpetuate the racial exclusion
that was built into federal policies from the 1930s through 50s – policies that created middle-class White suburbs and
poor, non-White inner-city neighborhoods. While the incomes and racial identities of cities and suburbs have been
changing, people of color continue to be deeply isolated from opportunities. Poor people of color are much more likely
than poor Whites to live in concentrated poverty neighborhoods that lack opportunities, like good jobs, good schools,
and quality services. Concentrated poverty neighborhoods are neighborhoods where at least 20% (rural) or 40% (urban)
of the population lives at or below the federal poverty level. 3More than two-thirds of people living in concentrated
urban poverty are Black or Latino, even though they are one-fourth of the US population.4 In rural America, half of
poor rural Blacks and Native Americans live in concentrated poverty and 27% of all poor rural Latinos live in areas of
high poverty.5 Gulf Coast states have high rates of concentrated poverty compared to the rest of the country (26% in
Alabama, 41% in Louisiana, and 41% in Mississippi).6 More than 1 out of every 10 neighborhoods in New York City
is a concentrated poverty neighborhood (248 total, or 11.2% of all neighborhoods) and these neighborhoods are
predominately people of color (87.5% of these neighborhoods are over 80% non-White). Of the 923,113 people living
in concentrated poverty in New York, 37.1% are Black and 49.7% Latino, compared to 8.4% White. 7 (See Appendix A
for a map of concentrated poverty in neighborhoods of color in New York City). o Very poor neighborhoods of color
have far less to no jobs in their neighborhoods compared to other areas of the City. (See Appendix B for a map showing
the relationship between concentrated poverty, neighborhoods of color, and location of jobs).
Urban residents’ inaccessibility to jobs leads to low unemployment rates.
Kling et al., 2006. (Jeffrey R. Kling is a senior fellow/deputy director at the Brookings Institution
and the National Bureau of Economic Research. Kristin Turney has a Ph.D. from the University of
Pennsylvania. Susan Clampet-Lundquist is an assistant professor at the Department of Sociology at
the St. Joseph’s University. Kathryn Edin is a professor of public policy and management at Harvard
University. Greg J. Duncan is a distinguished professor at the Department of Education at the
University of California. 2006, “Neighborhood Effects on Barriers to Employment: Results from a
Randomized Housing Mobility Experiment in Baltimore”, Project Muse
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/brookings-wharton_papers_on_urban_affairs/v2006/2006.1turney.html).
Another structural explanation for labor market disparities between inner-city and suburban job seekers is Kain's (1968)
spatial mismatch hypothesis, which argues that the spatial location of jobs vis-à-vis inner-city workers may account for
their low employment rates. According to this line of reasoning, the suburbanization of jobs, when combined with
increasing residential segregation by class, has exacerbated the employment problems of the urban poor. Similarly,
Wilson (1987 and 1996) argues that the decline of manufacturing jobs has left inner-city neighborhoods bereft of
employers, while the rise of service sector employment has occurred mainly in the suburbs. Thus [End Page 141] many
urban residents have the education or experience to fill these jobs but not the means to get to them. Research has shown
that urban residents also suffer from a lack of information about suburban job openings and experience greater levels of
hiring discrimination in the suburbs than in the city.
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Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
Civil Rights
Access to affordable transit options is vital to the civil rights of millions of people
Leadership Conference Education Fund, WHERE WE NEED TO GO: A CIVIL RIGHTS ROADMAP FOR TRANSPORTATION EQUITY, 3—11, p. 8.
The absence of affordable, accessible transportation options threatens the civil rights of millions of Americans. Past
investment has disproportionately benefitted people in outlying areas, leaving many jobs out of reach for lowincome
Americans, and forcing others to exhaust their budgets on transportation at the expense of other needs such as health care,
housing, food, and education. Our transportation policy has also undermined the Americans with Disabilities Act’s promise
of equal opportunity in transportation for people with disabilities, resulting in isolation from jobs, housing, health care, and
education. Constituencies that are directly harmed by inequitable transportation policy have a stake in federal transportation
policy decisions. Future transportation policy must promote accessible and equitable transit options, shift funds to
communities that have been overlooked, end the cycle of sprawl that perpetuates poverty and inequality, ensure that job
creation benefits all communities equally, promote affordable housing, and protect the civil rights of all.
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Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
Violence
And this lack of transportation in not a mere inconvenience – to individuals like those with
disabilities is causes real everyday violence that locks them in their homes
Golledge et al 1996 (Reginald G. Golledge, PhD in geography and works at University of California,
C. Michael Costanzo, and James R. Marston, also professors at University of California. “The Mass
Transit Needs of a Non-Driving Disabled Population”. This work was performed as part of the
California PATH Program of the University of California, in cooperation with the State of California
Business, Transportation, and Housing Agency, Department of Transportation; and the United States
Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration.)
The 1992 World Almanac recently revealed that approximately sixty-seven percent of the United States population are
drivers. There is no doubt that the ability to drive and the freedom that it gives with respect to economic
and social interactions are seen as a tremendously important parts of the American way of life. Nondriving disabled people are not able to enjoy this facet of everyday existence. They must face a range of
problems starting with the frustrations of trying to arrange transportation, to battling the beliefs that they are imposing
on people's time, to resigning themselves to missed appointments or interactions when arranged transportation does not
arrive in time or at all, to being unaware if they are standing at a bus stop as to whether a bus has already departed or is
still on its way, to facing a host of problems concerned with being able to get to sites of recreation, shopping, work, or
social interaction, in a convenient and nondependent or non-threatening way. Certainly, having a driver's license gives
one the sense that one is in control of the decision process concerning where one can go, when one can go, and how one
can get there. It is, in fact, an extraordinarily integral part of time budgeting in all daily and longer term episodic
patterns in the USA. While congenitally blind non-drivers can never be truly aware of the potential freedoms that they
could have if they were drivers, those adventitiously blinded (i.e., blinded in life after having had vision for some time),
are deeply and disturbingly aware of the sudden contraction of their activity spaces and the entire range of their social
interactions. The question that arises is, how do they compensate for this loss? For some, family, relatives, friends, or
work-mates fill the gap to a reasonable and acceptable extent. Others seek to minimize a felt dependence on others (i.e.,
in the form of constantly asking for help). Some turn to mass transportation alternatives to solve their travel
problems, but this number is far short of what it could be. Others simply turn off and stay at home for they
do not feel strong enough or confident enough to become dependent on others or to learn how to use
mass transportation systems not designed for them. Thus, it is patently obvious that undertaking research on
people's feelings and attitudes towards the problem of movement, and uncovering the frustrations and dependencies that
are part and parcel of everyday life for the disabled non-driver, should provide us with clear insights into what is
missing from the current state of the art in terms of provision of transportation services for this population. It is
necessary to know if these frustrations and dependencies can be reduced by a more effective use of existing mass
transportation systems, or whether only new modes of movement can deal with this problem. Solving this question
becomes paramount in the attempt to try to define how it is possible to preserve autonomy and dignity in
non-driving disabled populations and to help them avoid social isolation. Over four hundred cities nationwide
provide mass transportation or specialized transportation that is supposed to be accessible to disabled people. Not all
deal with questions of physical or other impairments in a similar way (i.e., user habits learned for one system do not
necessarily transfer to systems in other environments. The way that each population has to deal with existing mass
transportation systems has a significant impact on the way they are able to operate and live their life on a daily basis. A
study by Kirschner, McBrue, Nelson, and Graves (1992) found that forty-nine percent of their legally blind subject
populations who traveled independently to work used mass transportation; only six percent of a comparable sighted
population used mass transportation. None of the legally blind subjects walked to work on a regular basis compared to
six percent of the sighted subjects who walked to work. Gaining control over one's transportation needs is one
way of removing a felt transportation disability. Driving epitomizes independence. For disabled non-driving
people, something has to replace or to substitute for this feeling of dependence and one must estimate the
extent to which it might be possible for a mass transportation device to perform this substitution. We do, therefore,
anticipate obtaining information from blind and vision-impaired people as to the nature of mass transit and para-transit
facilities that could act as primary modes of travel. We propose to determine the degree to which existing offerings can
compensate for the non-driver disadvantages felt by this population. And we expect to do ensuing investigation of the
form in which information can be transmitted to potential users so as to help increase their use of mass transportation
systems.
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Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
Violence
Cars are steel death traps begging to turn you to roadkill – an increase in public transit is key
to save tens of thousands of lives
Yglesias 2009 (June 23, Matthew, “ Car Fatalities in America ”
http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2009/06/23/193430/car-fatalities-in-america/)
One story you’re not going to see leading tomorrow’s newspaper is “97 dead in fatal car
accidents.” And yet in 2007, this country saw 37,284 people die in car wrecks. That averages out to 97
per day—much more than the seven people whose death in yesterday’s Metro crash has acquired
so much coverage today. Obviously in part that’s because driving is much more popular than transit. Still, according to
the Census Bureau 87.7 percent of people get to work either by driving alone or in car pools, while
4.7 percent take transit. That’s about 18 times more driving than transit usage. By contrast, 14 times more
people die in car wrecks on an average day than died on the rare day that anyone died in a train crash. On a typical
day, of course, the United States has zero train-related fatalities.
Long story short, investments in mass transit would have substantial public health benefits. And,
indeed, since car wrecks disproportionately affect teenagers and young adults the impact in
QALYs of even moderate reductions in automobile usage would be enormous . The good news about
this, however, is that the death rate per 100 million VMT has been declining in recent years:
Vehicle pollution also kills a lot of people – transit solves
Litman 2003 – Victoria Transport Policy Institute (September/October, Todd, “Integrating Public Health Objectives in Transportation Decision-Making”
http://www.vtpi.org/AJHP-litman.pdf )
Vehicle Pollution Vehicle pollution is a second category of transport-related health impacts. Motor
vehicles produce a variety of air
pollutants, including carbon monoxide, particulates, toxins, and ozone precursors, which
contribute to a variety of diseases, including cancer, respiratory diseases, and heart failure . The
total health impacts of motor vehicle pollution are difficult to calculate since there are so many different pollutants causing a variety of diseases, and most pollutants
number of premature deaths from motor vehicle pollution appears
to be similar in magnitude to the number of deaths resulting from traffic crashes, 6,7 although the exact
have other sources besides motor vehicles. The
amount is difficult to determine (see Table 11.7-3B in McCubbin and Delucchi 7 ). As stated earlier, such deaths tend to involve older people compared with those
It is common to hear claims that vehicle emissions
have declined 90% or more as the result of vehicle emission control technologies such as electronic ignition and catalysts, but this is an
exaggeration. Such declines only apply to certain tailpipe emissions measured by standard
tests. Tests do not reflect real driving conditions (they underestimate out-of-tune engines and hard accelerations), and
vehicles produce additional harmful emissions not measured in these tests, such as toxics and
particulates from road dust, tires, and break linings. 8 Increased vehicle mileage has offset much
of the reduction in per-mile emissions. Automobile emissions continue to be a major pollution
source, and reductions in vehicle traffic can provide measurable respiratory health benefits. 9
killed in traffic crashes, and therefore cause smaller reductions in Y PLL .
