High Speed Rail Affirmative 1ac – Energy Module (1/4)
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- A/T: Inequality
A/T: InequalityAT: Elitism – HSR is used by everyday people like students, professionals, workers, job seekers. Federal Commitment to HSR infrastructure is key to change the demographics of rail travel and to open new markets. Eric C. Peterson, January 2012 [Consultant for American Public Transportation Association, Peterson has held significant leadership roles on Capitol Hill, with national and regional transportation associations, and within the U.S. Department of Transportation where he was the first Deputy Administrator of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration. He currently serves as a Research Associate for the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University. “An Inventory of the Criticisms of High Speed Rail with Suggested Responses and Counterpoints,” http://www.apta.com/resources/reportsandpublications/Documents/HSR-Defense.pdf] On Maryland Public Radio on February 11, 2011, Marc Kilmer of the Maryland Public Policy Institute joined the nay-sayers proclaiming: “The main users of passenger rail service are “downtown workers” such as lawyers, bankers, and government officials—less than 8 percent of American jobs. Meaning that all Americans will subsidize trains used by only a small urban elite.” This is a baseless wedge argument intended to promote a wealthy vs. the rest of us divide on high-speed rail. In a speech in Philadelphia on December 1, 2001, Chicago lawyer and Amtrak Reform Council member James Coston gave the perfect rejoinder to this criticism: “When I hear critics say, ‘Well, the federal government may have a role in financing improvements for high-speed trains that carry business travelers in urban corridors, but it has no business promoting long-distance leisure travel for a tiny minority of well heeled tourists,’I have to ask, ‘Oh, really? Then why do the Army Engineers use taxpayer funds to build breakwaters and to dredge channels for cruise ships that dock at Miami and Ft. Lauderdale and Palm Beach and New Orleans, and why does the U.S. Coast Guard protect those harbors, and why does Customs & Immigration Service have an army of inspectors at every pier?’ And anyway, who says long-distance train travel consists only of so-called leisure travel? The pace may be leisurely compared with air travel, but when I spent my days putting people on the Zephyr and the Empire Builder and the City of New Orleans at Chicago Union Station, they didn’t look much like cruise ship passengers to me. The people I put on those trains were college students traveling between home and school; people visiting their families; people relocating to new jobs or checking out an out-of-town job opportunity, professional groups heading to a conference; foreign visitors who wanted to see the U.S. close up and meet Americans en route; and retirees—most of them not particularly wealthy—who wanted a relaxing and informative travel experience. I think those are activities worthy of federal infrastructure support. They already get federal infrastructure support when they’re carried out on the highway, airway, and waterway systems. Why not on rail as well? And you know what? If a so-called tiny minority of well heeled tourists wants to ride a passenger train, I say, ‘Welcome aboard!’ Cruise ship travel started out as an upper-class fringe phenomenon in the 1960s, but thanks to the billions of dollars the federal government handed out to local communities to improve their deepwater ports, the cost of cruise ship travel came down, new entrepreneurs entered the business, and what was formerly considered a luxury for a slender stratum of super- rich individuals has now turned into a virtual entitlement for middle-class America. I can’t prove it, but I strongly suspect that a firm federal commitment to rail infrastructure also will change the demographics of rail travel—creating new markets; opening up new travel and leisure choices for millions of Americans who today know nothing of rail travel; attracting train-riding overseas visitors who find our current mobility options puzzling and inconvenient; and opening up new entrepreneurial opportunities that the bureaucratic mind with its picking-winners-and-losers mentality simply is not configured to imagine. ” [9-10] A/T: InequalityHSR benefits senior citizens and the disabled. And rural people. Eric C. Peterson, January 2012 [Consultant for American Public Transportation Association, Peterson has held significant leadership roles on Capitol Hill, with national and regional transportation associations, and within the U.S. Department of Transportation where he was the first Deputy Administrator of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration. He currently serves as a Research Associate for the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University. “An Inventory of the Criticisms of High Speed Rail with Suggested Responses and Counterpoints,” http://www.apta.com/resources/reportsandpublications/Documents/HSR-Defense.pdf] One final note regarding the elitist preference for intercity passenger rail—a recently posted page on the Amtrak website titled “Long Distance Train Facts,” notes: “Long distance trains provide a vital transportation service for those unable to fly or drive, and for many senior citizens (who account for 38 percent of adult passengers) and disabled persons. Forty-two percent of passengers with disabilities who traveled on Amtrak in fiscal year 2010 rode long distance trains. They are often the only transportation mode still operating during severe winter weather conditions that ground planes and close highways. Long distance trains also play an important role in emergency situations: they accommodated thousands of stranded airline passengers after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Airline and bus service to rural areas has declined in recent years, making long distance trains an even more important travel mode for many rural communities. For example, Amtrak’s Empire Builder train route carried 533,000 passengers in fiscal year 2010 (roughly equivalent to 4,900 Boeing 737 flights), along a corridor with little to no bus or air service, no parallel interstate highway for much of the route, and extreme winter weather conditions that frequently close highways and airports. The train connects rural communities in North Dakota, Montana, and eastern Washington to larger urban centers with essential services (e.g. hospitals) such as Minneapolis, Spokane, Portland, Seattle, and Chicago.” This doesn’t sound like elitism. It sounds more like good old middle-American common sense value. 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