Affirmative Evidence Packet
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- Inherency: No Funding for Active Transportation
- Potential of active transit recognized but US lags behind other countries
- Without bike infrastructure, it will be difficult to get people to switch
- Cycling low now—less than 1% in US lowest in world
- Inherency AT: Equity is improving now
- Inherency: Current Planning Fails
- Current planning fails. If favors the most mobile at the expense of the least mobile
- Current planning favors the most mobile and increases the transit gap
- Even when Environmental justice is considered in planning, social justice is ignored
Inherency ExtensionsThe following arguments all support the argument that current planning and spending on transit and transportation is deficient and poorly targeted. The first set of arguments support the argument that there is insufficient funding for active transportation now and argue that there is no successful program devoted to assuring equity in the distribution of federal transportation funding. The last set of arguments merely indicates that the current planning for transportation systems does not factor the needs of communities. Inherency: No Funding for Active Transportation
American Public Health Association, 2009 AT THE INTERSECTION OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND TRANSPORTATION: Promoting Healthy Transportation Policy, p9 The research and training components in the federal transportation bill that focus on public health and safety are limited. The funding (authorized and appropriated) for all of the public health and safety programs from 2005–2009 is shown in a table on page 12 of this report. The money spent on public health and safety programs is minimal. In addition, spending on programs that improve public health has received limited increases in funding from year to year and even decreases in some programs. The actual funds that are appropriated for public health programs are generally lower than authorized, which is not surprising given the deficits in the overall economy and within the federal transportation budget.
Dill, 2009. (Jennifer Dill, Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning, Portland State University). “Bicycling for Transportation and Health: The Role of Infrastructure, Journal of Public Health Policy (2009) 30, S95–S110. doi:10.1057/jphp.2008.56 To help address health and other policy concerns, policy makers and professionals are looking at ways to increase the use of walking and bicycling for everyday travel. While most of the focus on ‘‘active living’’ has been on walking, bicycling may have a greater potential to substitute for motorized vehicle trips because of its faster speed and ability to cover greater distances. Bicycle commuting has been shown to be an activity that meets recommended intensity levels (1) and to be related to lower rates of overweight and obesity (2). The potential for bicycling as a transportation mode has been recognized nationally through objectives to raise bicycling rates (3) and significant increases in funding for building new infrastructure (4). Several states and cities have also adopted aggressive policies and programs to increase bicycling (5,6). However, the United States lags far behind many other developed countries, particularly several European countries, with respect to the share of people traveling by bicycle (7,8). Moreover, most bicycle travel in the United States, particularly among adults, is for recreation, not daily travel. This is in contrast to bicycling in countries such as the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany (7,9).
Dill, 2009. (Jennifer Dill, Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning, Portland State University). “Bicycling for Transportation and Health: The Role of Infrastructure, Journal of Public Health Policy (2009) 30, S95–S110. doi:10.1057/jphp.2008.56 The preference for traveling on bike paths and boulevards is consistent with the priority the bicyclists placed on routes that avoid streets with lots of vehicle traffic. However, the participants placed almost equal importance on minimizing trip distances. Without a well-connected network of bike lanes, paths, and boulevards, along with low-traffic neighborhood streets without specific bicycle infrastructure, meeting these two priorities simultaneously would be difficult.
Tight, et al, 2011. (Miles Tight--Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, Paul Timms--Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, David Banister--Oxford University Centre for the Environment, Jemma Bowmaker--SURFACE Inclusive Design Research Centre, University of Salford, Jonathan Copas--School of Computing Science, University of East Anglia, Andy Day--School of Computing Science, University of East Anglia, David Drinkwater--School of Computing Science, University of East Anglia, Moshe Givoni--Oxford University Centre for the Environment, Astrid Gühnemann--Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, Mary Lawler--Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, James Macmillen--Oxford University Centre for the Environment, Andrew Miles--Centre for Research of Socio-Cultural Change, University of Manchester, Niamh Moore--Centre for Research of Socio-Cultural Change, University of Manchester, Rita Newton--SURFACE Inclusive Design Research Centre, University of Salford, Dong Ngoduy--Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, Marcus Ormerod--SURFACE Inclusive Design Research Centre, University of Salford, Maria O’Sullivan--SURFACE Inclusive Design Research Centre, University of Salford, David Watling-- Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds “Visions for a walking and cycling focussed urban transport system” Journal of Transport Geography 19 (2011) 1580–1589 Internationally, the United States and Canada have even lower levels of cycling, with approximately 1% and 2% of urban trips being made by bicycle in these countries respectively. In contrast, much higher levels of cycling are apparent in some parts of Northern Europe, with 28% of urban trips in the Netherlands made by bicycle (Pucher and Dijkstra, 2000), perhaps partly as a result of provision of high quality facilities and recent initiatives to promote policies such as bike and ride (Martens, 2006). Bassett et al. (2008) compared walking and cycling trips between various countries – around a quarter of trips in the UK are by walk or cycle, compared to just over 30% in Denmark, Finland, Germany and