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Ryan Zelmer
Violence
Traffic crashes kill a lot of people – mobility management solves
Litman 2012 – Victoria Transport Policy Institute (May 25, Todd, “ Safe Travels Evaluating Mobility
Management Traffic Safety Impacts ” http://www.vtpi.org/safetrav.pdf)
Public policies affect people’s travel patterns, which affects their exposure to traffic risk, and therefore per capita crash
costs. Policies that reduce vehicle travel, reduce traffic speeds, and improve travel options,
particularly for higher risk drivers (younger and older drivers, people out drinking alcohol), can improve traffic
safety.
In total, residents of more accessible, multi-modal, smart growth communities have about a
quarter the per capita traffic casualty rate in more automobile-dependent communities. Many
families move to automobile-oriented communities because they want a safe and healthy to raise their children. They are
mistaken. Overall, urban neighborhoods tend to be significantly safer than automobile-dependent locations, because any
homicide risk increase (which are actually small or non-existent) is more than offset by higher traffic fatality risks in
suburban and rural areas (Lucy 2002 and 2003; Frumkin, Frank and Jackson 2004; Ewing and Dumbaugh 2009; O’Malley
Greenburg 2009). Traffic crashes are a significant problem, causing tens of thousands of deaths,
millions of injuries and hundreds of billions of dollars in economic costs annually (Miller 1991;
Litman 2009; WHO 2004). For people aged 1 to 33, traffic crashes are the single greatest cause of
fatalities and disabilities, and therefore a major cause of potential years of productive life lost
(CDC 2003; NHTSA 2005). Many consumers consider safety an important consideration when choosing vehicles and
willingly pay a premium for optional safety features. Safety is also a paramount consideration in roadway design and
operations. Yet, safety is not usually a consideration when evaluating policies that affect how much
vehicle travel occurs or to justify traffic reduction programs. This may be an oversight. In fact, safety
may be one of the greatest benefits of mobility management. Mobility management (also called
transportation demand management or TDM) includes various strategies that increase transportation
system efficiency by changing travel frequency, destination, mode and timing. Table 1 lists various mobility
management strategies. These are an increasingly common response to urban traffic congestion and pollution problems. For example, the Congestion Management
and Air Quality (CMAQ) program and many regional transport plans include mobility management components. This report explores the relationships between
mobility (the amount people travel) and crash risk, the potential traffic safety impacts of mobility management, and the degree these impacts are considered in
conventional transport planning. It builds on an extensive body of previous research concerning the relationships between vehicle travel and traffic risk (Vickrey 1968,
Wilde 1984; Haight 1994; Dickerson, Peirson and Vickerman 1998; Andrey 2000; Edlin and Karaca-Mandic 2002 and 2006; LFC 2008).
Many factors affect per capita traffic casualty rates. Some affect crash frequency, others crash severity (the
risk of injury or death when a crash occurs), or emergency response and medical care. This issue is both simple and
complex. It is simple because, all else being equal, per capita vehicle travel undoubtedly affects crash frequency. However,
it is complex because many other factors also affect crash rates (Table 2), and mobility management
strategies have various travel impacts (Table 3) with various impacts on crash frequency and severity. Different
mobility management programs affect different types of travelers and trips, such as commute trips or short-distance urban
trips, which have different risk profiles. Some travel changes reduce risk for one group but increase it for others. It is
therefore important to understand how individual mobility management strategies affect travel and how such changes affect
crash risks.
This issue is controversial. Many people challenge the idea that mileage is a significant risk factor and
that mobility management is an appropriate safety strategy. Traffic safety experts often argue that “there are
no accidents,” claiming that every crash has a preventable cause, allowing virtually risk-free travel. Most devote their
careers to reducing specific risk factors such as impaired driving and risky roadway conditions, and are proud of their efforts. Similarly, transport planners and
engineers, who work to accommodate increased vehicle travel and reduce crash risk, also tend to resist the idea that their efforts may increase overall traffic risk.
Individual motorists consider safe driving a point of pride – the majority of drivers consider their driving skills “above average” – and so find insulting the idea that their
own driving is dangerous and reducing their driving would increase safety (Williams 2003). As a result many experts and individual drivers tend to prefer targeted
campaigns that discourage specific risky behaviors or reduce driving by particularly high-risk groups, rather than vehicle travel in general or their own vehicle travel in
particular. Efforts to reduce overall mileage for safety sake may strike them as surrender to failure and confusing because it contradicts their existing safety
Although these arguments are partially justified, they are overall wrong. It is true that
specific risk factors such as alcohol impairment or drivers with poor driving records contribute
to approximately half of all casualty crashes, 1 but that leaves about half of all crashes caused
by sober, average-risk drivers making normal errors. Even drivers who never violate traffic rules
face risks beyond their control – errors by another driver, an animal running into the roadway,
catastrophic mechanical failure, a sudden medical problem – and most drivers take minor risks
with small but real chances of contributing to a crash. If half of all casualty crashes are caused by averagemessages.
risk driving, and half the victims of cras hes causes by high risk driving are occupants of other vehicles, then threequarter of
all road casualties can be avoided by reducing average-risk vehicle travel.
This is not to suggest that targeted programs are misguided. However, to the degree that they are successful
and reduce higher risk driving, the portion of crashes caused by lower-risk driver will increase,
and so will the safety value of mobility management. Mobility management is seldom implemented primarily for
safety sake; its objectives are usually congestion reduction, road and parking cost savings, energy conservation and
emission reductions, or improved mobility options for non-drivers. However, recognizing safety benefits can
increase support for mobility management, and therefore significantly expand its
implementation. Attitudes and institutions will need to changes for mobility management strategies to be implemented
to the degree justified for their safety benefits as well as other planning objectives (May, Tranter and Warn (2011).
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Ryan Zelmer
Health
Environmental Racism cause health issues, specifically the use of freeways and transportation
causes people in poor communities to more likely be affected by asthma
Sanchez at al 03
(Thomas W. Sanchez, Rich Stolz, and Jacinta S. Ma, homas W. Sanchez is an associate professor of Urban Affairs and Planning and research fellow in the Metropolitan
Institute at Virginia Tech in Alexandria, Virginia. Rich Stolz is Senior Policy Analyst at Center for Community Change. Jacinta S. Ma is a Legal and Policy Advocacy
Associate at The Civil Rights Project at Harvard, “Moving to Equity: Addressing Inequitable Effects of Transportation Policies on Minorities”).
Like Detroit, many urban areas have significant pollution, much of which can be traced to transportation policies that
favor highway development and automobile travel over public transportation. In addition, these transportation policies
combined with land use or zoning policies lead to more toxic usage of land in poor and minority neighborhoods than in
affluent areas and areas with fewer minorities.147 Higher percentages of African Americans (65%) and Latinos (80%)
compared with whites (57%) live in areas with substandard air quality.148 Research suggests that these polluted
environments in turn result in higher rates of respiratory diseases, such as asthma.149 It is known that the occurrence of
asthma and asthma-related deaths is higher in African Americans and Latinos than in whites.150 Asthma is almost
twice as common among African Americans as it is among whites. Even more disturbing are the disparities in asthma
deaths among African Americans and whites: Though African Americans make up approximately 12 percent of the U.S.
population, they account for about 24 percent of all asthma deaths.151 A report by the Environmental Protection
Agency found that non-Hispanic African-American children who live in families with incomes below the poverty level
have the highest rate (8.3%) of asthma of all racial groups.152 While it is not known to what extent these disparities are
due to outdoor pollution, research studies have found a strong and significant correlation between residing near heavy
automobile or truck traffic and increased difficulties with respiratory function and higher incidence of disease, such as
asthma, in children.153 Specifically, studies have found that high concentrations of air pollutants from vehicles are
linked to asthma.154 A study of Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympics when alternative transportation strategies
were implemented155 found that hospitals and doctors saw significantly fewer children for serious asthma
problems.156 A study examining the effect of daily air pollution levels on asthmatic children living in the Bronx and
East Harlem, New York; Baltimore; Washington, DC; Detroit; Cleveland; Chicago; and St. Louis found that increased
exposure to certain air pollution was associated with asthma.157 The neighborhoods of Harlem and South Bronx in
New York City have received attention due to the high rates of asthma among their residents. Central Harlem’s
population is approximately 88 percent African Americans and 10 percent white.158 South Bronx has a population of
approximately 79 percent Latino and 19 percent African American.159 Neither of these communities has been meeting
air quality standards.160 Most of the area’s bus depots were sited in Harlem161 and like the South Bronx, it contains or
is surrounded by heavily traveled commuter highways.162 One study of these communities found the rates of
developmental and respiratory diseases (such as asthma) are disproportionately high
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Ryan Zelmer
Impact Framing: Probability
The “any risk” logic would make all decisionmaking impossible—evaluate probability over
magnitude
MESKILL 2009 (David, professor at Colorado School of Mines and PhD from Harvard, “The "One Percent Doctrine" and Environmental Faith,” Dec
9, http://davidmeskill.blogspot.com/2009/12/one-percent-doctrine-and-environmental.html)
Tom Friedman's piece today in the Times on the environment
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/opinion/09friedman.html?_r=1) is one of the flimsiest pieces by a major columnist that I
can remember ever reading. He applies Cheney's "one percent doctrine" (which is similar to the
environmentalists' "precautionary principle") to the risk of environmental armageddon. But this doctrine is
both intellectually incoherent and practically irrelevant. It is intellectually incoherent because it cannot be
applied consistently in a world with many potential disaster scenarios. In addition to the globalwarming risk, there's also the asteroid-hitting-the-earth risk, the terrorists-with-nuclear-weapons
risk (Cheney's original scenario), the super-duper-pandemic risk, etc. Since each of these risks, on the
"one percent doctrine," would deserve all of our attention, we cannot address all of them
simultaneously. That is, even within the one-percent mentality, we'd have to begin prioritizing,
making choices and trade-offs. But why then should we only make these trade-offs between responses to disaster
scenarios? Why not also choose between them and other, much more cotidien, things we value? Why
treat the unlikely but cataclysmic event as somehow fundamentally different, something that cannot be
integrated into all the other calculations we make? And in fact, this is how we behave all the time. We get into
our cars in order to buy a cup of coffee, even though there's some chance we will be killed on
the way to the coffee shop. We are constantly risking death, if slightly, in order to pursue the
things we value. Any creature that adopted the "precautionary principle" would sit at home - no, not
even there, since there is some chance the building might collapse. That creature would neither be able to act, nor
not act, since it would nowhere discover perfect safety. Friedman's approach reminds me somehow of
Pascal's wager - quasi-religious faith masquerading as rational deliberation (as Hans Albert has pointed out, Pascal's wager
itself doesn't add up: there may be a God, in fact, but it may turn out that He dislikes, and even damns, people who believe
in him because they've calculated it's in their best interest to do so). As my friend James points out, it's striking how
descriptions of the environmental risk always describe the situation as if it were five to midnight.
