Transportation Equity Neg

Transportation Equity Neg	1

Transportation Equal for All	2

Transportation Equal for All	3

Transit Increase Solves Now	4

Transit Increase Solves Now	5

Public Transportation Doesn’t Increase Jobs	7

Public Transportation Doesn’t Increase Jobs	8

No Incentive to Use Public Transit	12

Private Transportation Solves Better	13

Link: Politics	19

Transportation Equal for All

Transportation creates opportunity for fair and equal travel

RTC 2010

(The Research and Training Center on Disability in Rural Communities (RTC:Rural) was established in 1988 as part of the Rural Institute at the University of Montana. RTC:Rural is funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research to improve the ability of persons with disabilities to live independently in rural America. “Talking Transit” 2010 http://www.metroplanning.org/news-events/newsletters/149 )

We all need transportation-- to work or school, to shop, to visit friends and family, to go to church or keep an appointment -- whether we live in the city, country or small town. Ideal transportation is reliable, convenient, safe, affordable, and physically-accessible. Of the 91 million people living in areas eligible for Section 5311 non-urbanized transportation services, more than a third are classified as transportation dependent because they have no personal transportation. Rural residents make up 27 % of the U.S. population. However in 1996, only 5.5 % of Federal transportation funds were allocated to serve them (Status Report on Public Transportation in Rural America). Rural sidewalks and streets may not be paved, taxis are rare and expensive, and there are few full-size buses, commuter trains or subways. Where there is public transportation for people with disabilities, it is usually provided by vans (53%) or small buses (21%) that have restricted operating times and destinations. Half of these vehicles are past their life expectancies and 60% aren't wheelchair-accessible. Per capita, rural people own more private vehicles than urban people, but more than half of poor rural families don't own one--one out of thirteen rural households. What is the rural person who doesn't drive or who can't afford a car to do? For 41 % of rural residents, there's NO public transportation available at all. Another 25 % live in areas where public transportation is extremely inadequate, providing fewer than 25 trips per year for each household without a personal vehicle. Lack of transportation is one of the most frequently cited problems facing people with disabilities living in rural areas. Urban residents make up 73 % of U.S. population. In 1996, however, 94.5 % of Federal transportation funds were allocated to serve them. Daily, even people with disabilities choose from an array of transportation options: walking or wheeling on paved sidewalks, hiring taxis, or using accessible public buses, commuter trains, or subways. One out of six households in large urban areas doesn't own a car, but the availability of public transportation makes a personal vehicle unnecessary. Urban public transportation provides 955 trips annually for each household without a personal vehicle.

Transportation Equal for All

Transportation is created equal for all

Targeted News Service Jun 1, 2011

(Ray LaHood, Secretary of the Department of Transportation Jun1st, 2011.)

The White House issued the following blog by Ray LaHood, Secretary of the Department of Transportation: Transportation is about a lot more than just getting around. Our roadways, runways, and railways connect people with all of the things that make life worth living: family, education, job opportunities, and recreation. That's why we here at DOT--and the entire Obama Administration--are laser-focused on improving access to transportation for all Americans. Last week, I joined the White House monthly disability call with the Special Assistant to President Obama on Disability Policy, Kareem Dale, to discuss with hundreds of stakeholders everything we're doing at DOT to improve transportation access for people with disabilities. In the twenty years since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, there's no doubt we've made significant strides forward. But we won't rest until everyone has equal access to all forms of transportation. In the last year, DOT announced the first federal rule to specifically provide ADA protections to people with disabilities who travel on boats and ships. And we're finalizing a regulation to improve accessibility at rail stations so that people with disabilities can get on the same rail cars that everyone else uses. We're also committed to improving the flying experience for people with disabilities. We've proposed new rules that would: Require airports to provide lifts for boarding and disembarking passengers. Make it easier for people to fly with service animals; and .Improve access to airline websites, check-in kiosks, in-flight entertainment centers, audio-visual displays, medical oxygen, and airplane bathrooms. And as we prepare to mark the 25th anniversary of the Air Carrier Access Act this year, we're stepping up enforcement efforts to make sure airlines respect the rights of air travelers with disabilities. In the last year, our Aviation Enforcement Office assessed civil penalties ranging from $125,000 to $2 million against a number of U.S. carriers. Access to transportation is one of the most fundamental of American rights. I'm proud of the progress we've made, but remain committed to achieving even more so that all Americans have the same opportunities for living, learning, and earning.

Transit Increase Solves Now

Increased use in transit shows equality in the system

Meggison in 2012

(Andrew Meggison earned a Bachelor's Degree in Government and International Relations from Clark University and a Master's Degree in Political Science from Northeastern University. Public Transit Use In America Reaches All-Time Highs

March 19, 2012 http://gas2.org/2012/03/19/public-transit-use-in-america-reaches-all-time-highs/

America’s public transportation ridership is at a height not seen in decades. 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. We know that an increase in gas prices has caused American’s to seek alternative forms of transportation. But, an increase in mass transposition use is also an indicator of the struggling American economy seeing an upturn. As people get back to work in America’s cities they take the buses and subways, thus ridership increases. Additionally, public transportation is not free, so an increase in ridership could signal that American’s are spending again and could be a sign of renewed American tourism, an industry that has struggled through the recession. Around 5% of the American population commutes everyday using public transport according to the Census Department. America’s public transit ridership hit its peak in the 1940s, took a dip in the 1950s due families moving to the suburbs, and saw a rebound in the 1970s when gas prices spiked. In 2011, America’s public transit ridership was at its second highest level since 1957. Taking advantage, and aiding in public transportation use, is modern technology. It seems that everyone has a smart phone these days, and app companies are cashing in not only on the app market but on the increased in use of public transit. There are currently hundreds of apps that map out bus routes, subway station, and some even show you where your bus or subway currently is and when it will arrive. Not all Americans have access to public transportation – and not all public transportation is created equal. But for those American who do, public transportation can be a cost effective and green way to get where you need to go.

