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.

I’m thinking this would apply more to a high speed rail case… something that tries to refocus our transportation away from cars.

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.