It must be near midnight, since otherwise there would be no need to act. But it can never be five
*past* midnight, since then acting would be pointless and we might as well party like it was 2099.
Many religious movements - for example the early Jesus movement - have exhibited precisely this
combination of traits: the looming apocalypse, with the time (just barely) to take action.
Traditional risk analysis underestimates common hazards – prefer the impacts of the plan
Kasperson et al. 1988 - , Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts (January 8, Roger E., Ortwin Renn,' Paul
Slovic,2 Halina S. Brown,' Jacque Emel,' Robert Goble,' Jeanne X. Kasperson,'~~ and Samuel Ratick', “ The Social
Amplification of Risk A Conceptual Framework ” Risk Analysis, Vol. 8, No. 2, http://elib.unistuttgart.de/opus/volltexte/2010/5307/pdf/ren27.pdf )
The point is that traditional cost-benefit and risk analyses neglect these higher-order impacts and thus
greatly underestimate the variety of adverse effects attendant on certain risk events (and thereby
underestimate the overall risk from the event). In this sense, social amplification provides a corrective mechanism by which
society acts to bring the techni- cal assessment of risk more in line with a fuller determination of risk. At the other end of the
spec- trum, the relatively low levels of interest by the public in the risks presented by such well-documented and significant hazards as indoor radon, smoking, driving without seat belts, or hghly
carcinogenic aflatoxins in peanut butter serve as ex- amples of the social attenuation of risk. Whereas
attenuation of risk is indispensible in that i t allows individuals to cope with the multitude of risks and risk
events encountered daily, it also may lead to potentially serious adverse consequences from
under- estimation and underresponse. Thus both social amplification and attenuation, through serious disjunctures between expert and public assessments of risk and varying responses among different publics, confound
conventional risk analysis.
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Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
Impact Framing: Probability
Extremely low probabilities should count as zero—even if there’s some risk, policy decisions
can’t be justified by vanishingly small probabilities
Rescher 2003 (Nicholas, Prof of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, Sensible Decisions: Issues of Rational Decision in Personal Choice and Public Policy, p. 49-50)
On this issue there
is a systemic disagreement between probabilists working on theory-oriented
issues in mathematics or natural science and decision theorists who work on practical decisionoriented issues relating to human affairs. The former takes the line that small number are small
numbers and must be taken into account as such—that is, the small quantities they actually are. The latter tend to
take the view that small probabilities represent extremely remote prospect and can be written off.
(De minimis non curat lex, as the old precept has it: in human affairs there is no need to bother with trifles.) When something is about as probable as a thousand fair
dice when tossed a thousand times coming up all sixes, then, so it is held , we
can pretty well forget about it as a worthy of concern.
As a matter of practical policy, we operate with probabilities on the principle that when x ≤ E, then x = 0. We take the line that in
our human dealings in real-life situations a sufficiently remote possibility can—for all sensible purposes—
be viewed as being of probability zero. Accordingly, such remote possibilities can simply be
dismissed, and the outcomes with which they are associated can accordingly be set aside. And
in “the real world” people do in fact seem to be prepared to treat certain probabilities as
effectively zero, taking certain sufficiently improbable eventualities as no long representing real
possibilities. Here an extremely improbable event is seen as something we can simply write off as being outside the range of appropriate concern,
something we can dismiss for all practical purposes. As one writer on insurance puts it: [ P]eople…refuse to worry about losses
whose probability is below some threshold. Probabilities below the threshold are treated as
though they were zero. No doubt, remote-possibility events having such a minute possibility can
happen in some sense of the term, but this “can” functions somewhat figuratively—it is no
longer seen as something that presents a realistic prospect.
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Ryan Zelmer
Impact Framing: Util = Racist
Utilitarianism promotes inequity and inherently discriminates against minorities
Odell, 04 – University of Illinois is an Associate Professor of Philosophy (Jack, Ph.D., “On
Consequentialist Ethics,” Wadsworth, Thomson Learning, Inc., pp. 98-103)
A classic objection to both act and rule utilitarianism has to do with inequity , and is related to the kind of
objection raised by Rawls, which I will consider shortly. Suppose we have two fathers-Andy and Bob. Suppose further that
they are alike in all relevant respects, both have three children, make the same salary, have the same living expenses, put
aside the same amount in savings, and have left over each week fifteen dollars. Suppose that every week Andy and Bob
ask themselves what they are going to do with this extra money, and Andy decides anew each week (AU) to divide it equally
among his three children, or he makes a decision to always follow the rule (RU) that each child should receive an equal
percentage of the total allowance money. Suppose further that each of his children receive five degrees of pleasure from
this and no pain. Suppose on the other hand, that Bob, who strongly favors his oldest son, Bobby, decides anew each week
(AU) to give all of the allowance money to Bobby, and nothing to the other two, and that he instructs Bobby not to tell the
others, or he makes a decision to follow the rule (RU) to always give the total sum to Bobby. Suppose also that Bobby gets
IS units of pleasure from his allowance and that his unsuspecting siblings feel no pain. The end result of the actions of both
fathers is the same-IS units of pleasure. Most, if not all, of us would agree that although Andy's conduct is exemplary, Bob's
is culpable. Nevertheless, according to both AU and RU the fathers in question are morally equal. Neither father is more or
less exemplary or culpable than the other. I will refer to the objection implicit in this kind of example as (H) and state it as: '
(H) Both
act and rule utilitarianism violate the principle of just distribution. What Rawls does is to
elaborate objection (H). Utilitarianism, according to Rawls, fails to appreciate the importance of
distributive justice, and that by doing so it makes a mockery of the concept of "justice." As I pointed out
when I discussed Russell's views regarding partial goods, satisfying the interests of a majority of a given
population while at the same time thwarting the interests of the minority segment of that same
population (as occurs in societies that allow slavery) can maximize the general good, and do so even
though the minority group may have to suffer great cruelties. Rawls argues that the utilitarian commitment to
maximize the good in the world is due to its failure to ''take seriously the distinction between persons."· One person can
be forced to give up far too much to insure the maximization of the good , or the total aggregate satisfaction,
as was the case for those young Aztec women chosen by their society each year to be sacrificed to the Gods for the welfare
of the group.
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Ryan Zelmer
Morality Good – Comparative
An action taken to maximize utility by a powerful entity like the government is illegitimate and
immoral. Acting morally guides the individual to realize obligations to society and represents
the only solution to society’s problems
Gauthier 2K – PhD Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the
University of North Carolina, Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal ()
Mill is especially helpful in responding to the communitarian critique of respect for autonomy because he is careful to
emphasize that his conception
of liberty is neither selfish nor indifferent to the self-regarding behavior of
others. Mill (1978 [1859], pp. 74-75) identifies a number of ways in which members of the community
should influence each other toward the "self-regarding virtues," which include education, conviction,
persuasion, encouragement, and advice. However, he rejects the coercion of the law and the
overwhelming power of public opinion as illegitimate forms of control over self-regarding conduct (Mill 1978
[1859], p. 9). The practical application of these principles from Kant and Mill does not require a concept of the self as
Kant's concept of the person, with the capacity for rational [End
based on human freedom from natural forces, not our freedom from attachments
and commitments to other persons or the influence our histories, traditions, and families have on our values,
choices, and actions. Kant is pointing out that we are neither like chairs, without the capacity for choice or action, nor
unencumbered or isolated in its decision making.
Page 340] agency, is
like nonrational animals, whose actions are determined by instinct and the forces of nature. As persons, we are the products
of our families, traditions, and communities. Yet, because we are persons, our actions may be the result of more than these
influences. They may also be the result of our rational capacities. Moreover, according to Kant, our
choices and
actions are not supposed to be based simply on our own goals and ends. Rather, Kant believes that
the moral law will lead us to recognize duties and obligations we have to others, for example, to respect
and further their ends. Such obligations could certainly be directed toward the shared goals of the
community as a whole. For Mill, even self-regarding choices and actions are properly subject to influence from others,
for example through their natural reactions to an individual's self-destructive behavior. In fact, he advocates our
responsibility to help each other ". . . distinguish the better from the worse . . ." through conviction, encouragement,
persuasion, and education (Mill 1978 [1859], pp. 74-76). Furthermore, in the category of other-regarding behavior Mill
includes the risk of damage not only to specific others, but to the society, as well (p. 80).
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Ryan Zelmer
Morality Good – O/W Extinction / Nuclear War
The utility of a society only has value when its individuals are treated with dignity. A free
society that sacrifices some of its own individuals to prevent human extinction is morally
corrupt.
Shue 89 – Professor of Ethics and Public Life, Princeton University (Henry, “Nuclear Deterrence
and Moral Restraint, pp. 141-2)
Given the philosophical obstacles to resolving moral disputes, there are at least two approaches one
can take in dealing with the issue of the morality of nuclear strategy. One approach is to stick doggedly with
one of the established moral theories constructed by philosophers to “rationalize” or “make sense of” everyday moral
intuitions, and to accept the verdict of the theory, whatever it might be, on the morality of nuclear weapons use. A
more
pragmatic alternative approach assumes that trade-offs in moral values and principles are inevitable
in response to constantly changing threats, and that the emergence of novel, unforeseen challenges may
impel citizens of Western societies to adjust the way they rank their values and principles to ensure
that the moral order survives. Nuclear weapons are putting just such a strain on our moral beliefs. Before the
emergence of a nuclear-armed communist state capable of threatening the existence of Western civilization, the slaughter
of millions of innocent human beings to preserve Western values may have appeared wholly unjustifiable under any
possible circumstances. Today,
however, it may be that Western democracies, if they are to survive as
guardians of individual freedom, can no longer afford to provide innocent life the full protection
demanded by Just War morality. It might be objected that the freedoms of Western society have value
only on the assumption that human beings are treated with the full dignity and respect assumed by Just
War theory. Innocent human life is not just another value to be balanced side by side with others in moral calculations. It is
A free society based on individual rights
that sanctioned mass slaughter of innocent human beings to save itself from extinction would be
“morally corrupt,” no better than soviet society, and not worth defending. The only morally right and respectable
policy for such a society would be to accept destruction at the hands of tyranny, if need be. This objection
the raison d’etre of Western political, economic, and social institutions.
is partly right in that a society based on individual rights that casually sacrifices innocent human lives for the sake of
common social goods is a contradiction in terms. On the other hand, even Just War doctrine allows for the unintentional
sacrifice of some innocent human life under certain hard-pressing circumstances. It is essentially a consequentialist moral
doctrine that ascribes extremely high – but not absolute – value to innocent human life. The problem for any nonabsolute
moral theory, of course, is where to draw the line.
