High Speed Rail Affirmative 1ac – Energy Module (1/4)
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- A/T: Budget DA
A/T: No RidershipPublic Transit ridership is on the rise. Americans want more transit services. 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] In its FY 2009 Annual Report, BART stated: “NEW RIDERSHIP RECORD SET—As gas prices skyrocketed, more and more drivers left their cars at home and rode BART instead. Throughout the summer, ridership exceeded projections and reached a peak on Monday, September 9 when BART set a new single-day ridership record: 405,400 riders used BART to commute to work, watch the Giants in San Francisco, or cheer the Raiders in Oakland. This record smashed FY 2008’s record set on June 19, 2008, when 394,370 customers rode BART on the single Spare the Air/Free Transit day of the summer.” On July 15, 2003, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) issued a press release noting: “Metrorail ridership soars to highest level in 27 years. Metrobus reaches second highest total ever—WMATA Chief Executive Officer Richard A. White announced today that during fiscal year 2003 (July 1, 2002, through June 30, 2003), Metrorail achieved its highest ridership total in its 27-year history, carrying 184,364,325 customer trips, a 2.1 percent increase, or nearly four million more customers than in fiscal year 2002. This marks the seventh consecutive year of increased ridership for Metrorail. ‘Despite a continued sluggish economy, I am pleased to report that we achieved record ridership levels for Metrorail and Metrobus,’ said Mr. White. ‘Our rail ridership continues to climb, as we are seeing an increase at a two percent level.’” In its January 2011 Vital Signs Report, WMATA stated there were 217,219,000 Metrorail riders, 123,847,000 Metrobus riders, and 2,377,000 Metro Access riders on the system in 2010. Across the United States, the American Public Transportation Association reported in its fourth quarter “2010 Public Transportation Ridership Report” that there were 10.18 billion unlinked transit passenger trips in 2010 compared to nearly 10.26 billion in 2009, a slight decrease of 0.74 percent (possibly due to economic and weather conditions). For its part, Amtrak, in its 2009 Annual Report, noted that demand for passenger rail was strong. During FY 2009, Amtrak carried 27.2 million passengers—the second highest total in company history. While ridership in FY 2009 was down from the all-time record of 28.7 million in FY 2008, it was up 5 percent over FY 2007, continuing a long-term trend of rising ridership since FY 2002 when 21.6 million passengers rode Amtrak. On this basis, it’s pretty hard to argue with any credibility that the American public does not want, nor will they use public transportation. Judging from the latest statistics from the Texas Transportation Institute, Americans would like nothing more than to have transportation services available that will allow them to reclaim some of those 6 billion hours a year lost in highway and roadway congestion. [12-13] A/T: Budget DAThe federal government doesn’t have to provide all funding upfront – financing instruments spur investor confidence and public-private partnerships Todorovich, Schned and Lane 2011 (Petra – director of America 2050, Daniel – associate planner for America 2050, and Robert, High-Speed Rail: International Lessons for U.S. Policy Makers, Policy Focus Report, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, p. 49) Leveraging public investment: Leveraging public investment with private capital, either through the use of federal financing tools or availability payments, can help pay for high-speed rail’s large upfront costs. These mechanisms make large projects feasible without the need for the government to provide 100 percent public funding in advance. Federal financing tools include quali-fied tax credit bonds such as Build America Bonds, which can draw a wide variety of investors to contribute to transportation projects. Availability payments allow teams of construction and finance firms to begin construction of infrastructure projects through their own debt and equity. They later receive reimbursements from the government as particular milestones are reached. Turn: Plan trades off with highway pork barrel spending, which their evidence ignores Reutter 10 — Mark Reutter, Fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, former reporter for the Baltimore Sun, 2010 ("The Strange Logic of Samuelson’s High-Speed Rail Critique," Progressive Policy Institute, November 7th, Available Online at http://progressivepolicy.org/the-strange-logic-of-samuelson%E2%80%99s-high-speed-rail-critique, Accessed 06-10-2012) What’s remarkable (though not surprising, if one reads Cato’s Randal O’Toole and other rail critics) is Samuelson’s utter blindness to the fact that highways and airports require massive government “pork” to build and maintain. They don’t pay for themselves through fuel or ticket taxes, as their backers like to assert. A Texas Department of Transportation study found that a new section of highway in Houston would generate only 16 percent of its total lifecycle cost from gas taxes. Texas DOT estimated a gas tax of $2.22 per gallon – nearly six times the present state and federal tax of 38.4 cents – reflected the actual cost of building and maintaining the highway. Constructing 800 miles of high-speed rail in California is liable to cost more than $40 billion. Constructing and operating all 13 corridors proposed by the Obama administration could easily approach $200 billion. But these dramatic headline figures need context. The current transportation act allots $300 billion to highways – not for new construction since the interstate system is completed, but just for maintenance and rebuilding.
In portraying himself as a hard-nosed realist free of the “fashionable make-believe” of rail advocates, Samuelson would do well to explain how he’d fix congestion, advance mobility, lessen pollution, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil by jettisoning an infrastructure program that directly addresses these issues. We control uniqueness on the economy. Lack of infrastructure commits the U.S. to terminal economic decline absent HSR infrastructure. Fiscal policy is irrelevant in a productivity crisis, that’s Florida ‘10. Prefer our evidence–it assumes their warrants. Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 0.59 Mb. Share with your friends:
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