Writing a Disadvantage
So on this year’s topic you should have a wide range of generic positions to run against almost any case. Because the affirmative could, realistically, run a new plan every single round, it’s going to be very common for you to debate against cases you have little to no evidence against.
In that instance you must rely on your generics to win you the round – especially disadvantages. One side benefit is that you may know your generic positions much better than the affirmative debater knows their new case of the week – so it gives you an advantage. Of course, you’re going to have an uphill battle on the link – but if you can establish the link you’ll at least have one position in the debate with evidence as opposed to all analytic positions.
Here is a disadvantage I’ve been mulling over in judging some rounds this year and thinking about the topic - increased congestion. I want to kind of walk through the process of writing the disadvantage as opposed to simply posting a file for you to use. As I mentioned on the affirmative case construction lecture, I’m a big believer in getting something done now and then improving it. I’m not worried at this point if these are the best possible cards on this topic. The disadvantage can always be improved later. The important thing now is to get the disadvantage written.
Step 1: Coming up with a shell.
The first thing I recommend when writing a disadvantage is to write down a rough shell of where you think the disadvantage is going. This is where if you do parliamentary debate your skills of coming up with positions on the fly will serve you well. Here is what I came up with:
Thesis: their plan will make congestion worse on freeways
Uniqueness:
Currently transportation policy focused on adding highway capacity to reduce congestionLink:
Their plan reduces (a) focus on highways (ie, rail cases, port, air) (b) reduces funding for roads (ie, shift money from roads to rail, public transit buses)Internal Link:
Decreased funds means worse roads and more congestionImpact:
wasted money, deaths from accidents, bad economy
Step 2: Research
I then started doing research on congestion and found these two great sources:
Texas Transportation Institute Urban Mobility Report 2009 and the Federal Highway Administration Traffic Congestion and Reliability Report from 2005.
Step 3: Cutting Cards
I quickly started cutting cards and ended up with these 17 cards. The CardCutter is still available on the site although I’m going to be working on improving it this summer.
Remember that you’ll want to include as much of the citation as possible since the first time you read the card you should include the full author, his/her credibility, and title/source.
Step 4: Coming up with a shell
Placing them into the shell I get this quick and dirty disadvantage that took me probably about 1 hour to finish. The internal link is atrocious but that can be improved. The idea is that I now have a foundation to work off. As I keep up on research and reading about transportation policy I’ll probably find better cards to take the place of this evidence.
You also now have something to run against many possible cases. It may not be the best position but it’s something and judges will appreciate that effort.
Here is the disadvantage:
A. Uniqueness
Congestion is being dealt with in the status quo – at least
stabilizing
Schrank & Lomax 2009
[David; Tim | Texas Transportation Institute Urban Mobility Report 2009, p.online | 07/01/2009 |
Accessed 01-02-10 ~ http://tti.tamu.edu/documents/mobility_report_2009.pdf !DJC]
Congestion, by every measure, has increased substantially over the 25 years covered in this report. The most recent two years of the report, however, have seen slower growth or even a decline in congestion. Delay per traveler – the number of hours of extra travel time that commuters spend during rush hours – was 1.3 hours lower in 2007 than 2005. This change would be more hopeful if it was associated with something other than rising fuel prices (which occurred for a short time in 2005 and 2006 before the sustained increase in 2007 and 2008) and a slowing economy. This same kind of slow growth/decline over a few years occurred in the early 1990s when spending and growth in the high- tech and defense sectors of the economy declined dramatically. The decline means congestion is near the levels recorded in 2003, not exactly a year remembered for trouble-free commuting.B. Link
1. Their plan focuses transportation policy on one area of _[say area]_
2. Congestion solutions require balanced and diversified approach
Schrank & Lomax 2009
[David; Tim | Texas Transportation Institute Urban Mobility Report 2009, p.online | 07/01/2009 |
Accessed 01-02-10 ~ http://tti.tamu.edu/documents/mobility_report_2009.pdf !DJC]