Maintaining proper moral values is the only way to obtain a free society, which outweighs
nuclear extinction
Shue 89 (Henry, Professor of Ethics and Public Life, Princeton University, “Nuclear Deterrence
and Moral Restraint, pp. 134-5)
But is it realistic to suppose that American citizens would risk not just their own lives but their families and their nation in
using nuclear weapons to save Western Europe and other free societies from Soviet domination, especially if the United
States’ allies are not willing to risk nuclear destruction themselves? According to one 1984 poll, 74 percent of Americans
queried believe “the U.S. should not use nuclear weapons if the Russians invade Western Europe.” Nuclear Protectionists,
however, would reply that further public debate might convince more Americans that deterrence cannot be had on the
moral cheap. If
the United States is determined to deter a Soviet attack on Europe, it must have a
moral nuclear strategy that it is willing to implement. Without effective population defenses, such a strategy
could require that the United States accept an unequal risk of nuclear destruction to ensure the
survival of free society. In the extreme, this could mean that the United States must be willing to sacrifice
itself for values higher than its own national survival. Thus, Nuclear Protectionism views both Just War morality
and national “self-centered” as unworkable foundations for U.S. security policy.
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Morality Good – Rights
A moral framing maximizes the good by emphasizing rights and acting on an individualist
basis
Freeman 94 – Avalon Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania, Ph.D.
Harvard University, J.D. University of North Carolina (Samuel, “Utilitarianism, Deontology, and the
Priority of Right,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 23, No. 4, Autumn, pp. 313-349,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2265463)
Many moral views can admit that right acts in some sense promote the good. In Kant, for example, all have a duty to
promote the Realm of Ends; each person's doing so is, we might say, instrumental to realizing this ideal community. But
good is just defined as the
state of affairs in which conscientious moral agents all freely act on and from the moral law. By
acting and willing according to this principle, all treat the humanity of others as an end in itself.
Moreover, to say this good is "maximized" when everyone does his or her duty really adds nothing;
and it misleads us as to the structure and content of Kant's principle of right. By contrast teleological
views (1) define the good independent of any moral concepts; and then (2) define the right purely in
instrumental terms of principles of expedience, i.e., as what most effectively and probably realizes the
greatest amount of good.
here the goodness of this end is not an independent variable that is being promoted; this
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Morality Good – Equality
Both utilitarian’s and non-utilitarian’s respect the moral principle of equality and freedom.
However, only deontology can meet this principle because it allows for individual decisions
Freeman 94 (Samuel, Avalon Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania, Ph.D.
Harvard University, J.D. University of North Carolina, “Utilitarianism, Deontology, and the Priority of
Right,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 23, No. 4, Autumn, pp. 313-349, ,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2265463)
Phillipa Foot has said that what makes consequentialism so compeling is "the rather simple thought that it can never be
right to prefer a worse state of affairs to a better."5 But deontological theories, suitably construed, can account for this
"simple thought" just as well (for reasons I discuss in Section VI). The force of consequentialism must then ie elsewhere: it
embodies a powerful conception of practical reason. If we assume that rationality consists in maximizing an aggregate, and
that in ethics it involves maximizing overall good, then we are able to say that there is a rational choice between any two
alternative actions, laws, or institutions. Therefore under
all conceivable conditions, there is a uniquely
rational, hence right, thing to do. Granted, it may not be knowable by us, but the idea of maximizing the good
provides a way to assign a truth value to any statement about what persons or groups ought to do.
No other conception of rationality offers such practical completeness. Sidgwick, well aware of the force of
the idea of maximizing an aggregate, used it quite effectively to argue that hedonism must be true, and that rational egoism
and utilitarianism were the only two "rational methods" in ethics.6 He could not decide which of the two was more rational,
but assuming that egoism is not a moral conception at all, then, given Sidgwick's premises, utilitarianism prevails without
opposition. These introductory remarks supply background I later refer to. My aim is to elucidate the teleology/deontology
distinction. I begin with the contention that teleological theories are not moral theories at all. Will Kymlicka argues that the
teleological/deontological distinction relied on by Rawls and others is misleading. Not only does the morally right act not
maximize the good; any view which defines the right in this way is not a moral conception.7 Right actions, Kymlicka says,
concern our duties, and duties must be owed to someone. But if moral duty is defined as maximizing overall good, "Whom is
it a duty to?" (LCC, p. 28). Kymlicka argues for the (Kantian) claim that morality concerns respect for persons, not the good
impersonally construed. And the most credible moral conceptions, the only ones worth attending to, hold that "each person
matters equally," and deserves equal concern and respect (LCC, p. 40). Kymlicka's aim here is not to attack teleological
views, but to show that Rawls's teleological/deontological distinction cannot do the work Rawls wants; indeed it is "based on
a serious confusion" (LCC, p. 21). For utilitarians, Kymlicka claims, are just as committed to equality, equal respect for
persons, and fair distributions as everyone else. The difference is they interpret these abstract concepts differently. Here
Kymlicka follows Ronald Dworkin's suggestion: "that Rawls and his critics all share the same 'egalitarian plateau': they
agree that 'the interests of the members of the community matter, and matter equally"' (LCC, p. 21). Utilitarians like Hare
and Harsanyi, non-utilitarians like Rawls, Nozick, and Dworkin, and even many Perfectionists (Kymlicka mentions Marx), all
accept that equal concern and respect is the fundamental moral principle. "All these theories are
deontological in that they spell out an ideal of fairness or equality for distinct individuals" (LCC, p. 26). If
so, Kymlicka argues, the dispute between utilitarians and their critics cannot be depicted in terms of Rawls's misleading
distinction, or in terms of the priority of the right or the good. At issue in these debates are different conceptions of the
political value of equality. I shall argue (in Sections II and III) that Kymlicka, not Rawls, is culpable of "serious confusion." He
confuses deontology-a claim about the content of principles of right-with the principles that are
invoked in justifying and applying the content of a moral view. Moreover, he confuses deontology with a
related idea, the priority of right. The priority of right has received a great deal of attention from Rawls's communitarian
critics. This is surprising in view of the fact that Rawls has so little to say about it in Theory ofJustice.8
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Morality Good -- Justice
Evaluating morality through rights and justice is intrinsically good while utilitarianism denies
humans of their basic rights
Freeman 94 – Avalon Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania, Ph.D.
Harvard University, J.D. University of North Carolina (Samuel, “Utilitarianism, Deontology, and the
Priority of Right,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 23, No. 4, Autumn, pp. 313-349,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2265463)
Rawls's thought may be this: in order to define the distributions (e.g., equal states of affairs) that are
intrinsically good, and then practically apply this definition to determine what we ought to do, we must appeal to
some process of distribution that can only be described by antecedent principles of right or justice. But once we
do that, then it is no longer the case that the right is exclusively defined in terms of what maximizes
the good. For example, suppose fairness or the equal capacity of persons to realize their good is among the intrinsic
goods in a consequentialist view: we are to act in whatever ways best promote fairness or equality of
capacity for all persons. It is difficult to see how such vague ends can be specified for practical
purposes without appealing to principles or procedures defining peoples' equal basic rights, powers,
and entitlements. But once this specification is incorporated into the maximand, the right is no longer
simply a matter of maximizing the good. For the concept of the good itself, in this instance, cannot be described
without an antecedent nonmaximizing moral principle of right: that people ought to be treated fairly, afforded
certain basic rights and powers, and so on. Not only is such a view by Rawls's definition nonteleological; it is
also not consequentialist if by this is meant that to maximize the good is the sole fundamental
principle of right. Incorporating rights or other moral dictates into the maximand is incompatible with
this very idea.4
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EXT: Plan Boosts The Economy
US policy has ignorantly focused on building roads while congestion of those roads remains a
problem that can only be addressed by building a mass transit system capable of supporting a
21st century economy.
Building America’s Future, 11 – a bipartisan coalition of elected officials dedicated to bringing about a new
era of U.S. investment in infrastructure that enhances our nation’s prosperity and quality of life. (“Falling Apart
and Falling Behind”, Transportation Infrastructure Report
http://www.bafuture.com/sites/default/files/Report_0.pdf)
Stunningly, the United States has not made a significant strategic investment in the national transportation network since
we finished building the Interstate Highway System decades ago . We have let more than half a century go by without
devising a strategic plan on a national scale to update our freight or passenger transportation systems. Instead, the
federal government has opted to direct most funding to building highways, to the detriment of
the rest of the transportation network; to disperse most funds to projects without imposing accountability and
performance standards; and to allow pork-barrel spending on politically convenient rather than economically strategic
projects. And the federal government has not significantly supported or catalyzed further private
sector investment. Lack of National Vision In stark contrast to our most agile and aggressive foreign competitors, the
U.S. stands increasingly alone in our failure to reorient our transportation spending according to
a new forward-looking vision that could build a transportation network fit for a 21st-century
economy. Without a similarly strategic plan of attack to create a state-of-the-art transportation network, the U.S. will be
left far behind. This striking lack of vision is a debilitating problem. Instead of taking a comprehensive look at the current
weaknesses in our national network, we are largely following the same policy goals and guidelines announced when
Eisenhower was president. As a result, federal transportation policy is skewed toward maintaining and
expanding the Interstate Highway System. We’ve put relatively little emphasis on targeting our
most economically strategic trade corridors or building new transport systems to meet our 21st-century
economic needs. Government transportation spending, at all levels of government, is overwhelmingly directed toward
roads. Since 1956, the largest portion of public funding for transportation infrastructure was dedicated to building and
maintaining highways. 1 Although a small portion (15%) of the federal gas tax is dedicated to a fund for mass transit, the
vast majority of federal gas tax revenue is spent on highways. The same is true for state gas taxes: 30 states are actually
constitutionally or statutorily required to spend 100% of their gas tax revenues on roads. The disproportionate channeling
of transportation dollars toward highways has encouraged more and more construction of roads , even as the demand
rises for other forms of transportation. The last multi-year infrastructure law passed by Congress, the 2005 Safe
Accountable Flexible Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (known as SAFETEA-LU), authorized $286.4
billion of federal spending on surface transportation projects through 2009—nearly 70% of which has been spent on
highways, and only 1% of which has been directed to ports, national freight gateways, and trade corridors. After that, the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) provided an additional $48 billion in federal stimulus dollars for
transportation projects, most of which also went to roads. There is no question that America must continue to provide
adequate funding to ensure the efficiency and safety of our highways, roads, and bridges since they will always remain an
important component of our transportation network. But despite the emphasis on our road system, we are not meeting the
challenge., Congestion still predominates especially in our metro areas, and the system has
serious safety challenges. For example, America currently has more than 69,000 structurally
deficient bridges, more than 11% of all the bridges in our country. 2 Meanwhile, underinvestment in
airports, in commuter and freight rail, and in ports costs us jobs, economic growth, and access to overseas markets.
Compared to the significant sums dedicated to roads, government spending on other modes of transportation is relatively
meager. The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) spends about $10.2 billion a year on public transit, or less than a
quarter of what it spends on highways. The federal government contributes even less to Amtrak’s operation costs. In
contrast to its highway funding programs, USDOT encourages greater state contributions to transit projects.Since the
majority of states are constitutionally or statutorily prohibited from using state gas taxes for public transit projects,
USDOT’s funding requirements are a tough imposition on states. Unwilling or unable to match federal contributions with
general revenue funds, states may be more inclined to seek funding for more road projects than for new transit projects .
