Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg outlined how the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package will help the Biden administration address racism present in cities across the country.
Buttigieg, touting the benefits of the recently passed bill that has not yet been signed into law by the president, fielded a question from the Grio‘s April Ryan on the justice aspects of the package ensuring that “at least 40% of the clean investments in this bill will go to benefit the communities that are overburdened and underserved.”
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“I’m still surprised that some people were surprised when I pointed to the fact that if a highway was built for the purpose of dividing a white and black neighborhood, or if an underpass was constructed such that a bus carrying mostly black and Puerto Rican kids to a beach that would have been in New York was designed too low for it to pass by,” Buttigieg continued. “But that obviously reflects racism that went into those design choices. I don’t think we have anything to lose by confronting that simple reality, and I think we have everything to gain by acknowledging it and then dealing with it, which is why the reconnecting of communities to those billions of dollars is something we want to get to work right away.”
Pressed on how the Department of Transportation will specifically deal with apparent racism in city planning, Buttigieg added that it will “vary by community, and we have to listen to the community.”
“Sometimes it really is the case that an overpass went in a certain way that is so harmful, that it’s got to come down or maybe be put underground. Other times, maybe the really important thing is to connect across, to add rather than subtract, and that’s where we don’t want to impose a one size fits all answer from here,” the former South Bend mayor added. “Those local ideas are going to be taken very seriously as we try to meet the spirit of this law.”
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You can watch Monday’s entire briefing below.
