California High Speed Rail Will Do More Good Than Harm
PRO (3 arguments)
Define:
1) California High Speed Rail- High-speed rail system that will have stops in major cities, such asSacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, Fresno, Bakersfield, Palmdale, Los Angeles, Anaheim, Riverside, Irvine, and San Diego.
Grabbers:
1) According to the Huffington Post, construction of the California High Speed Rail is expected to generate up to 100,000 construction-related jobs for every year the system is being built.
2) Governor Jerry Brown stated, "The high speed rail will not only create millions of temporary jobs in the construction period, but thousands of permanent jobs for many people."
The California High Speed Rail is very efficient compared to airplanes, cars, and other vehicles. Since it is so much more efficient, the California High Speed Rail is much more environmentally-friendly as compared to other vehicles. Also, the California High Speed Rail will run on renewable energy sources, so as a result, there will be no emissions whatsoever. Also, the high speed rail will lower the congestion in streets. This train will allow people to use the trains instead of cars. That means that one train can save over a hundred cars that would have been drove without the train.
As a result of the California High Speed Rail, 320 billion fewer vehicle miles will be traveled over 40 years. 146 million hours in traffic will be saved annually. Carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced by 3 million tons annually. 237 million gallons of auto fuel will be saved annually, and 35 million gallons of aviation fuel will be saved annually. High-speed trains need only one-third of the energy than that of an airplane and one-fifth of an automobile trip. The system is projected to save 12.7 million barrels of oil per year by 2030, even with future improvements in auto fuel efficiency.
Electrically-powered high-speed trains reduce pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on fossil fuels. The total predicted emissions savings of the California high-speed train system is up to 12 billion pounds of CO2 per year by 2030 and would grow with higher ridership. Furthermore, a study undertaken for the High-Speed Rail Authority entitled The Use of Renewable Energy Sources to Provide Power to California's High Speed Rail" presents the data and reasons supporting the technical and commercial feasibility for the system to use 100% renewable energy with no carbon dioxide emissions whatsoever.
High-Speed Rail Authority
Over the next two decades, California's high-speed train will alleviate the need to spend more than $100 billion to build 3,000 miles of new freeway, five airport runways, and 90 departure gates. It would attract unprecedented federal funding to jump-start our local economy, creating $3 billion in immediate economic activity and $7-$9 billion in the next 20 years.
USA Today
Currently, the California unemployment rate is 9.8%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Implementing the California High Speed Rail results in many jobs created. Every train station would need workers to help maintain the place. It would need janitors, builders, engineers, designers, train workers, ticket counters, and people to work at shops that are in the station. This is just a small list of the jobs that could be created from the California High Speed Rail. It will need a large task force to create and maintain the California High Speed Rail. This will create thousands of jobs.
Job-creation advocates in Fresno said they moved a step closer to ensuring that local workers who need a job can compete for one building California's high-speed rail system. Representatives from Fresno Works, a coalition of local government and business leaders, pitched a proposal to establish a "national targeted hiring initiative." The program would put a premium on contractors to hire workers who live in communities with high rates of long-term unemployment or other economic hardship, or workers who are considered economically disadvantaged -- homeless, single parents who have custody of their children, chronically unemployed or other qualifying factors.
The job creation benefits are documented in, among many sources, a 2007 Federal Highway Administration study that identified that for every $1 billion invested in infrastructure development, 20,000 long- and short-term jobs are created. Design and construction of the San Francisco-to-San Jose section would directly create 11,400 jobs and be responsible for a total of 34,200 jobs. Construction of the first segment is expected to generate 100,000 job-years of employment over five years. Building the Phase 1 blended system the Bay Area to Southern California is estimated to create 990,000 job-years over 15 years, an average of 66,000 annually.
In tough financial times, a project of this magnitude will have a significant impact, even in the short term. Construction start-up of ARRA-funding-related sections by 2012 is expected to generate 130,000 early jobs and kick-start economic activity in design, construction and supply services. Over the longer term, California's high speed train will mean nearly 600,000 construction-related jobs and 450,000 permanent jobs. The California high-speed train project's job creation, broken down by region of the project, would be:
San Francisco - San Jose: 105,000
San Jose - Merced: 112,000
Merced - Bakersfield: 135,000
Bakersfield - Palmdale: 81,000
Palmdale - Los Angeles: 125,000
Los Angeles - Anaheim: 92,000
Huffington Post