The problem is that we cannot build enough roads to meet our growing transportation needs. We’ve built enough new
roads between 1988 and 2008—an additional 131,723 miles of roads—to circle the globe more than five times. 3 But
despite all of the resources expended on new highways, we haven’t fixed the roads and bridges that are falling apart, and
we haven’t solved our congestion problems.Merely expanding our already extensive highway system is not a plan for the
future. We need a new national vision for building and maintaining an efficient transportation that meets the needs of a 21stcentury economy.
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EXT: Plan Boosts The Economy
Congestion wastes $101 billion annually and stymies economic growth. Mass Transit will pay
more benefits to US economic competitiveness.
Strauss, 12 - associate director of Renewing America Publicationsat the Council on Foreign Relations
(Rebecca,“Road to Nowhere: Federal TransportationInfrastructure Policy”, June,http://www.cfr.org/unitedstates/road-nowhere-federal-transportation-infrastructure-policy/p28419)//DH
Concerns over the state of U.S. transportation infrastructure are higher on the federal policy agenda than at any time since
President Dwight D. Eisenhower championed the creation of the interstate highway system in the 1950s. A generation of
U.S. infrastructure built fifty years ago is reaching the end of its lifecycle, and new construction has not kept pace with
population growth. Meanwhile, international competitors, particularly China, are making massive investments in state-of-
the-art transportation systems.Moving people and goods efficiently matters for the U.S. economy. The
economic cost of traffic congestion alone in wasted time and fuel was estimated at $101 billion,
or $713 per commuter, in 2010.1 According to one estimate, the country’s economic growth would have been 0.2
percentage points higher in 2011 if necessary transportation infrastructure maintenance and improvements had been
made.2 If current spending levels persist, by 2020 the drag on growth could be 1.2 percentage
points. With interest rates remaining at historic lows and unemployment near double-digit highs,
an opportunity exists to marry shorter-term job creation with investments that will pay longerterm benefits to U.S. economic competitiveness.
Mass transit spurs tons of new jobs and consumer spending
Deron Lovaas, Federal Transportation Policy Director, Natural Resources Defense Council, Testimony before
the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, 3--30-11, www.nrdc.org/energy/files/dlovaas_transportation_20110330.pdf, accessed 4-9-12.
The Apollo Alliance finds that dramatically increasing yearly investment in public transit and intercity rail to $40
billion from the present level of just under $12 billion would generate 3.7 million new jobs and boost annual
gross domestic product by $60 billion. Such investments also have a ripple effect, benefitting, for
example, small towns where buses are manufactured, or farms that rely on port cities for access to the global
marketplace. At the same time, investing in public transportation will save consumers money. Consumers
can save hundreds of dollars each month by taking public transportation, compared to driving. The American
Public Transportation Association estimated that in March of this year individuals, on average, could have saved $825 per
month based on the March 4, 2011 average national gas price and unreserved monthly parking rate. In this fiscally
constrained era we must collect and make good use of information regarding potential costs and benefits during the
transportation planning and project selection and design processes. Resources should be focused on the
projects that will yield the greatest return in terms of mobility, social, and economic benefits.
Failure to improve our infrastructure guts our economic competitiveness, undermines the
foundations of American power
Brina Milikowsky, researcher, Building America’s Future Educational Fund, BUILDING AMERICA’S
FUTURE: FALLING APART AND FALLING BEHIND, Transportation Infrastructure Report 20 11, p. 4.
Rebuilding America’s economic foundation is one of the most important missions we face in the
21st century. Our parents and grandparents built America into the world’s leading economic superpower.
We have a responsibility to our own children and grandchildren to strengthen—not squander —that
inheritance, and to pass on to them a country whose best days are still ahead. Our citizens live in a turbulent, complicated, and
competitive world. The worst recession in eighty years cost us trillions in wealth and drove millions of
Americans out of their jobs and homes. Even more, it called into question their belief in our system and faith in the way forward.
Our infrastructure—and the good policy making that built it—is a key reason America became an economic
superpower. But many of the great decisions which put us on that trajectory are now a halfcentury old. In the last decade, our global economic competitors have led the way in planning and
building the transportation networks of the 21st century. Countries around the world have not
only started spending more than the United States does today, but they made those financial
commitments—of both public and private dollars—on the basis of 21st-century strategies that will equip them
to make commanding strides in economic growth over the next 20-25 years. Unless we make
significant changes in our course and direction, the foreign competition will pass us by, and a
real opportunity to restore America’s economic strength will be lost. The American people deserve better.
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EXT: Plan Boosts The Economy
US economic competitiveness prevents multiple scenarios for global nuclear conflicts
Friedberg &Schoenfeld 8 (Aaron Friedberg is a professor of politics and international relations at Princeton
University's Woodrow Wilson School. Gabriel Schoenfeld, senior editor of Commentary, is a visiting scholar at
the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, N.J., “The Dangers of a Diminished America,” Wall Street Journal,
Ocbtober 21, 2008,http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122455074012352571.html]
With the global financial system in serious trouble, is America's geostrategic dominance likely to diminish? If so, what would
that mean? One immediate implication of the crisis that began on Wall Street and spread across
the world is that the primary instruments of U.S. foreign policy will be crimped. The next president will
face an entirely new and adverse fiscal position. Estimates of this year's federal budget deficit already show that it has
jumped $237 billion from last year, to $407 billion. With families and businesses hurting, there will be calls for various and
expensive domestic relief programs. In the face of this onrushing river of red ink, both Barack Obama and John McCain
have been reluctant to lay out what portions of their programmatic wish list they might defer or delete. Only Joe Biden has
suggested a possible reduction -- foreign aid. This would be one of the few popular cuts, but in budgetary terms it is a mere
grain of sand. Still, Sen. Biden's comment hints at where we may be headed: toward a major reduction
in America's world role, and perhaps even a new era of financially-induced isolationism. Pressures
to cut defense spending, and to dodge the cost of waging two wars, already intense before this crisis, are likely to mount.
Despite the success of the surge, the war in Iraq remains deeply unpopular. Precipitous withdrawal -- attractive to a sizable
swath of the electorate before the financial implosion -- might well become even more popular with annual war bills running
in the hundreds of billions. Protectionist sentiments are sure to grow stronger as jobs disappear in the
coming slowdown. Even before our current woes, calls to save jobs by restricting imports had begun to gather support
among many Democrats and some Republicans. In a prolonged recession, gale-force winds of protectionism will blow. Then
there are the dolorous consequences of a potential collapse of the world's financial architecture. For decades now,
Americans have enjoyed the advantages of being at the center of that system. The worldwide use of the dollar,
and the stability of our economy, among other things, made it easier for us to run huge budget
deficits, as we counted on foreigners to pick up the tab by buying dollar-denominated assets as a safe haven. Will this be
possible in the future? Meanwhile, traditional foreign-policy challenges are multiplying. The threat from
al Qaeda and Islamic terrorist affiliates has not been extinguished. Iran and North Korea are
continuing on their bellicose paths, while Pakistan and Afghanistan are progressing smartly
down the road to chaos. Russia's new militancy and China's seemingly relentless rise also give
cause for concern. If America now tries to pull back from the world stage, it will leave a
dangerous power vacuum. The stabilizing effects of our presence in Asia, our continuing
commitment to Europe, and our position as defender of last resort for Middle East energy
sources and supply lines could all be placed at risk. In such a scenario there are shades of the
1930s, when global trade and finance ground nearly to a halt, the peaceful democracies failed to
cooperate, and aggressive powers led by the remorseless fanatics who rose up on the crest of
economic disaster exploited their divisions. Today we run the risk that rogue states may choose
to become ever more reckless with their nuclear toys, just at our moment of maximum vulnerability. The
aftershocks of the financial crisis will almost certainly rock our principal strategic competitors
even harder than they will rock us. The dramatic free fall of the Russian stock market has demonstrated the
fragility of a state whose economic performance hinges on high oil prices, now driven down by the global slowdown. China
is perhaps even more fragile, its economic growth depending heavily on foreign investment and access to foreign markets.
Both will now be constricted, inflicting economic pain and perhaps even sparking unrest in a country where political
legitimacy rests on progress in the long march to prosperity. None of this is good news if the authoritarian leaders of these
countries seek to divert attention from internal travails with external adventures. As for our democratic friends, the present
crisis comes when many European nations are struggling to deal with decades of anemic growth, sclerotic governance and
an impending demographic crisis. Despite its past dynamism, Japan faces similar challenges. India is still in the early stages
of its emergence as a world economic and geopolitical power. What does this all mean? There is no substitute for
America on the world stage. The choice we have before us is between the potentially disastrous
effects of disengagement and the stiff price tag of continued American leadership. Are we up for the
task? The American economy has historically demonstrated remarkable resilience. Our market-oriented ideology,
entrepreneurial culture, flexible institutions and favorable demographic profile should serve us well in whatever trials lie
ahead. The American people, too, have shown reserves of resolve when properly led. But experience after the Cold War
era -- poorly articulated and executed policies, divisive domestic debates and rising anti-Americanism in at least some parts
of the world -- appear to have left these reserves diminished. A recent survey by the Chicago Council on World Affairs found
that 36% of respondents agreed that the U.S. should "stay out of world affairs," the highest number recorded since this
question was first asked in 1947. The economic crisis could be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
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Solvency Extensions - Safety
Studies and empirical data prove solvency – vote aff to massively reduce casualties
Litman 2012 – Victoria Transport Policy Institute (May 25, Todd, “ Safe Travels Evaluating Mobility
Management Traffic Safety Impacts ” http://www.vtpi.org/safetrav.pdf)
Public transit is a relatively safe mode, particularly for users, as indicated in Figure 15. 4 Transit
passengers have about one-tenth the fatality rate as car occupants, and even considering
external risks, transit causes less than half the total deaths per passenger-mile as automobile
travel. Total crash rates per passenger-mile (including risks to transit vehicle occupants and other road users) are
relatively high in some jurisdictions due to low average transit vehicle occupancies and because a large portion of transit
vehicle mileage occurs in congested urban conditions, but as transit ridership increases crash casualty rates
per passenger-mile decline. Mobility management strategies that encourage transit ridership and
increase average transit vehicle occupancy impose little incremental external risk and reduce crash rates
per passenger-mile.
Per capita crash rates tend to decline as transit ridership increases in a community, and are
particularly low in cities with large rail transit systems as indicated in figures 15 and 16. Table 9 indicates
very low fatality and injury rates for transit passengers in the UK. Lim, et al (2006) describes how Bus Rapid Transit
improvements in Seoul, South Korea increased transit ridership more than 20%, but reduced bus
casualties by 11% and total traffic crashes by 26%. Multiple regression analysis found that bus accident rates
were influenced by factors such as the extent of bus driving experience, driver wages, number of repair personnel, vehicle
age, and the ratio of bus exclusive lanes to the length of total bus routes.