Sweden and close to 50% in the Netherlands. In many European cities, walking and cycling account for over 50% of all trips, and most recently in the UK the Sustainable Travel Demonstration Towns (DfT, 2007b) have already recorded substantial increases in walking and cycling. However, formidable obstacles to walking remain such as low density sprawl generating long trip distances, narrow or non-existent footways, inadequate crossing facilities and the growth of motorised traffic. Inherency AT: Equity is improving nowStudies prove that current policies tend to increase the rich-poor transportation gap even if overall access levels to transportation are improvedMartens et al, 2012, [Karel Martens, Institute for Management Research, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlans; Aaron Golub, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning and School of Sustainability, Arizona State U; Glenn Robinson, School of Engineering and Institute for Urban Research, Morgan State University, “A justice-theoretic approach to the distribution of transportation benefits: Implications for transportation planning practice in the United States,” Transportation Research A 46 (2012), 684-695 When the state of practice is compared to the maximax approach, the following pictures ensue (Fig. 2). On the left side of the figure, the conventional practice produces rising access for the most mobile, with a rising average, but with a likely growing gap between those with the highest and the lowest level of access. Those least mobile would likely experience declining access as land uses may reorganize around the changing mobility patterns (e.g. spatial mismatch problem). On the right, the maximax approach shows how more investments benefiting low-access populations would help them ‘‘catch up’’ to some extent with the most mobile, closing the difference up until the predefined maximal acceptable gap, similarly raising the average access levels for everyone, while possibly also benefiting those with the most access. Inherency: Current Planning Fails
Martens, Karel, 2006. Radboud University Nijemegan, “Basing Transport Planning on Principles of Justice,” Berkeley Planning Journal, 19 (1), 1-15, 2006 http://escholarship.org/uc/item/0tg6v7tn A further analysis of the four-step model augments this argument. From a social justice perspective, the first step of the model is of key importance. In this step, the number of trips per household is predicted for some year in the future. Generally, households are distinguished according to a number of characteristics, the most important of which are household size, car ownership level, and household income. Then, for each household type, the average number of trips is calculated using large-scale travel data. These average trip rates, in turn, are used to forecast future trip generation levels at the level of transport activity zones. Table 1 presents a typical example of the trip rates used in transport modeling. The table shows, for instance, that a one-person household with a car is predicted to make more than seven times as many trips per day as a one-person household without a car. These differences in trip generation rates translate into the results of the transport model and, ultimately, into suggestions for major transport capacity improvements. By ignoring the fact that current travel patterns are a reflection of the way in which transport resources have been distributed in the past, transport models thus create an inherent feedback loop. The models use the high trip rates among car owners in the present to predict high trip rates among car owners in the future. These predictions favor policies that cater to this growth through improved services for car owners (e.g., road building or investment in costly rapid rail). These improved services, in turn, result in higher trip rates among car owners and the circle begins again, as shown in Figure 3. This analysis can be translated into social justice terms. The fact that current approaches to transport modeling aim to forecast future travel demand suggests an implicit assumption that demand constitutes the just principle upon which to distribute new transport facilities. After all, the forecast of future travel demand is the basis for generating policy recommendations about future investments in transport infrastructure. While traditional transportation planning has thus focused on the overall performance of the transport network, a social justice approach would focus on the distribution of transport investments over population groups and the related performance of the network for each of these groups. Since the criterion of demand encompasses current wants backed by a willingness and an ability to pay (Hay and Trinder 1991), the future distribution of a good based on this criterion will essentially reflect the current distribution of income in society. Transport modeling based on demand will thus tend to recommend transport improvements that serve the rich rather than the poor. Inherency: Current Planning Fails
Martens et al, 2012, [Karel Martens, Institute for Management Research, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlans; Aaron Golub, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning and School of Sustainability, Arizona State U; Glenn Robinson, School of Engineering and Institute for Urban Research, Morgan State University, “A justice-theoretic approach to the distribution of transportation benefits: Implications for transportation planning practice in the United States,” Transportation Research A 46 (2012), 684-695 Historical processes of urban segregation and social containment resulting from job, housing and lending discrimination left many low-income and minority residents concentrated in central cities (e.g., Bayor, 1988; Mohl, 1993; White, 1982). The barriers posed by the costs of automobile ownership in combination with public transportation systems ill-equipped to service center-city to suburban trips, resulted in a well-documented spatial mismatch (Ihlanfeldt and Sjoquist, 1998), sometimes called ‘‘automobile mismatch’’ (Ong and Blumenberg, 1998). These populations, who are relatively less mobile and will pose fewer demands on the road network, will benefit less from road investments than the most mobile. In effect, the gap between the least and most mobile is likely to grow under a mainstream transport planning process focused on congestion mitigation (Martens and Hurvitz, 2011). This distributional ethic is hardly ever discussed explicitly.