Transit Increase Solves Now

Our transport systems are fine now and extremely beneficial

Kurtzleben in 2011

(USNews Online. Data Reporter from George Washington University.)

An effective public transportation system can simply increase the quality of life in a city. By transporting people to work, school, local attractions, and healthcare facilities, public transit can reach into nearly every area of city life, from public health to tourism. Statistics show that public transit has experienced rapid growth, providing economic benefits to individuals and municipalities alike.

Public transit systems have become a part of daily life in many U.S. cities; the number of public transportation systems in the United States has increased more than sevenfold in the last 30 years, from 1,044 in 1980 to 7,700 in 2009. According to the American Public Transportation Association, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for public transit improvement, that increase in transit has spurred an increase in economic activity. The association estimates that for every one dollar invested in public transportation, four dollars are generated in economic returns. APTA also reported in January that in major urban areas, individuals on average save $9,656 annually by using public transportation instead of driving.

Analysis of data from the Federal Transit Administration and APTA shows which cities are among the best in the country for public transportation. All of these cities' systems have unique features that set them apart. Portland's public transit provides riders with a variety of travel options, including buses, light rail, commuter rail, streetcars, and an aerial tram. New York is unique simply by virtue of high ridership: in 2008, 4.2 billion trips were taken on New York metro area subway lines, buses, and railroads, six times the number of trips taken in Los Angeles, the No. 3 city. Portland features fare-free transit routes in its downtown areas. And the Salt Lake City area's Utah Transit Authority runs ski transit lines in the winter, in addition to its usual rail and bus services, and also features wireless Internet on its buses.

Additionally, many of the top cities for public transportation are improving their already high-quality systems. The FTA in January approved a 20-mile elevated electric passenger rail system to connect Honolulu with its suburban areas.

According to a U.S. News analysis, the 10 U.S. cities with the best combination of public transportation investment, ridership, and safety are:

1. Denver-Aurora, Colo.

2. New York-Newark, N.Y.-N.J.-Conn.

3. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, Calif.

4. Boston, Mass.-N.H.-R.I.

5. Portland, Ore.

6. (tie) San Jose, Calif.

6. (tie) Salt Lake City, Utah

8. San Diego, Calif.

9. Seattle, Wash.

10. Honolulu, Hawaii

Transit Increase Solves Now

US ranked higher in the Top 5 mass transport systems in the world, above France and other HSR’s

Jorge Chapa 07

(Jorge Chapa, Degree in Architecture from University of Monterrey, 2007)

2. New York, United States

Remarkable for having the largest subway system in the world track wise, transportation in NYC is a combination of ferries, buses, trains, subways and pedestrian and bicycle pathways. It is the only city in the United Stated in which more people use public transportation that private transportation, and the only locality where more than half of the population has no cars. If you can make it here in New York, you probably made it through public transportation. Now unlike London, and most of the public transport systems in the world, you can travel at any time that you want in NYC, even after midnight. Unfortunately, unlike London as well, NYC subway stations are dirty, generally unkept, could use some serious maintenance and work. You also have to guess as to whether or not the train that you are getting is the one that you want, as there is no indication of when the next train will be coming next. And if you get on it, do hope that it doesn’t change course.

Public Transportation Doesn’t Increase Jobs

Public Transportation Doesn’t Establish Higher Levels of Employment

Sanchez et al in 2004

(Sanchez, Thomas W.; Shen, Qing; Peng, Zhong-Ren ’04 (“Transit Mobility, Jobs Access and Low-income Labour Participation in US Metropolitan Areas” Urban Stud 2004 41: 1313; DOI: 10.1080/0042098042000214815; Urban Studies, Vol. 41, No. 7, 1313–1331, June 2004 Blumenberg, E. (2002) On the way to work: welfare participants and barriers to employment, Economic Development Quarterly, 16(4), pp.314-325)

The isolation of inner-city and underemployed persons from suburban employment opportunities was identiﬁed many years ago as the ‘ghetto transport’ or ‘poverty transport’ problem (Kain and Meyer, 1970). From the transport perspective, the reverse commute represented a signiﬁcant challenge for these persons because many did not own automobiles and because transit service did a poor job of serving these types of trip (Crain, 1970). To address what was perceived as a transport problem, the Urban Mass Transport Administration (UMTA), which was established by the Urban Mass Transport Act of 1964, awarded grants for transit system development activities. In terms of public transport impacts, some studies have mentioned that, while current patterns of urban development produce spatial disadvantages for low-income workers, public transport represents a means to overcome employment accessibility and mobility problems. Others, however, dismiss public transport, compared with autos, as a viable link between urban residents and employment locations. Studies in Dade County, Florida, and Alameda County, California, found little or no relationship between public transport access to employment locations and employment participation (see Thompson, 1997; Cervero et al., 2002). On the other hand, a study examining Atlanta, Georgia, and Portland, Oregon, found that access to bus transit had positive employment effects in both cities (Sanchez, 1999a). For Los Angeles, Kawabata (2002b) found that improved accessibility, whether through auto or transit, had a positive effect on employment. Ong and Houston (2002) also found that single women on public assistance who did not have autos beneﬁted from transit access. These women were more likely to be employed compared with those with lower levels of transit access. Other more recent research has discussed transport immobility as one of several barriers to employment encountered by welfare recipients (Blumenberg, 2002; Danziger, et al., 2000). Still other studies have simply ignored public transport as a meaningful work trip mode and have excluded it from employment accessibility estimates (see Gordon et al., 1989). Other recent research has focused speciﬁcally on the characteristics of persons leaving federal and state cash assistance programs. Such studies have tried to isolate the particular factors that inﬂuence transitions from welfare to work, including job training, education, child care needs, housing and assistance program performance (Loprest, 1999; Pearlmutter et al., 1999; Loprest and Zedlewski, 1999; Schumacher and Greenberg, 1999). The majority of this research relied on survey data from recipients and/or administrative records and, despite transport mobility being cited as an obstacle to employment, none of these studies explicitly accounts for transport or employment accessibility. An exception is an analysis by Pearlmutter et al. (1999), who considered possession of a driver’s licence as a proxy for transport mobility. They found that possessing a driver’s licence was positively associated with the use of childcare subsidies by AFDC recipients in Ohio. Eleven other studies (surveys) in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, Ohio, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Washington and Washington, DC, reviewed by Isaacs (1999) did not include transport mobility or employment access measures. These examples highlight a signiﬁcant dearth of evidence about transport mobility and labour participation for low-income persons.