Analysis by Karim, Wahba and Sayed (2012) of Vancouver region traffic crash data found that area crash rates
decline significantly with bus stop density, percentage of transit-km traveled relative to total
vehicle-kms traveled, and walking, biking, and transit commute mode share. Their modeling indicates
that a strategic transport plan that encourages use of alternative modes tends to reduce total,
severe, and property damage only collisions. These traffic fatality reductions result not just from
automobile vehicle-miles shifted to transit passenger-miles, but also from the leverage effects
transit can have on transport and land use patterns (Litman 2004). Residents of cities with high
quality transit tend to own fewer automobiles, drive less (due to reduced vehicle ownership and more
compact and mixed land use patterns), have lower traffic speeds (due to more compact urban development), and
have less high-risk driving (for example, teenagers and elderly people may be less likely to have a drivers license
and own a vehicle in communities with better travel alternatives). The traffic safety impacts of more accessible land use
patterns are discussed in more detail later.
Public transit is way safer – decreases pollution and increases exercise
Litman 2012 - Victoria Transport Policy Institute (January 16, Todd, “ Terrorism, Transit and Public Safety Evaluating the
Risks ” http://www.vtpi.org/transitrisk.pdf)
These public transport safety benefits are much larger than deaths and injuries caused by recent
terrorist attacks. In addition, public transit provides other health benefits, by reducing air pollution, and
increasing physical exercise since most transit trips involve walking or cycling links (Besser and Dannenberg 2005).
Although these health benefits are difficult to quantify, they are probably large, indicating far greater
total health benefits from transit, and therefore much larger disbenefits when people shift from
transit to driving (Litman 2009). Travelers would increase their total risk if they shift from public
transportation to more dangerous modes in response to terrorist threats or fear of crashes.
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Solvency Extensions - Ridership
Increased government support of mass transit resolves the main reasons people don’t use
mass transit
Prum and Catz, 11- * Assistant Professor, The Florida State University
AND ** Director, Center for
Urban Infrastructure; Research Associate, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Irvine
(Darren and Sarah, “GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSION TARGETS AND MASS TRANSIT: CAN THE
GOVERNMENT SUCCESSFULLY ACCOMPLISH BOTH WITHOUT A CONFLICT?” 51 Santa Clara L. Rev.
935, 971-972)//
Within the context of transit (and depending on the consumer’s location), the ability to select between viable substitutes
becomes an issue where policy makers wish to use transit options as part of an overall greenhouse gas reduction program.
Personal freedom and cost play a large role in guiding the consumer’s preferences, but those preferences begin to change
when certain population densities and price points make mass transit more competitive with other readily available
alternatives.204 In achieving the proper price point for mass transit, the expense of constructing the project and the ongoing operational costs can overburden these options, making them unaffordable choices in the consumer’s eyes when
other important factors, such as population density, weigh against them.205 However, in these situations, the government
can strategically provide financial incentives that can level the opportunity costs and give consumers viable alternatives,
despite the drawbacks from other important aspects.206 Thus, a variety of market factors like personal freedom, population
density, and cost must reach critical levels whereby consumers are willing to consider meaningful substitute modes; but the
financial model for the entity providing the service needs to be viable, with adequate funding from all of its sources .
The plan will stimulate ridership
Bailey, 07- Federal Programs Advisor at the New York City Department of Transportation.(transportation
policy analyst
http://www.apta.com/resources/reportsandpublications/Documents/apta_public_transportation_fuel_savings_fi
nal_010807.pdf)
A final analysis was completed to estimate the effect of an expansion of public transportation service and use. Total
ridership, as measured in unlinked trips, was doubled. Growth in public transportation use was assigned to two major
sources: improvements to an existing route or system, and extensions and new routes. By conducting an analysis of growth
on public transportation systems from 1999 to 2004, the research team found that approximately one-third of ridership
growth is associated with improvements to existing routes, while two-thirds has resulted from new routes and modal
extensions. The necessary growth in route miles and modal extensions was estimated using recent improvements to
public transportation systems in the U.S., using the average increase in ridership relative to the route miles built . Figures
from several recent rail and high-quality bus projects were collected directly from public transportation agencies. Most
major improvements and extensions to public transportation systems currently operate either light rail, commuter rail, or
high-quality bus systems.For households, an increase in the number of route miles served by high-quality public
transportation service would increase the total number of households with the option to use public transportation, as well as
the total number of employment sites served by public transportation networks. The number of households that would have
improved or new public transportation service is estimated using some basic assumptions about the distribution of
residences:
• Residential density is assumed to be the average for urbanized areas across the U.S. Current urbanized areas were
defined by the 2000 Census, and generally represent cities and suburbs that have a combined population of over 50,000
people. This is a conservative estimate because public transportation alignments are generally targeted to areas that have
been zoned and built up at a higher density than other areas in the city.
• The area served by new routes are assumed to overlap with areas served by parallel or nearby routes by 25 percent.
Existing public transportation availability was estimated using the NHTS 2001 data. NHTS 2001 staff provided a special
data set to the research team that uses the geographic location of each respondent and a 1994 database of bus lines and
rail stops to calculate the distance between each respondent and public transportation services. Relative increases in total
public transportation route mileage is based on existing services from 2004.
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Solvency Extensions - Racism
Racism Can Be Dismantled, But Every Step is Key—Challenging Instances of White Privilege
are Crucial to Preventing Total Collapse
Joseph Barndt, Co-director of Ministry Working to Dismantle Racism, "Dismantling Racism,” 1991 (p.155)
But we have also seen that 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. You and I are urgently called to joing the
efforst of those who know it is time to tear down, once and for all, the walls of racism. The danger point of
self-destruction seems to be drawing even more near. The results of centuries of national and worldwide conquest and
colonialism, of military buildups and violent aggression, of overconsumption and environmental destruction may be reaching a point of
no return. A small and predominantly white minority of the global population derives its power and privelage
from the sufferings of vast majority of peoples of all color. For the sake of the world and ourselves, we dare
not allow it to continue.
Mass transit allowed for the potential for freedom and racial progress.
McCammack, 2010. (Brian McCammack is a W.E.B. Du Bois institute fellow at Harvard University
and a lecturer at Tufts University, 2010, “‘My God, they must have riots on those things all the
time’,” Project Muse.
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_social_history/v043/43.4.mccammack.html).
By contrast, the bulk of African American mobility in New York and Chicago was something that workers were largely
compelled to do in order to make a living—it was a necessity. Given the choice, whites more often than not sought to
reinforce barriers between white and black communities, not make them more porous. Once Harlem was established as
Manhattan’s black belt, some citizens clearly saw subway lines as an unwanted connection between the black belt
and white communities. In 1922, a proposed subway line extension that would connect the white Central Park West
neighborhood directly to Harlem drew protest from the Central Park West and Columbus Avenue Association which claimed
that “there is little use in trying to beautify Central Park West if the line serving it terminates in the ‘black belt’ of Harlem.”28
Similarly, in Chicago there was white resistance to a proposal that would extend streetcar lines and link predominantly white
Hyde Park with the black belt.29 Despite these sorts of efforts, black mobility only increased as more transit lines were
constructed and a growing population fueled mostly by southern migration utilized them to reach jobs all over the city.
Mobility, whether for work or not, was something that black migrants from the South appreciated; it embodied the
potential for freedom and racial progress. When asked by the Chicago Commission on Race Relations (formed after
the 1919 race riot) about the freedom, independence, and wages in Chicago as compared to the South, a few respondents
cited public transportation as the locus for these differences. One said that a benefit of higher wages in the North
was that he could go anywhere he pleased on the streetcars after paying his fare and another noted that he could
sit anywhere on the cars he pleased as well.30 As James Grossman points out, despite white prejudice against blacks that
often manifested itself as an unwillingness to sit next to a black passenger, such white discomfort and distaste was most
often borne silently—in stark contrast to the prejudice migrants were used to encountering in the South.31 And yet, while
blacks could, in fact, go anywhere they pleased on the cars and sit next to whites, those journeys were not always without
incident. The Commission saw the Great Migration as the catalyst for discord on the streetcars, stating that “The contacts of
Negroes and whites on the street cars never provoked any considerable discussion until the period of Negro migration from
the South.”
. Need to act now—can spur a paradigm shift in American transportation
American Public Transportation Association (APTA), “Changing the Way America Moves: Creating a More
Robust Economy, a Smaller Carbon Footprint, and Energy Independence,” 2009, p. 6.
We are at a pivotal moment in transportation history. Many indicators show that Americans have been
giving up their car dependency over the past few years because they see the benefits of public
transportation. In a 2003 survey, four in five Americans stated that increased investment in public transportation
strengthens the economy, creates jobs, reduces traffic congestion and air pollution, and saves energy.v On November 4
2008, in a time of great economic uncertainty, people overwhelmingly voted for raising public revenue in order to improve
public transportation. In fact, across the country, more than 75 percent of state and local transit-related ballot measures
passed, with voters in 16 states approving 26 measures and authorizing expenditures of $75 billion.vi There are many
factors contributing to a natural shift in the habits of Americans in the way they live and move.
But if more sustainable alternatives, including public transportation, walking, and cycling, are not
made available or easily accessible on a massive scale, we will lose the opportunity to
permanently change the way America moves. However, if we can take bold steps today toward
significantly increasing the availability and use of these choices, this can be the beginning of a
new era, when America becomes one of the most livable countries in the world, and the majority
of Americans have access to and opt for affordable and sustainable public transportation.
Page 33 of 40
MN Novice Packet 2012
Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
Solvency Extensions – Fed Key
National action is key to mobilize support necessary to implement an effective transit policy
Dr. Phineas
Baxandall et al., A BETTER WAY TO GO: MEETING AMERICA’S 21ST CENTURY TRANSPORTATION CHALLENGES WITH MODERN PUBILC TRANSIT,
08, p. 55-56.
U.S. PIRG Education Fund, 3—
Transit has long been seen as primarily a local issue—something of concern to city-dwellers and some suburbanites. In many states—even
some with robust transit systems—there is still little or no investment of state government resources in transit systems. And at the federal
level, transit advocates have often felt compelled to accept greater spending on highways as a means to achieve greater investment in transit.
The consequences of our automobile-centered transportation system, however, are national in
scope. Traffic congestion, oil dependence and global warming pollution are issues that affect all
Americans and deserve a national response . A wide variety of constituencies have a potential
interest in expanding transit infrastructure in the United States. This “grand coalition” potentially
includes the following: • Metropolitan area residents, who represent more than 80 percent of the American population
and who would benefit most directly from reduced congestion and the ability to use transit.133 • Businesses—both those located in
metropolitan areas that would benefit from their employees’ and customers’ access to transit and those that rely on the shipment of goods
and would benefit from reduced highway congestion. • Property owners in corridors to be served by transit, who would likely see
property values increase. • Construction firms and organized labor, which would benefit from the jobs created in transit system construction,
operations and maintenance. • Environmentalists, who would support reductions in global warming emissions and other forms of
pollution. • Low-income, elderly and disabled people, who would benefit from an increased range of transportation choices.
The elderly could represent an especially important constituency, as the population of Americans ages 65 and older is projected to increase
by 20 million between 2000 and 2020.134 • Individuals concerned with national security, who would support
reductions in America’s dependence on foreign oil. As long as the transit debate is about one transit line or one city at
a time, there will be little hope of mobilizing a wide range of interests behind a major commitment to transit. To generate excitement
and widespread support, there must be a compelling vision for what an expansion of transit
service would look like and how it would benefit the United States—in short, a national roadmap
for transit.