We recommend a balanced and diversified approach to reduce congestion – one that focuses on more of everything. It is clear that our current investment levels have not kept pace with the problems. Population growth will require more systems, better operations and increased number of travel alternatives. And most urban regions have big problems now – more congestion, poorer pavement and bridge conditions and less public transportation service than they would like. There will be a different mix of solutions in metro regions, cities, neighborhoods, job centers and shopping areas. Some areas might be more amenable to construction solutions, other areas might use more travel options, productivity improvements, diversified land use patterns or redevelopment solutions. In all cases, the solutions need to work together to provide an interconnected network of transportation services.C. Internal Link
Efforts to reduce congestion limited by funding
Chester County Planning Commission, accessed 2009
[Highway page, p.online | no date given | Accessed 01-02-10 ~
http://www.landscapes2.org/Transportation/transIssuesHigh.html !DJC]
Efforts to reduce traffic congestion and improve highway safety are limited by the availability of funding. While funding levels have actually increased in recent years, the buying power is less because of dramatic escalation in construction costs. The construction cost index has increased 100% since 1996. Funding levels have not kept pace with the rate of material inflation. The effect of this funding shortage has been a backlog of capital projects, higher priorities to system-maintenance, increased pressure to scale back capacity-adding highway projects, and increased interests in alternative financing including roadway tolling and asset privatization.D. Impact
1. Congestion costs us 4.2 billion hours and 87.2 billion dollars
Schrank & Lomax 2009
[David; Tim | Texas Transportation Institute Urban Mobility Report 2009, p.online | 07/01/2009 |
Accessed 01-02-10 ~ http://tti.tamu.edu/documents/mobility_report_2009.pdf !DJC]
Congestion is a problem in America’s 439 urban areas, and it has gotten worse in regions of all sizes. In 2007, congestion caused urban Americans to travel 4.2 billion hours more and to purchase an extra 2.8 billion gallons of fuel for a congestion cost of $87.2 billion – an increase of more than 50% over the previous decade (Exhibit 1). This was a decrease of 40 million hours and a decrease of 40 million gallons, but an increase of over $100 million from 2006 due to an increase in the cost of fuel and truck delay. Small traffic volume declines brought on by increases in fuel prices over the last half of 2007 caused a small reduction in congestion from 2006 to 2007.2. Congestion hurts economic growth
Federal Highway Administration 2005
[ | Cambridge Systematics, Inc. Traffic Congestion and Reliability, p.online | 09/01/2005 | Accessed
01-02-10 ~ http://www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov/congestion_report/congestion_report_05.pdf !DJC]
The nation’s local, regional, and national transportation systems play a vital role in creating access to goods and services which sustain and grow our nation’s economy. Planners and economic development experts recognize that congestion is an economic development issue because it thwarts business attraction and expansion, and reduces the quality of life for residents.
Any thoughts on the Disadvantage? Anyone running something similar? Have any research or articles to improve the cards?
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Comments
Nick’s right – anyone got that evidence?
I’m thinking this would apply more to a high speed rail case… something that tries to refocus our transportation away from cars.
lots of problems.
your uniqueness evidence indicates that it is not transportation policy, but instead gas prices, that determine the level of congestion. thus any ‘distraction’ from transpo policy is irrelevant to the question of increasing/decreasing congestion.
link evidence is just not really applicable to any cases that i can think of – very few are systematically excluding “balanced approaches to congestion,” and the analytic link claim doesn’t cut it unless you can get your opponent to make an insanely stupid concession in cross-x. also the link argument begs the question of whether or not we have a balanced approach to congestion in the squo. the uniqueness card you read would seem to suggest otherwise, which mean that the plan can’t screw anything up.
internal link argument is not an internal link argument, it’s a uniqueness argument, and an unfavorable one at that.
impacts are also problematic – you have very linear access to a non-terminalized impact.
no reason to read this when you could read politics and states.
Devil’s advocate here:
The link story is incoherent. The Schrank evidence indicates that a “balanced approach” is required. The problem is that you don’t have any warrants as to why the plan specifically excludes or trades off with congestion alleviation. Simply saying that there’s a finite pot of funding is insufficient. You need a specific piece of evidence that isolates a specific trade-off between general transportation spending and anti-congestion measures. Good luck finding that card. (Not saying it’s impossible – just unlikely that it exists).
If you decide to go ahead anyway with the strenuous link this disad still doesn’t really function as a generic. It’s going to be hard to connect, say, painting roads white to congestion.