Public Transportation Doesn’t Increase Jobs

Number Of Layoffs is down, along with Unemployment

Rugaber 12

(Christopher Rugaber, AP Economics Writer, 6/28/12, Boston.com, US UNEMPLOYMENT AID APPLICATIONS FALL TO 386,000, http://articles.boston.com/2012-06-28/news/32459564_1_applications-rise-unemployment-benefits-unemployment-rate, acc 6/29/12, rsb)

The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment benefits fell last week, but the level of applications remains too high to signal a pickup in hiring. The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications fell to a seasonally adjusted 386,000. That’s down from 392,000 the previous week, which was revised up. The four-week average, which smooths week-to-week fluctuations, was mostly unchanged at 386,750. Applications are a measure of the pace of layoffs. When applications rise above 375,000, it generally means that hiring isn’t strong enough to rapidly lower the unemployment rate. Applications fell steadily over the winter, and monthly job gains soared. But since then applications have edged up and hiring has slowed, raising concerns about the recovery. Employers added an average of only 73,000 jobs per month in April and May. That’s much lower than the average of 226,000 added in the first three months of this year. Other recent indicators have painted a mixed picture of the economy.

Public Transportation Doesn’t Increase Jobs

Jobs Exist and aren’t being filled

New York Times 12

(Darren Dahl, 6/27/12, New York Times, A SEA OF JOB-SEEKERS, BUT SOME COMPANIES AREN’T GETTING ANY BITES, Darren Dahl, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/business/smallbusiness/even-with-high-unemployment-some-small-businesses-struggle-to-fill-positions.html?pagewanted=all, acc 6/29/12, rsb)

After the latest, disappointing unemployment figures, policy makers and economists continue to debate how American companies might create more jobs. But business owners and recruiters say thousands of jobs around the country are sitting vacant, particularly at small and midsize companies. “Companies all over are having a difficult time recruiting the kind of people they’re looking for,” said Robert Funk, chairman and chief executive of Express Employment Professionals, a national staffing firm based in Oklahoma City that helped some 335,000 people land jobs last year. “We currently have 18,000 open job orders we can’t fill.” How can so many jobs remain unfilled with unemployment so high? One explanation is that many would-be workers lack the necessary skills to fill those positions. “There is higher demand for skilled jobs and less demand for unskilled positions than we’ve seen coming out of past recessions,” Mr. Funk said. Case in point: Gabriel Shaoolian, chief executive of Blue Fountain Media, a Web design and marketing company with 85 employees in New York, said he had 10 openings right now because his company could not find enough highly qualified people with technical backgrounds. “If you’re a professional developer, Web designer or online marketing specialist, you can pick the company you work for,” Mr. Shaoolian said. “There is a shortage where demand severely outstrips supply.” To fill those jobs, Mr. Shaoolian said his company had used online job boards like Monster.com and Craigslist over the last two years, but found the experience frustrating because most of the applicants were unqualified. “It was catastrophically bad,” Mr. Shaoolian said. He said the social networking site LinkedIn had brought better results, in part because candidates could be vetted more effectively based on their connections and past experience. Unable to find qualified candidates quickly enough domestically, Mr. Shaoolian has turned to hiring freelance contractors — many based outside the United States. “Greece may be struggling with their economy, but their developers are phenomenal and they are in high demand,” he said. But it’s not just software and information technology skills that seem to be in short supply. A recent ManpowerGroup survey ranked I.T. positions third, behind skilled trades and engineers, among the toughest positions to fill. Others in the top 10 included sales representatives, accounting and finance staff, drivers, mechanics, nurses, machine operators and teachers. Many of these jobs require skills an individual can acquire without investing in a four-year college degree. For example, Jeff Silver, chief executive of Coyote Logistics, a fast-growing provider of third-party logistics services — he calls it a trucking company without trucks — said that there were an estimated 300,000 open trucker jobs right now in the United States. “Driving a truck is not something anyone can do because you do need a license and to be able to pass a drug test,” said Mr. Silver, whose company is based in Chicago. He estimated that a typical trucker could earn $35,000 to $70,000 a year. “But it’s not a glamorous job.” The shortage of truckers is likely to get worse before it gets better, said Charles Hoag, a district manager for Copeland Trucking, which is based outside Minneapolis. That’s because there are not enough young people getting the driving experience they would need to replace aging drivers. “Finding and keeping good drivers is a constant struggle,” Mr. Hoag said, “I think it boils down to high expectations. Trucking is the classic blue-collar job that nobody wants anymore.” That challenge is magnified because insurance companies typically require drivers to have up to two years of experience driving a truck before they will cover them, Mr. Hoag said. While larger companies can afford to train drivers, Mr. Hoag said he relied on Craigslist and a Minneapolis recruiter to find them — but the recruiter, he said, “is struggling to find people, too.” Because he is almost always short one or two drivers, two of his 13 trucks almost always sit idle — and since the trucks are leased, they still cost $2,000 a month each. “The lack of qualified drivers is directly costing my business,” Mr. Hoag said. Drew Greenblatt is another owner who worries that the lack of skilled job candidates is damaging his business. “Over the past couple of years,