Federal government needs to lead the way—key to solving
Puentes, Fellow and Director, Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative, Brookings Institution, Testimony before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Committee,
08 , http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/testimony/2008/9/09%20transportation%20puentes/0909_transportation_puentes.pdf
Robert
9—9—
Federal policy can and should play a powerful role in helping metropolitan areas—and so the nation—
reduce energy consumption through targeted and prioritized investments in public transit and
support of transitoriented development. The cross-boundary challenges justify a more decisive
federal policy that helps metropolitan areas promote energy- and location-efficient development. Mr. Chairman, to do that I believe we
need a systemic change in the way we think about, design, and implement transportation policies. This means the development
of a three-pronged strategy to lead, empower, and maximize performance across the nation.
First, the federal government must LEAD and develop a coherent national vision for
transportation, and focus on specific areas of national importance such as reducing our
dependence on foreign oil. Second, the federal government should EMPOWER states and
metropolitan areas to grow in energy-efficient and sustainable ways. Third, the federal government
should OPTIMIZE Washington's own performance and that of its partners in order to spend
taxpayer dollars better and implement the vision. In the short term, the proposed transit provisions of the substitute
energy bill are consistent with this overriding frame. Emergency transit funding to accelerate capital investments
is needed to accommodate ridership increases and provide adequate service to the vast reaches
of the country without it. Additional formula funding is needed is avoid service cuts at the precise
moment that Americans try riding the bus or train for the first time and evaluate their options. The program to boost the energy efficiency of
transit systems—thereby cutting operating costs and helping curb dependence on foreign oil—is also a critically important component. The
proposed Transit-Oriented Development Corridors grant program also provides an empowering model through a competitive process to
metropolitan actors with proposals for growing differently. The considerations for evaluating grant recipients are, I believe, the right ones:
clear justification and outcome orientation that includes reducing energy consumption; ensuring a metropolitan-wide perspective on choosing
the location of the project; coordinating with all actors and promoting public/private partnerships; mixing uses and housing types; and
harmonizing transportation with other policy areas such as housing, economic development, and land use.
Page 34 of 40
MN Novice Packet 2012
Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
Solvency Extensions – Fed Key
Lack of coordination and decision making power makes the states ineffective.
Bullard 04
(Robert Bullard, Ware Professor of Sociology and the director of the Environmental Justice resources at Clark Atlanta
University, “Highway Robbery, Transportation Racism and New Routes To Equality: Building Transportation Equity into
Smart Growth” 179-82)
Although ISTEA and TEA-21 have allowed the public to play a stronger role in the decision-making process,
transforming the vision into reality largely depends on public resources and institutions for policy implementations. One
barrier to advancing environmental justice is the lack of coordination between state and transportation departments,
which program 94 percent of federal transportation funds, and local governments, which dominate land use decisions.
MPO’s, which are governed by local elected officials, have directly controlled only 6 percent of federal transportation
funds over the past twelve years and do not have authority over the land use. Both ISTEA and TEA-21 were designed to
expire within six years unless they were updated and reauthorized. The landmark ISTEA law of 1991 was reauthorized
as TEA-21 in 1998. Currently, TEA-21 is being reviewed for reauthorization. Through the next law, which is informally
called TEA-3, Congress will determine key funding and programmatic decisions for the federal surface transportation
program. Lawmakers will decide whether to defend and build upon the ISTEA and TEA-21 framework, potentially
strengthening provisions for environmental justice, or to unravel key reforms still in their infancy. As TEA-21
reauthorization moves forward and after its passage, larger questions remain that are fundamental to transportation
reform and environmental justice: What are “we the people” getting in return for public investment? Who benefits and
who pays? And what policies can leverage transportation justice efforts at the national, state, and local level.
Fed Key – They Possess the most influence in transportation infrastructure-our evidence is
comparative to the role of state and local govs.
James Neumann, Resources for the Future, 2009 “Adaptation to Climate Change: Revisiting
Infrastructure Norms” http://www.rff.org/rff/documents/RFF-IB-09-15.pdf
Almost half of the more than $60 billion annual federal infrastructure investment is for highways (in excess of $30
billion annually), with smaller but significant capital expenditures in dams and flood control (about 12 percent of the
total), mass transit (about 11 percent), and aviation (about 9 percent). The federal role relative to state, local, and private
roles is also highest in the transportation subsector. The best opportunity for the federal government to influence and
enhance infrastructure’s adaptive capacity is thus in the transportation sector.
States can’t succeed in transportation without fed help
Schank 2012 (May 31, Joshua, President & CEO, Eno Center for Transportation,
http://www.enotrans.org/eno-brief/the-federal-role-in-transportation-four-ideas-for-greater-federalinvolvement)
The role of the federal government in daily life has been the subject of an ongoing national debate in this country since
our founding. The 2012 Presidential Campaign will not resolve it, nor most likely will any single event, but it is an
essential debate to have in all subject areas, and transportation is no exception. In fact, the role of the federal
government in transportation is particularly challenging because so much of transportation is inherently local and yet
the federal government plays a substantial and varying role, ranging from a primarily safety and regulatory role in
freight rail and ports to strong funding role in highways and transit. Americans rarely look to the federal government to
solve their transportation problems, and yet without the federal contribution, states and localities would face serious
challenges in meeting transportation needs.
Page 35 of 40
MN Novice Packet 2012
Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
Solvency Extensions – Movements
Mass Transit is a perquisite to sparking movements. Only these movements can effectively
dismantle environmental racism, empirics prove: Executive Order 12898 was passed due to
grassroots movements started by community activist.
Bullard et al 04
(Robert Bullard and Glenn Johnson, Ware Professor of Sociology and the director of the
Environmental Justice resources at Clark Atlanta University 5-8)
In the real world, all communities are not created equal. All communities do not receive equal protection. Economics,
political clout, and race play an important part in sorting out residential amenities and disamenities. Racism is alive and
well in the United States (Doob, 1993). Environmental racism is as real as the racism found in housing, employment,
education, and voting (Bullard, 1993a). Environmental racism refers to any environmental policy, practice, or directive
that differentially affects or disadvantages (whether intended or unintended) indi- viduals, groups, or communities based
on race or color. Environmental racism is one form of environmental injustice and is reinforced by government, legal,
eco- nomic, political, and military institutions. Environmental racism combines with public policies and industry
practices to provide benefits for Whites while shifting costs to people of color (Bullard, 1993a; Collin, 1992; Colquette
& Robertson, 1991; Godsil, 1990). The impetus behind the environmental justice movement did not come from within
government, academia, or largely White, middle-class, nationally based environmental and conservation groups. The
impetus for change came from people of color, grassroots activists, and their “bottom-up” leadership approach. Grassroots groups organized themselves, educated themselves, and empowered them- selves to make fundamental change in
the way environmental protection is administered in their communities. Government has been slow to ask the questions
of who gets help and who does not, who can afford help and who cannot, why some contaminated communities get
studied whereas others get left off the research agenda, why industry poisons some communities and not others, why
some contaminated communities get cleaned up whereas others do not, why some populations are protected and others
are not protected, and why unjust, unfair, and illegal policies and practices are allowed to go unpunished. Struggles for
equal environmental protection and environmental justice did not magically appear in the 1990s. Many communities of color have
been engaged in life-and-death struggles for more than a decade. In 1990, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) held a historic conference in Atlanta. The
ATSDR National Minority Health Conference focused on contamination (Johnson, Williams, & Harris, 1992). In 1992, after meeting with community lead- ers, academicians, and civil
rights leaders, the EPA (under the leadership of William Reilly) acknowledged there was a problem and established the Office of Environmental Equity (the name was changed to the
Office of Environmental Justice under the Clinton administration). In 1992, the EPA produced one of the first comprehensive documents to examine the whole question of risk,
environmental hazards and their equity: Envi- ronmental Equity: Reducing Risk for All Communities (U.S. EPA, 1992a). The report and the resulting Office of Environmental Equity
were initiated only after prodding from people of color, environmental justice leaders, activists, and a few academicians. In 1993, EPA also established a 25-member National
Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) under the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The NEJAC is comprised of stakeholders representing grassroots community groups;
environmental groups; nongovernmental organizations; state, local, and tribal governments; academia; and industry. The NEJAC divides its environmental jus- tice work into six
subcommittees: Health and Research, Waste and Facility Siting, Enforcement, Public Participation and Accountability, Native American and Indigenous Issues, and International
Issues. InFebruary1994,sevenfederalagencies,includingtheATSDR,theNational Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, the EPA, the National Institute of Occupational Safety
and Health, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Energy (DOE), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sponsored a national health symposium, “Health
. The conference planning committee was unique in that it included
grassroots organization leaders, residents of affected communities, and federal agency representatives. The goal of the
February conference was to bring diverse stakeholders and those most affected to the decision-making table (National
Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, 1995). Recommendations from the symposium included the following:
Conduct meaningful health research in support of people of color and low-income communities. Promote disease
prevention and pollution prevention strategies.Promote interagency coordination to ensure environmental
justice.Provide effective outreach, education, and communications.Design legislative and legal remedies.In response
to growing public concern and mounting scientific evidence, President Bill Clinton on February 11, 1994 (the second
day of the national health symposium), issued Executive Order 12898, “Federal Actions to Address Envi- ronmental
Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations.” This order attempts to address environmental injustice
within existing federal laws and regulations. Executive Order 12898 reinforces the 35-year-old Civil Rights Act of
1964, Title VI, which prohibits discriminatory practices in programs receiving federal funds. The order also focuses the
spotlight on the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a 25-year-old law that set policy goals for the protection,
mainte- nance, and enhancement of the environment. NEPA’s goal is to ensure for all Americans a safe, healthful,
productive, and aesthetically and culturally pleasing environment. NEPA requires federal agencies to prepare a detailed
statement on the environmental effects of proposed federal actions that significantly affect the quality of human health
(Council on Environmental Quality, 1997). The order calls for improved methodologies for assessing and mitigating
impacts and health effects from multiple and cumulative exposure and collection of data on low-income and minority
populations who may be disproportionately at risk and impacts on subsistence fishers and wildlife consumers. It also
encourages participation of the affected populations in the various phases of assessing impacts, including scoping, data
gathering, alternatives, analysis, mitigation, and monitoring. The order focuses on “subsistence” fishers and wildlife
consumers. Not every- one buys the fish they consume at the supermarket. There are many people who are subsistence
fishers, who fish for protein, who basically subsidize their budgets, and their diets, by fishing from rivers, streams, and
lakes that happen to be polluted. These subpopulations may be underprotected when basic assumptions are made using
the dominant risk paradigm.
and Research Needs to Ensure Environmental Justice,” in Arlington, Virginia
Page 36 of 40
MN Novice Packet 2012
Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
Cap Answers
Lack of public mass transit aggravates socio-economic inequalities
Moulding, Georgetown journal on Poverty Law & Policy, 2005 "Fare or Unfair? The Importance of
Mass Transit for America's Poor"
http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/geojpovlp12&div=11&g_sent=1&collection=j
ournals#
J.D. candidate, Georgetown University Law Center
The underdevelopment of public transportation in America has exacerbated our nation's economic and social
inequalities. A decades-long trend of prioritizing automobile use at the expense of public transportation has undercut an
important means of improving the lives of low-income Americans, especially in urban areas. While the consequences of
high-way transit network for the environment and energy consumption have received attention, the economic impact on
the poor is relatively overlooked.