Martens et al, 2012, [Karel Martens, Institute for Management Research, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlans; Aaron Golub, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning and School of Sustainability, Arizona State U; Glenn Robinson, School of Engineering and Institute for Urban Research, Morgan State University, “A justice-theoretic approach to the distribution of transportation benefits: Implications for transportation planning practice in the United States,” Transportation Research A 46 (2012), 684-695 The other logic for transit investments is to use higher performance systems to address regional congestion issues. Services, such as express bus, regional rail and commuter rail systems, are developed for commuters and higher income populations for peak-hour, mostly work trip, accessibility needs. Here, access levels by car and public transport are somewhat related to each other: when the access level of the most mobile is threatened (due to congestion, etc.), the access level of the least mobile (those without a car) may be improved by the new transit investments. Sometimes, however, the transit investments made to serve the most mobile hardly benefit the least mobile (Mann, 2004). This bifurcation in public transport planning can lead to tensions when funding gets shuffled between services for low income groups and for commuters (Mann, 2004), but in most places, this dual system survives because of the overarching goals of both minimal welfare for the poor and car-less, and regional congestion and air quality management. The main conclusion from practice is that the distribution of access benefits between places and between modes is not considered explicitly, but results from an ad hoc system of improvements (or sometimes downgrading) which tend to favor, over time, improving services for the most mobile. While average access levels grow, so does the gap in access levels between the most and least mobile (Fig. 2). Inherency: Current Planning Fails
Martens, Karel, 2006. Radboud University Nijemegan, “Basing Transport Planning on Principles of Justice,” Berkeley Planning Journal, 19 (1), 1-15, 2006 http://escholarship.org/uc/item/0tg6v7tn This emphasis on the environmental impacts of the transport sector contrasts sharply with the still limited consideration for the social justice dimension of sustainable transport. The recent literature on justice and transport is largely disconnected from the sustainability discourse, and the number of policy initiatives that address the gaps in mobility and accessibility between population groups has been limited. Much of the literature deals with issues like accessibility poverty (Higgs and White 1997; Denmark 1998; Blumenberg 2002) and transport exclusion (Church et al. 2000; Hine and Grieco 2003), without exploring the broader implications for a comprehensive transport policy that integrates all three dimensions of sustainable development. Most policy initiatives, in turn, do not insert equity considerations into mainstream transport policy, but merely add auxiliary instruments to address the special needs of weak population groups. Such “stop-gap” policies include the U.S. Welfare toWork program (Blumenberg 2004), and the recent U.K. experiments with accessibility planning (Lucas 2006). This narrow perspective is reflected in the development of two key tools of transport planning: transport modeling and cost-benefit analysis. Over the past two decades, both tools have been adapted so as to better address the environmental impacts of the transport sector. In contrast, the implications of the social justice component of sustainability for transport modeling and cost-benefit analysis have hardly been explored. This article aims to begin filling that void. It provides a critical analysis of both transport modeling and cost-benefit analysis from the perspective of social justice. Social justice is understood here as the morally proper distribution of goods and bads across members of society (Elster 1992; Miller 1999a). Although both transport modeling and cost-benefit analysis implicitly help determine the distribution of transport-related goods and bads, there has hardly been any explicit reflection on the distributional mechanisms that are currently built into both planning tools. The aim of this paper is to critically discuss these main distributional mechanisms and suggest possible alternatives. These alternatives, apart from promoting equity in the field of transport, are also expected to strengthen the trend towards a more sustainable transport system. Directory: wp-content -> uploads -> 2012 2012 -> The Case Against the nypd’s Quota-Driven ‘Broken Windows’ Policing What Is It? 2012 -> Aa and na members Dying from Tobacco 2012 -> [Baby Crying] 01: 04 [Ching 2012 -> Unit Name / Nom de l’unité uic / ciu dates 2012 -> What We Owe Jehovah’s Witnesses 2012 -> Oceans Challenge Badge 2012 -> Canadian cycling olympians 2012 -> Greg landry, june olkowski and tom lysiak 2012 -> William goldman 2012 -> Does translocation and restocking confer any benefit to the European eel population? A review Download 0.65 Mb. Share with your friends:
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