<CONTINUED>

<CONTINUED>

we invested in robots to help us win back jobs from China,” Mr. Greenblatt said. His company, Marlin Steel Wire Products, is based in Baltimore, where it manufactures high-quality sheet metal products for customers like Pfizer, Caterpillar and Toyota. “But our big problem is that we don’t have enough talent to run those machines at off hours, which means they sit dormant 70 hours a week when they could be working.” Mr. Greenblatt currently has five openings for machine operators, positions that don’t require college degrees but pay, on average, about $60,000. What candidates do need are skills like the ability to operate a computer, read a blueprint and use a caliper. “I mean these are the kind of good middle-class jobs this nation needs,” said Mr. Greenblatt, who has hired a temporary agency to try to help him find qualified workers. “But we’re hamstrung because we can’t get the people we need to come work for us. We’re in the middle of a recession and we have to hire someone to help us find talent. It’s so upside down.” While there has been an emphasis on the shortage of graduates with so-called STEM skills — science, technology, engineering and math — employers like Mr. Greenblatt also bemoan the lack of basic social skills among many job applicants. “My operators are in constant contact with our customers, so they need to be able to articulate through e-mail,” Mr. Greenblatt said. “But you’d be surprised at how many people can’t do that. I can’t have them e-mailing Boeing or Pfizer if their grammar is terrible.” Facing a lack of experienced candidates, some companies are willing to train employees to fill particular positions. But given the high cost of bringing on and training a new employee — and the risk of seeing that well-trained employee leave for another company — many businesses are putting candidates through longer and more thorough rounds of personality screening tests and interviews to try to ensure the candidate will fit into a company’s culture. And that means it can take longer to fill jobs than it did in the past. “I think there is more of an emphasis on recruiting for soft skills like social and relationship skills than ever,” said Jack Stack, chief executive of SRC Holdings in Springfield, Mo., whose company added some 600 hourly and salaried jobs in 2011 and expects to hire 400 more employees in 2012. “We can train someone for a particular technical skill but if you have an attitude problem, you can destroy a village.” Given SRC’s rapid hiring, Mr. Stack has asked Keith Boatright, SRC’s director of human resources, to introduce personality and character assessments into the hiring process while also expanding the company’s recruiting efforts beyond the Springfield area, especially for highly skilled positions like logistics experts or engineers familiar with natural gas power systems. “SRC has been kind of spoiled for a while because we never had to bang rocks together to get recruits,” said Mr. Boatright, who joined SRC two years ago. “Now for the first time we have had to challenge our H.R. team to have a sales mentality and to develop pipelines to get the right people, since it might take us interviewing 30 people before we find the one we want. The lack of qualified workers has become a definite threat to our growth strategy.”

Public Transit Links to Crimes

Public transit links to increased crime rates

John Semmens in 2006

(John Semmens, columnist. "How Public Transit Undermines Safety | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty." How Public Transit Undermines Safety | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty. N.p., Apr. 2006.. <http://www.thefreemanonline.org/features/how-public-transit-undermines-safety/>.)

Everyone knows that automobile travel is dangerous. This naturally leads to the assumption that public transit ought to be encouraged as a means of improving travel safety. However, the issue is more complex than this simple assumption allows. In some respects, introducing more transit vehicles into the mix of urban transportation options will increase the risk.Travel as a passenger on public transportation is safer than travel by private cars. The fatality risk for a person traveling in a car is almost 100 times higher than that for a person traveling in a bus (American Public Transportation Association’s Public Transportation Fact Book). Passengers traveling in rail-transit vehicles probably face a similarly low risk.However, the onboard risk is not the only safety issue of concern. Pedestrians face risks prior to boarding transit vehicles. Further, rail-transit vehicles operating on rights-of-way that intersect streets may collide with persons, vehicles, or objects that come into the path of the transit trains. Fatality rates by vehicle type (Table 1) were compiled from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Traffic Safety Facts 2000, the Federal Highway Administration’s Highway Statistics, and the American Public Transportation Association’s Public Transportation Fact Book. These statistics are revealing.As can be seen from the data, rail transit has severe safety deficiencies when compared to other modes of urban travel. The aggregate fatality rate for auto travel is around 15 persons per billion vehicle-miles of travel. However, this includes rural travel, where the fatality rate per billion vehicle-miles is 23. The nationwide fatality rate per billion vehicle-miles of urban automobile travel is 11, and when passengers are included, it drops to 10. Thus we find that light rail’s 14 fatalities per billion passenger-miles of travel and commuter rail’s 12 fatalities per billion passenger-miles of travel are actually higher than the rate for privately operated automobiles.Since rail transit has a worse safety record than automobiles, the notion that safety can be improved by spending tax dollars to lure some automobile users to switch to rail travel is not supported by the crash data. Auto drivers who support tax-subsidized rail on the assumption that their lives will be made better when others leave their cars to ride trains may want to reconsider their position. Light rail’s fatality rate of 359 per billion vehicle-miles of travel and commuter rail’s 391 per billion vehicle-miles of travel make rail trains extraordinarily dangerous to be near. Occupants of automobiles routinely get the worst of it in any collision with a train.Traffic crashes are not the only safety issue in public transportation. Crime is also a matter that must be considered in evaluating decisions to implement transit systems. Many cities have been or are seeking to add light-rail lines to their transit mix. One of the arguments used for replacing bus service with light-rail service is the perceived potential for light-rail stations to attract real-estate development. This may well be true, but it is not an unmixed blessing. Light rail also appears to attract an unusually high number of criminals.Of all the transit modes, light rail has the worst crime rate (Table 2). Light rail’s violent-crimes-against-persons rate (murder, rape, robbery, and assault) of 284 per billion passenger-miles is almost 50 percent higher than heavy rail (195) and three times higher than the rate for bus transit (97). Light rail’s crimes-against-property rate (larceny, theft, burglary, and arson) of 779 per billion passenger-miles is 20 percent higher than heavy rail (641) and five times higher than the rate for bus transit (144). Consequently, it looks as though a decision to replace buses with light rail is very likely a decision that will bring more crime to an area.There is nothing in the published literature that attempts to explain the higher crime rate for light rail. One can only speculate as to the possible causes. One hypothesis would be that since trains must stop at every station, criminals can be more assured of access to potential victims. In contrast, a bus driver may bypass a stop if he thinks it may be dangerous. Train stations may be more isolated, putting waiting victims in a known location that may not be easily visible to prospective witnesses. Rail also is more apt to involve so-called ” park-and-ride” trips. The parking lots may be convenient locations for robberies. Cars parked for the whole day may invite break-ins. The possible reasons for these higher crime rates cry out for more study.Much of the energy put into transit has been to raise taxes in order to obtain more resources to implement more transit options. The focus has been on trying to provide the type of service that might attract drivers out of their cars and onto transit vehicles. Overlooked in this quest has been the potential negative impact on public safety. The data gleaned from published sources indicate that there are serious safety issues surrounding the operation of transit in our cities. Inasmuch as government is generally expected to promote public safety, the extraction of more tax dollars to build more rail-transit systems would appear to be undermining this key responsibility.