No public transport means poverty and deprivation mutually reinforce each other
Timo Ohnmacht et al 2009 (Timo Ohnmacht, Hanja Maksim, Manfred Max Bergman), Ashgate
Publishing Company, Mobilites and Inequatlities
In Urban Areas social inequity is evident in terms of social deprivation that may occur both caused by lack of access
to mobility and as a consequence of mobility-related degredation of living conditions (e.g. caused by air pollution noise
emissions etc.). Many cities in Europe still have highly stressed neighbourhoods and traffic corridors, which also have a
high concentration of population groups with a low rate of motorization or who are badly served by public transport. In
such areas, the two categories of problem overlap: mobility (especially motorized transport) becomes a risk,
contributing to the deterioration of living conditions; and the lack of mobility facilities prevents people from
participating in society, limits access to education, the labour market etc. Poverty and deprivation structures are thus
mutually reinforced, also from a socio spatial point of view.
The plan decreases capitalism – decreases the existence of spatial divide.
Henderson 2006 (Jason Henderson works at the Department of Geography and Human
Environmental Studies at the San Francisco State University. International Journal of Urban and
Regional Research, Volume 30.2 June 2006 293–307. “Secessionist Automobility: Racism, AntiUrbanism, and the Politics of Automobility in Atlanta, Georgia”.)
First, the creation of GRTA, a creature of Atlanta’s corporate elites, tempered secessionist opposition to transit. Recall
that Atlanta was the first metropolitan area in the US to have federal road funds suspended due to air pollution problems
stemming from automobility. Eventually federal transportation funds were withheld, and Atlanta’s corporate elite
established GRTA in response to this punitive measure. In return for lifting the federally mandated suspension, GRTA
requires that any county with a smog problem must accept transit in exchange for receiving road funds. GRTA acts as a
referee ensuring that all localities commit to the greater goal of keeping Atlanta competitive in the global economy. If a
local county or city in the metropolitan region does not show a commitment to reducing its share of smog, the authority
has the power to restrict road funds and redirect them elsewhere. Hence some of Atlanta’s more vehemently anti-transit
counties now have, or plan to have, some sort of limited bus service (Long, 2001). The demands of capital pre-empted
local secessionist tendencies. GRTA’s insistence on extending transit into Atlanta’s sprawling suburbs also addresses
capitalist demands for access to labor. Secessionist land use policies, such as exclusionary zoning (restricting
proliferation of apartments or lower-priced housing), have exacerbated ‘spatial mismatch’ (Ihlandfeldt and Sjoquist,
1998; Nelson, 2001). Low-skill, low-wage jobs in the retail and service sector are located vast distances from where
available low-wage, low-skilled workers live (central city and inner suburbs). In response, and as part of the mission of
GRTA, Atlanta’s corporate interests publicly promoted bus transit in select corridors to enable low-skilled workers to
access far-flung suburban jobs.
Page 37 of 40
MN Novice Packet 2012
Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
Mass Transit Popular
Mass transit is popular with the public, oil prices getting too high
USA Today 11
(USA Today, “Ridership up on mass transit shows more people are working”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-12-07/mass-transit-ridership/51720984/1 12/8/11)
People are turning to public transit as a less expensive option to high gas prices, which, he says, "All of us reach a
threshold of pain in our commutes." Regular gasoline averaged $3.29 a gallon Wednesday, up 33 cents from a year ago,
according to the Oil Price Information Service. About 60% of public transit riders are commuters going to and from
work, Melaniphy says. More use mass transit Trips in billions for the first nine months of each year. Source: American
Public Transportation Association Data for the third quarter show no let up in the trend. Overall ridership was up 2% to
2.6 billion in July through September from a year earlier, and 162 of 210 transit agencies had increases. Still, the
number of rides falls short of the third quarter of 2008 when ridership reached 2.73 billion . At that time, a gallon of
regular gas hovered between $3.68 and $3.95 a gallon. The increase is part of an upward trend in transit ridership that
has been taking place since the mid-1990s, says Bradley Lane, a professor of urban planning and transportation at the
University of Texas at El Paso.
Mass transit is popular with the public. It’s easier for them to get places.
Lehner 2/3
(Peter Lehner, Executive Director of NRDC. 2/3/12 “Bait and Switch: House GOP Offers Drilling Bill Masquerading as a
Transportation Bill” http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/plehner/bait_and_switch_house_gop_offe.html)
The fund America uses to repair and expand our highways transit systems is about to go broke. But instead of endorsing
responsible and proven ways to balance the books, House Republicans have assembled a transportation bill so extreme
it has enflamed everyone from fiscal conservatives to public health advocates. Not only would it gut long-standing
environmental safeguards and expand offshore drilling in places Congress has protected for decades. It would also
eradicate a public transit fund that was crafted by President Reagan and has enjoyed bipartisan support for 30 years.
The House bill would do all this damage—and deepen our oil dependence—without even paying for itself. It’s no
wonder highway builders associations, conservative think tanks, taxpayer groups, and environmentalists have lined up
in opposition to this bill. I don’t know one American who wants to make their trip to work longer, harder, or more
expensive. Yet that is what would happen if House Republicans have their way. Commuter trains would run less often,
rural bus services would decrease, and our streets would become more clogged with traffic as transit options shrink
Page 38 of 40
MN Novice Packet 2012
Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
Gentrification Answers
Lack of transportation in the urban area has contributed to the gentrification of the community.
Only a risk that providing mass transit is the first step in destroying gentrification
Sanchez at al 03
(Thomas W. Sanchez, Rich Stolz, and Jacinta S. Ma, homas W. Sanchez is an associate professor of Urban
Affairs and Planning and research fellow in the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech in Alexandria, Virginia.
Rich Stolz is Senior Policy Analyst at Center for Community Change. Jacinta S. Ma is a Legal and Policy
Advocacy Associate at The Civil Rights Project at Harvard, “Moving to Equity: Addressing Inequitable Effects
of Transportation Policies on Minorities”
Another housing-related impact of transportation policies is gentrification. Gentrification is commonly characterized as
a transformation of neighborhood conditions that encompass physical, economic, and demographic dimensions and can
be defined as “the process by which higher income households displace lower income residents of a neighborhood,
changing the essential character and flavor of that neighborhood.”122 It occurs for a number of reasons, including
increased desirability of an area due to a transportation investment such as extension of a commuter rail line, new or
improved train service or station, or addition of a highway ramp or exit. Most commonly, gentrification has been
portrayed in terms of residential location patterns, such as “back to the city” flows of middle-income households from
the urban fringe or suburbs or elsewhere within a metropolitan area. Gentrification, however, manifests itself through
reinvestment and rehabilitation of previously degraded neighborhoods, improving the physical condition and
appearance of both residential and commercial properties. Due to the perception that increased property values,
increased safety, and improved neighborhood amenities signal neighborhood revival, middle- income households
upgrade housing conditions for their personal consumption. While owner- occupied single-family residences replace
renter occupancy, businesses that target the demographic group of middle-income homeowners transform older,
traditional commercial locations through reinvestment and rehabilitation of structures. Thus, the gentrification process
entails physical property improvements, a demographic change to higher income levels, more “yuppie” (young, urban
professionals) households, and property value increases. Some neighborhood gentrifications absorb vacant properties,
while others involve replacement (or displacement) of households no longer able to afford housing due to housing cost
(price/rent) appreciation. While some consider property value increases resulting from gentrification to be positive, such
changes have also been criticized for worsening the well-being of low-income persons, especially in neighborhoods of
color. Some have argued that increases in property values are capitalized in rent increases, which then push households
that are less able to pay to other neighborhoods or to undesirable housing arrangements.123 In particular, some argue
that certain antisprawl land use policies that direct housing development away from the urban fringe reduce housing
affordability and limit housing choice, especially for low-income households. Others have argued, in addition to causing
displacement, that gentrification is undesirable because it leads to homogenous neighborhoods that are not
socioeconomically or culturally diverse.124 However, there is insufficient data to draw specific conclusions about the
net social and economic impacts of transportation investments on gentrification and displacement.
Page 39 of 40
MN Novice Packet 2012
Mass Transit Aff
Ryan Zelmer
Oil Answers
Use of mass transit has no correlation with the oil prices. It the opposite, as the oil prices rise
the ridership for mass transit rises as well.
Hargreaves 2k12
(Steve Hargreaves, Writer for CNN Money, Mass transit use rises as gas prices soar,
http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/12/news/economy/mass-transit/index.htm March 12th 2012
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Ridership on the nation's trains and buses hit one of the highest levels in decades, with
officials crediting high gas prices, a stronger economy and new technology that makes riding public transit easier. In
2011, Americans took 10.4 billion trips on mass transit -- which includes buses, trains, street cars and ferries, according
to the American Public Transportation Association. That's a 2.3% increase over 2010 and just shy of the number of trips
in 2008, when gasoline spiked to a record national average of $4.11 a gallon. "As people get jobs and go back to work,
they get on mass transit more," said Michael Melaniphy, president of APTA. "And then when people look at gas prices,
they really get on transit more." Melaniphy said gas prices near $4 a gallon tends to be the tipping point that pushes
more people onto mass transit. Obama makes alternative-fuel vehicle pushWhile the highest gasoline price spike was in
2008, gas prices averaged $3.51 a gallon in 2011 -- the highest annual average ever. Currently, nationwide average gas
prices are just above $3.80 -- the highest ever for this time of year, according to AAA. Many analysts expect record gas
prices in 2012 as the global economy recovers and tensions remain high in the Middle East. Ridership on public transit,
which is measured by number of trips taken, hit its highest level in the mid-1940s -- roughly double today's rate. But
with the widespread adoption of the automobile and America's suburbanization in the 1950s, public transit use steadily
declined until the early 1970s, when gas prices spiked following the Arab oil embargo. 2011's ridership rate is the
second highest since 1957. In addition to gas prices and a rebounding economy, Melaniphy said new technologies have
made taking public transportation easier for the general public. A plethora of mobile-phone applications -- there are
over 100 for New York City alone -- can display train or bus schedules for your current location. And count-down
clocks at train platforms or bus stops take some of the frustration out of waiting for your ride. "Our member agencies
are putting a better product out on the street," said Melaniphy. Roughly 5% of the population commutes using public
transport, according to the Census Department. Spending on public transport totals roughly $50 billion a year,
Melaniphy said. He noted that 75% of those dollars find their way to private companies in the form of construction
contracts, fuel purchases and other expenditures. Funding for public transportation is split roughly evenly between
federal dollars from the gasoline tax, money from state and local property and sales taxes, and ridership fees
Page 40 of 40