West coast debate
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- High speed rail grants already exist – many trains being built now and globally.
- California is pushing ahead – despite lack of fed backing and despite the economy.
- AT: Solvency – Frontline
- Be skeptical of their studies – they suffer from optimism bias.
Light Rail NegAT: Inherency – FrontlineMassive funding for rail now – includes mass alternative energy investments – should have solved the environmental benefits of the aff already.House Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Investigation and Oversight Hearing :"Impact of Tax Policies on the Commercial Application of Renewable Energy Technology."[9]. (2012, April). Congressional Documents and Publications. http://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/hearings/HHRG-112-SY21-WState-MThorning-20120419.pdf In recent decades, legislation has been enacted at the federal, state and local level to promote the development and deployment of renewable energy, greater fuel economy for transportation vehicles, alternative vehicles and high speed rail. n7 For example, the Energy Policy Act of 1992 initiated the renewable energy production tax credit (PTC), an inflation-adjusted tax credit for electricity produced from qualifying renewable energy sources or technologies. As mentioned above, the Recovery Act extended and amended the PTC and provided additional options including energy investment tax credits and grants. Most states and some localities have also have also enacted renewable portfolio standards or goals and have provided subsidies including grants, rebates and tax credits for the installation of renewable energy. In the mid 1975's, in response to the Arab oil embargo, Congress enacted Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards to improve the average fuel economy of light cars and trucks. In 2011, new CAFE standards for cars and trucks were set to further improve fuel economy. n8 There has also been substantial government support for alternative fuel vehicles, including hydrogen and electric powered vehicles as well as for biofuel in recent years. n9 High speed rail grants already exist – many trains being built now and globally.Michael Grunwald, Staff Writer for TIME, “No high speed rail funds for two states that don’t want it”, 12-9-2010, Time US, http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2036197,00.html Obama launched the national high-speed rail program with $8 billion in his stimulus bill, plus another $2.5 billion in last year's budget. The idea is to upgrade America's woeful passenger rail network with sleek new bullet trains — starting with a line between Tampa and Orlando and another between San Francisco and Los Angeles — as well as faster Amtrak service on existing lines. Trains topping 200 miles per hour are common in Europe and Asia, and are now under construction in countries like Brazil and Saudi Arabia. (See photos of China's high-speed rail.) California is pushing ahead – despite lack of fed backing and despite the economy.Spencer Michels, PBS, “California Grapples with High-Speed Rail Debate”, 3-1-2012, Transportation Publication, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/03/high-speed-rail-battle-in-california.html California voters decided in 2008 to go for high-speed rail, passing a $9 billion bond issue to pay for the beginnings of a system that would connect San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento with trains that would speed along at 220 miles an hour. The estimated cost of this system started out around $33 billion, but skyrocketed to somewhere near $100 billion today -- a figure the governor says he can reduce. The plan was to start laying rail in the rural Central Valley, and eventually connect the big cities. But times have changed for the worse. The price tag and the economy -- plus plans to start in the center of the state rather than in the cities -- have soured many Californians on the whole project. A recent Field Poll shows that two-thirds of voters would like another chance to vote, and most of them would vote against it. Still, Governor Brown is pushing ahead, confident that private enterprise will supply most of the money for the train, together with $3.5 billion the federal government has put up under the stimulus package. He says he's aware that there are those who want to "shrink back from such a strenuous undertaking." But, he continues, "If you believe that California will continue to grow, as I do, and that millions more people will be living in our state, this is a wise investment." AT: Solvency – FrontlineNobody will ride the rain – Ridership claims are overstated to a tune of 100%.Randal O’Toole. Fellow @ CATO. June 2010. “High Speed Rail.” CATO Institute. http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/transportation/high-speed-rail. Costs and Ridership. Proponents of high-speed rail projects tend to overstate their benefits and understate their costs. Danish planning professor Bent Flyvbjerg has studied hundreds of government megaprojects, and he argues that project supporters suffer from "optimism bias" regarding the merits of projects, and that they often "strategically misrepresent" project details in order to gain support. No high-speed rail line has been built from scratch in the United States. But historically, urban passenger rail projects have, on average, gone 40 percent over their projected costs. At the same time, U.S. passenger rail planners typically overestimate ridership by an average of about 100 percent. California's high-speed rail authority is projecting that the San Francisco to Los Angeles line will be carrying two to three times more passengers by 2020 than Amtrak's entire Boston to Washington corridor currently carries. A Reason Foundation review of the state rail authority's plan called the ridership projections "the most unrealistic projections produced for a major transport project anywhere in the world." A report on the California project from the state's Senate Transportation Committee pointed to many major risks of the project, including inaccurate forecasting, uncertainly regarding rights-of-way, and substantial safety issues. Unlike running a bus system or even an airline, building a rail line requires accurate long-range forecasting. Planning and construction can take many years, and the service life of rail lines is measured in decades. A seemingly minor forecasting error—or a deliberately optimistic estimate—can turn what appears to be a sound investment into an expensive white elephant. Be skeptical of their studies – they suffer from optimism bias.Elizabeth Deakin. Prof of City and Regional Planning @ UC Berkeley. December 2010. “Environmental and Other Co-Benefits of Developing a High Speed Rail System in California: A Prospective Vision for 2010-2050.” UCB Center for Environmental Public Policy. http://gspp.berkeley.edu/programs/highspeedrail/HSR10_Deakin.pdf. More generally, many analysts have characterized the California HSR project as a "megaproject" - one whose complexity, time frame, large size, and huge cost lead to risks of optimism bias (overconfidence, unduly favorable interpretations of evidence) and strategic misrepresentation (strategic misrepresentation, or lying) (Pickrell, 1992, Flybjerg et al, 2003, Altshuler and Luberoff, 2003.) The increases in costs over time have been one source of concern, but an even bigger source of concern appears to be the major increases in forecast ridership between 2000 and 2007. Forecasts prepared by Charles River Associates in 2007 estimated that the "investment grade" ridership would be about 37.9 million riders a year in 2020; their sensitivity analysis suggested a high ridership of up to 69.1 million riders annually. Forecast prepared seven years later by Cambridge Systematics for 2030 projected a much higher 65.5 million riders in the " base case" and up to 96.5 million riders for the high estimate. CHSRA has cited ridership figures even higher than this latter high estimate and apparently has calculated environmental benefits on the basis of the high estimate. (www.highspeedrail.ca.gov). Reviewers have questioned the methods used in the latter studies, although the consultants and agency dispute the criticisms (www.highspeedrail.ca.gov: Ridership_and_Revenue_Forecasting_Study.) Directory: file -> fetch fetch -> 11 th Lit Semester 1 Final Study Guide!!! fetch -> Industrial Revolution Inventors fetch -> Analysis for Galveston Hurricane of 1900 fetch -> The Illuminators (Team 2) 1900 Galveston Hurricane Cycle a team Assignment fetch -> Team csi-utb ruth Reyes Jose Ferrer fetch -> Galveston Hurricane of 1900 Cycle a-teacher as a Problem Solver fetch -> Is Climate Change Starting a New Dust Bowl? 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