No Incentive to Use Public Transit

No Incentive to use public transit- current state of affairs is public choice, not oppressive public policy

Dutch in 2010

(Steven Dutch, Natural and Applied Sciences, "Why People Don't Use Mass Transit.". N.p., 02 June 2010. Web. 29 June 2012. http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/pseudosc/masstransit.htm )

Unclear on the ConceptSo I get the following e-mailYou make a pretty common error in this analysis. You do not consider the context. The context is: What modern transportation infrastructure looks like is dictated primarily by massive public expenditure and use of the government's monopoly on mandate power. The transportation system dictates what our communities look like and how they operate. In your conclusions you state: "Attempts to promote mass transit through coercion will inevitably fail." Perhaps. But I hope you are not one of those people who would characterize a revolutionary change in how public money is spent on, and public power is exerted for the transportation infrastructure as 'coercion', rather than as 'public policy choice'.I wrote back:"Whatever the context, people don't ride mass transit because it's costly in time and inconvenient. When that changes, we'll see the "revolutionary" change."And got the following:No, you still aren't getting it. With something like transportation and transportation infrastructure - context is everything. If you say something like "whatever the context", you are not grasping the heart/cause-effect of the matter. "people don't ride mass transit because it's costly in time and inconvenient." Even when this question is asked narrowly by the individual, the question must be: costly in time and inconvenient compared to what? Plus, asking that question without context is meaningless. There will always a whole range of possible answers to those questions depending on existing context. On top of that, the range of answers to those questions for a society will look DRAMATICALLY different depending on whether you are in a culture that is still committed to the folly of government subsidy and mandate/promotion of mass suburbanization - or whether your culture has learned that the majority of a modern human population should live in dense, mixed-use development patterns because it is the sensible, efficient and equitable way to configure modern society. You are using the language of economics describing a theoretically free market with absolute knowledge by individuals, to describe transportation choice. Transportation infrastructure is and likely always will be about as far from a free market in widget 1 versus widget 2, 3 etc.. as anything will every be. To think of it in these terms is pretty meaningless - and sure to create a society that comes up with the wrong answer.The context is obvious: it takes me 20 minutes to drive to work and 45 minutes to go by bus. It takes some people in Houston two hours by bus and ten minutes by car. Plus if I drive I can run errands during the day or after work. The idea that this choice involves a "theoretically free market with absolute knowledge by individuals" is straight out of cloud cuckoo land. It's all about what is personally convenient to me in my present life situation.It's fairly clear where this is going. He considers suburbanization "folly" and that "the majority of a modern human population should live in dense, mixed-use development patterns because it is the sensible, efficient and equitable way to configure modern society." Society, in his view, has "come up with the wrong answer." He, of course, knows what's right and sensible. But that's not "coercion."So I wrote back:"No, you are failing to get the point. The context is that people find mass transit inconvenient and costly to them, at that time and place, compared to driving. Your elaborate denial game about people not realizing "the sensible, efficient and equitable way to configure modern society" doesn't change that. Indeed, as long as people like you fail to understand (or apparently deliberately choose not to understand) why people opt not to use mass transit, you will continue to rant ineffectively.""Dense, mixed-use development patterns" may be "the sensible, efficient and equitable way to configure modern society" to you, but it is not to all those people who move to the suburbs. I see you live in Maine. If you like dense settlements all that much, why are you living out in a sparsely populated region? Why don't you live in inner city Boston or New York instead?And got this:They opt not to because the culture, in every form and power the culture has at its disposal, tells them not to. The denial is on the part of individuals who claim what exists now in transportation infrastructure is some kind of natural and inevitable result, instead of a part of a specific socialized choice. Many individuals are in denial when it comes to realizing that changing any of the details of that socialized choice about the transportation infrastructure is not some nefarious coercion that did not previously exist. It would just be a new set of choices about a undeniably socialized thing: the public infrastructure that provides transportation.I live in Maine because that is where a well paying job exists for me. The primary requirement I have for where I live is: that it be with my wife. I compromise a great deal to maintain that primary requirement. The culture fights everything (through the specific flavor of "coercions" now in force) that would me allow me to fulfill my prime requirement in where and how I live, while making a few less compromises.Okay, so he's absolved from any responsibility because he's close to a well paying job and his wife. He has a valid personal reason for living far from a large city. Other people are just being selfish. Other people should modify their lifestyles for the good of society. They should either accept a worse job close to home so they don't have to commute as far, or accept crowded living conditions closer to their work. This guy "compromises a great deal" to satisfy his own lifestyle choices, but other people who take on the responsibility of maintaining their own home, getting up in the dark to get to work, and so on, well, that's just not the same thing. Wonder why his wife can't "compromise a great deal" and move into "dense, mixed use settlement" for the good of society? And if we put penalties and new taxes on commuters and suburbanites, well, that's not coercion, that's merely "a new set of choices." Talk about Orwellian doublespeak

Private Transportation Solves Better

Private Transportation Better to solve for the aff

Smith in 2012

(Stephen Smith, Urban Capitalism 2012 http://marketurbanism.com/2010/12/16/the-problem-with-public-transportation)Of course, public transit is vital to the city’s well being. Because Manhattan is an island, it can’t handle the traffic. It’s a commercial hub in a geographically isolated area that needs the subway — and requires people to travel for a while — to thrive. That our city’s forefathers had the foresight to build a vast public transit system is a minor miracle, and it’s sort of silly that we have such a love-hate relationship with the subway and the public transit system. Without it, New York City as we know it simply wouldn’t exist.The biggest problem here is the conflation of “public transit” with “mass transit.” When New York’s rail lines were first built, they were private enterprises, not public ones. And Benjamin Kabak doesn’t explicitly say it, but when people talk about a city’s “forefathers,” they’re almost always talking about lawmakers. And in the late 19th and early 20th century, when New York’s massive transit networks were being built, lawmakers did pretty much everything they could to stifle the budding transit market – the idea that any of them had any “forethought” is absurd.But secondly, Benjamin Kabak’s reverence for New York City’s subway system ignores the far more important contributions to the city made by streetcar and elevated train lines. As I’m learning in Robert Fogelson’s Downtown, NYC’s publicly-built subways paled in comparison to the privately-constructed elevated trains and streetcar networks that crisscrossed the five boroughs. .And although the Subway was heavily subsidized by the government, the truth is that it was a very expensive and ineffective replacement for elevated trains, which are just as fast as subways, and far cheaper to build. The els were quite profitable and transit companies were eager to build them, but the NIMBY interests didn’t like the noise they made and the city resented the limited role that it had in the lines. In fact, it was the city holding out for a subway and the massive spending binge it took to finally build it that contributed to mass transit’s insolvency – a trend which continues unabated today. If the city hadn’t insisted on the unsustainable luxury of forcing all rapid transit underground (a theme I hope to explore more deeply in the future), then Second Avenue, and a whole bunch of other streets, would have gotten rapid transit a century ago. (And I won’t even get into the fact that much of the NYC “Subway” is actually repurposed old private elevated lines.)So, in sum, there are very good reasons for even the staunchest transit advocates to have a “love-hate relationship with [...] public transit.” Back around the turn-of-the-century, during transit’s heyday, it was widely acknowledged that municipal ownership would be a disaster. Now that these predictions have panned out, it’s time for liberals to acknowledge the truth: public transportation sucks, and the only reason it’s still halfway decent today is because of the investments made by private companies a century ago.

AT Food Deserts Advantage

There are Numerous Ways to Access Healthy Foods in Food Deserts

Kolata, in 2012

(Gina Kolata, M.I.T. graduate in molecular biology, “Studies Question the Pairing of Food

Deserts and Obesity”, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/health/research/pairing-of-food-deserts-and-obesity-challenged-in-studies.html?_r=1, April 17, 2012)

It has become an article of faith among some policy makers and advocates, including Michelle Obama, that poor urban neighborhoods are food deserts, bereft of fresh fruits and vegetables. But two new studies have found something unexpected. Such neighborhoods not only have more fast food restaurants and convenience stores than more affluent ones, but more grocery stores, supermarkets and full-service restaurants, too. And there is no relationship between the type of food being sold in a neighborhood and,obesity among its children and adolescents. Within a couple of miles of almost any urban neighborhood, “you can get basically any type of food,” said Roland Sturm of the RAND Corporation, lead author of one of the studies. “Maybe we should call it a food swamp rather than a desert,” he said. Some experts say these new findings raise questions about the effectiveness of efforts to combat the obesity epidemic simply by improving access to healthy foods. Despite campaigns to get Americans to exercise more and eat healthier foods, obesity rates have not budged over the past decade, according to recently released federal data.“It is always easy to advocate for more grocery stores,” said Kelly D. Brownell, director of Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, who was not involved in the studies. “But if you are looking for what you hope will change obesity, healthy food access is probably just wishful thinking.”Squo Solves: Efforts Are Being Made to Provide Food Deserts With Healthy FoodThe Week News, in 2011(“America’s ‘food deserts’”, http://theweek.com/article/index/218167/americarsquos-food-deserts, August 12, 2011)The government thinks it can, if major supermarkets open stores in blighted areas and stock affordable healthy food options. First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign, which aims to reduce childhood obesity, has taken a lead role in this effort, and recently scored a major coup by convincing Walmart, SuperValu, and Walgreens to open or expand 1,500 grocery stores in food deserts. The involvement of large retail firms has “the potential to be a game-changer for kids and communities all across this country,” Obama said. “More parents will have a fresh food retailer right in their community, so they can feed their families the way they want.” But not everyone shares the First Lady’s optimism; in fact, some critics say opening new stores and markets in so-called food deserts will have little or no impact on how people eat.

AT Food Deserts Advantage

Not Only Do Low-Income Neighborhoods Have Access to Healthy Food, Data That Says They Don’t are Skewed

Kolata, in 2012

(Gina Kolata, M.I.T. graduate in molecular biology, “Studies Question the Pairing of Food Deserts and Obesity”, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/health/research/pairing-of-food-deserts-and-obesity-challenged-in-studies.html?_r=1, April 17, 2012)

Poor neighborhoods, Dr. Lee found, had nearly twice as many fast food restaurants and convenience stores as wealthier ones, and they had more than three times as many corner stores per square mile. But they also had nearly twice as many supermarkets and large-scale grocers per square mile. Her study, financed by the institute, was published in the March issue of Social Science and Medicine. Dr. Sturm’s study, published in February in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, had a different design. With financing from the National Institutes of Health, he used data on the self-reported heights, weights, and diets of more than 13,000 California children and teenagers in the California Health Interview Survey. The survey included the students’ addresses and the addresses of their schools. He used a different data set to see what food outlets were nearby. Dr. Sturm found no relationship between what type of food students said they ate, what they weighed, and the type of food within a mile and a half of their homes. He has also completed a national study of middle school students, with the same result — no consistent relationship between what the students ate and the type of food nearby. Living close to supermarkets or grocers did not make students thin and living close to fast food outlets did not make them fat. The study will be published soon in Public Health. It is unclear how the idea took hold that poor urban neighborhoods were food deserts but it had immediate appeal. There is even an Agriculture Department “food desert locator” and a “National Food Desert Awareness Month” supported by the National Center for Public Research, a charitable foundation. But, Dr. Lee said, studies lending support to the idea tended to be limited by methodological difficulties. For example, some researchers looked at neighborhood food outlets but did not have data on how fat residents were. Others examined small areas, like part of a single city and extrapolated to the entire nation. Others had a different problem. They looked at much bigger areas like ZIP codes, which include people of diverse incomes, making it hard to know what happened in pockets of poverty within those regions.Some researchers counted only fast food restaurants and large supermarkets, missing small grocers who sold produce. Some tallied food outlets per 1,000 residents, which made densely populated urban areas appear to have fewer places per person to buy food. A more meaningful measure, Dr. Lee said, is the distance to the nearest stores. In one neighborhood in Camden, N.J., where 80 percent of children are eligible for a free school lunch, children bought empanadas, sodas and candy at a grocer, while adults said they had no trouble finding produce. Wedged in among fast food restaurants, convenience stores, sit-down restaurants, take-out Chinese and pizza parlors were three places with abundant produce: Pathmark and Save-A-Lot supermarkets and a produce stand.

AT Food Deserts Advantage

Efforts to Allow Access to Healthy Food are Empirically Proven to Fail

Dorchner in 2012

(John Dorchner, Investigative Reporter for the Miami Herald, “Local nonprofits help eliminate ‘Food Deserts’ despite expect opinion”, http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/20/2841329/the-problems-with-food-deserts.html, 6/9/12)

On a warm afternoon in Liberty City, three women stood behind a table offering a smattering of fresh produce: 10 tomatoes, five cucumbers, three peppers, five mangoes, one cabbage and a large box of green beans. They represented a nonprofit, Urban GreenWorks, dedicated to bringing fresh produce to poor neighborhoods with the idea that better food choices will help reverse the wave of obesity sweeping America, particularly devastating in low-income areas. Though their table was set up on the shaded sidewalk on busy Northwest 62nd Street, not a single customer approached the stand over a 30-minute period. Meanwhile, two blocks away at the Monar Market, Ronnie Othman was ringing up the cash register about every 30 seconds: Fritos and a Coke, a packaged cookie and Seven Up, Doritos and a Coke. The convenience store offered some apples and bananas in a basket, and a lone head of lettuce in a refrigerated case. “But they don’t sell all the time,” Othman said. Studies by the Centers for Disease Control show that all of America is getting fatter -- rich and poor, all ethnic groups, all education levels. Still, the poor are more likely to be obese than the affluent. First Lady Michelle Obama and many nutritional activists believe that one reason the poor tend to be fat is that they often live in “food deserts,” places without large supermarkets offering fresh fruits and vegetables available in more affluent neighborhoods. That theory is questioned by many researchers. “The idea of food deserts has nothing to do with obesity,” says Roland Sturm, a Rand Institute researcher who co-authored a recent paper on a study of 13,000 children that found no correlation between kids’ obesity and access to fresh produce. A much better predictor, he says: parents’ weight. “You’re just not going to change behavior by offering more vegetables,” said Sturm in a telephone interview. “You can see people who shop at Whole Foods are thinner, but that doesn’t mean that if you had a Whole Foods on every corner, everybody would be thinnerThere are too Many Alt Causes for the Aff to Solve For Web MD in 2011(Web MD, Web Medical Dictionary, “Obesity-Cause”, http://www.webmd.com/diet/tc/obesity-cause, April 13, 2011)Obesity is a complex disease for which no single cause or cure exists. You gain weight when you take in more calories than you burn off. But obesity is influenced by many other factors, including: Your emotions and habits. Overeating is easy in our culture today. Many factors influence eating behavior, including emotions, habits, and the availability of food. Your lifestyle: Modern conveniences-such as elevators, cars, and the remote control for the television-cut activity out of our lives. Your genes . If one of your parents is obese, you are 3 times as likely to be obese as someone with parents of healthy weight.3 Your friends and family. If they eat a lot of high-fat or snack foods, eat at irregular times, and skip meals, you probably will too. And if they are not physically active, you may not be either. Other things influence your weight and whether you are physically active, including: Low self-esteem. Being overweight or obese may lower your self-esteem and lead to eating as a way to comfort yourself. Repeated failure at dieting also can affect your self-esteem and make it even harder to lose weight. Emotional concerns. Emotional stress, anxiety, or illnesses such asdepression or chronic pain can lead to overeating. Some people eat to calm themselves, to avoid dealing with unpleasant tasks or situations, or to dampen negative emotions. Trauma. Distressing events-such as childhood sexual, physical, or emotional abuse; loss of a parent during childhood; or marital or family problems-can contribute to overeating. Alcohol. Alcohol (beer and mixed drinks) is very high in calories. Medicines or medical conditions. Some medical conditions and medicines may also cause weight gain. Examples include having Cushing's syndrome or hypothyroidism or taking certain antidepressants or corticosteroids.

AT Food Deserts Advantage

Status Quo Solves

Wright in 2012

(DH Wright Nashville Green Business Examiner April 17, 2012 (“Changing the Way a City Solves the Problem of Urban Deserts” Nashville, Tennessee; served as a consultant for environmental focused brands. He has worked for Greenpeace USA and Teracycle, a free recycling company, where he kept media relations while creating his portfolio of published work seen in print and online; http://www.examiner.com/article/mobile-market-attempts-to-solve-the-problem-of-food-deserts)

The Nashville Mobile Market is a 28 foot long trailer stocked with food choices from both wholesale food retailers and local farms. The pick-up truck pulled trailer proudly displays The Nashville Mobile Market’s logo in green along the side as it makes stops at different locations in the city to get food to people who can't access grocery stores. In front of the trailer, volunteer nutritionists prepare healthy dishes that can be made from ingredients found in the mobile market. According to a feasibility study of 387 participants by Vanderbilt med student Carmen Adams, only 30 percent of North Nashville residents live within walking distance to a grocery store. The study that started the mobile market idea also states that 16,000 residents in Nashville have no car and live over a mile from the nearest grocery store. The Jefferson Street area code of 37208 is an example of a food desert, an urban area that has a shortage of healthy and sustainable food choices. In Adams’ study, three main areas in Nashville were labeled as food deserts: East Nashville, Edgehill and North Nashville. These three neighborhoods are where the Nashville Mobile Market focuses its energy and resources. In an attempt to stem the flow of problems caused by food deserts, Vanderbilt med student Ravi Patel devised a plan based on Adams' study to get food to people who lack easy access to existing grocery stores by instead using a mobile grocery store. The Nashville Mobile Market was created in February 2010 using a $65,000 grant from the Frist Foundation and launched a year later. Michael Nakayama, a mobile market driver involved through a work study program, discussed how Vanderbilt is eventually going to turn the operation over to the community to provide jobs. “I’m glad to have a job but I would be happy to let someone who needs it more take my position” said Nakayama, a computer engineering and applied mathematics major at Vanderbilt. It is the one year anniversary of The Nashville Mobile Market and there is a hopeful feeling among the staff. Ashley Kimery, who has been involved with the mobile market in various capacities since its inception, has faith in founder and Advisory Board member Ravi Patel’s vision. “I can’t see this going anywhere but up,” said Kimery. “We’ve already been operationally sustainable for a year.” Whens speaking of Patel, who was inspired to start the mobile market after spending a month in Uganda, and his current role in the organization Kimery explained how the founder has tried to step back and let others start making decisions. “Ravi is great; he is trying to take on an advisory position but he is still very much at the heart of The Nashville Mobile Market.” Kimery pauses then continues. “But if there is a problem, he will address it.” Regarding the future, Kimery said the goal is to have local residents driving and running the food truck. Her belief is that having familiar faces from the community running operations will attract more local residents to shop at the market. The Nashville Mobile Market has an operation schedule of their Wednesday through Sunday route on their website. Despite all the good that The Nashville Mobile Market is doing, there have been speed bumps in the road to sustainability and success. The mobile market was robbed a year ago by an apparent customer and while no one was hurt, the robbery raises questions of the workers’ continued safety. Another issue is the pricing; while some of the products are competitively priced, other items are more expensive than conventional grocery stores. Items such as Splenda are actually more expensive at the mobile market. While The Nashville Mobile Market is a new and creative approach to resolving the food desert issue, it is not the first or only organization trying to help the cause. Community Food Advocates, which recently moved its office to East Nashville, is approaching the food desert issue in a different way. Instead of using a mobile market to bring food to neighborhoods without easy access to it, Re/Storing Nashville is making efforts to improve public transportation to existing grocery stores and create tax incentives to attract new grocery stores to areas that have none.

<CONTINUED>

<CONTINUED>

Re/Storing Nashville, acting under Community Food Advocates, is also trying to urge Nashville residents that live outside the food deserts to get involved with the solution. The efforts being made are simply not enough for some residents of Nashville’s food deserts. Tennessee State University student Iesha Hassle is tired of the food options that are available in the North Nashville “food swamp”, an area abundant with fast food restaurants but having hardly any grocery stores. She feels that direct action is the key to starting change. “As students, the best way we could take initiative to change the situation and get more food diversity on Jefferson Street is to talk to our city representatives.” Said Hassle. “At the end of the day, even though most of us didn’t vote for them, they still represent us.” In December of 2010 Metro Council Lady Erica Gilmore, who represents District 19 in North Nashville, introduced a bill that would create a Metro Nashville Food Policy Council. Though the bill was deferred, she stated in an interview with Charles Maldonado that she would bring it back in a year if the problem had not improved. “I did a memorializing resolution for the Food Policy, as it relates to tax incentives for major grocery chains I will have to revisit this again.” Said Council Lady Gilmore.

Link: Politics

Mass transit is partisan.

Hiniker 2012

(Steve, “Partisanship on mass transit hurts economy,’ The Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin), March 28, Lexis.)

Tea party activists and their patrons in the Legislature love to hate mass transit. While mass transit has long enjoyed bipartisan support - Gov. Tommy Thompson was once a leading proponent of rail transit - it is now viewed with disdain by nearly all Republicans. While opponents claim their opposition is about money, it actually has nothing to do with the cost.If it were about the money, spending on all forms of transportation would come under the magnifying glass. Mass transit users already spend far more money on roads than car commuters spend on mass transit. Yet "conservative" lawmakers starve mass transit systems while giving billions of dollars to build more roads. State support for the road-building industry is the closest thing Wisconsin has to socialism. Still, there wasn't a whimper from the right about increasing taxpayer support for bigger roads.No, it's not about the money. It's about red-state partisans showing that they don't support blue-state priorities like urban needs, environment, people of color, students, low-income residents and social programs. Building mass transit systems is too "European" (another favorite target of the tea party). Why should suburbanites support an urban need like mass transit when they prefer to drive? Republican leaders like Rep. Robin Vos stand in the way of even allowing cities to hold a local referendum on a sales tax to pay for transit.

JAYHAWK DEBATe institute	1

magallon/cooper	transportation equity neg

Alternative Solves – Modernist Sexuality

user

2012-07-01

Luis Magallon

whitman college