Buttigieg Says U.S. Will Use Infrastructure Bill to Address Racist Highway Design
Category: News & Politics
Via: gregtx • 4 years ago • 30 commentsBy: Jennifer Epstein and Josh Wingrove (MSN)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
(Bloomberg) -- Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Monday that his agency will use about $1 billion from President Joe Biden's public works legislation to remedy racial inequities in U.S. highway design, such as roads that were built to separate predominantly minority neighborhoods from White communities.
The program, called "Reconnecting Communities," in some cases will tear down or rebuild highways and overpasses, he said. Federal officials will consider local desires as they identify projects, he said at a White House briefing.
"It's going to vary by community and we have to listen to the community," Buttigieg said. "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 it's not that way. Maybe the really important thing is to connect across, to add rather than subtract."
Buttigieg described highways dividing neighborhoods and an underpass deliberately constructed "too low" for "a bus carrying mostly Black and Puerto Rican kids to a beach" in New York.
"That obviously reflects racism that went into those design choices," he said. "I don't think we have anything to lose by confronting that simple reality."
The only specific example he cited was Interstate 81 in Syracuse, New York, where state and local officials already plan to demolish a decades-old elevated stretch of the highway that was built through a historically Black neighborhood on the city's south side.
"We saw the local vision for how they want to get past those divisions," Buttigieg said. "And those local idea are going to be taken very seriously as we try to meet the spirit of this law."
Tags
Who is online
33 visitors
I almost posted this under satire...
You are obviously unaware of urban and suburban road projects of the past 70 years. I humbly suggest you 'bone up' on the subject before you arrive at conclusions which are a bit beyond your scope. Perhaps the satire lies within your-----understanding of this subject.
A couple of links to articles on this subject, the how and why and when it happened.
Nobody said shit sixty years ago when I-Whatever was cut through so many neighborhoods. Now, you want to tell me that Blacks are too stupid to find the beach.
Beyond my scope? You're funny.
How? And why? It is on you, Tex, educate us.
Not my job. I'm a LS and have never known an engineer (despite my rather low opinion of engineers) to utilize racism in their design.
Can you imagine "racist" roads!
And that idiot is probably who they are going to run in 2024.
I wonder if all the MLK Jr highways, boulevards and streets are racist if they were constructed using the same methods mentioned here?
The methods mentioned here defy logic. Yet Buttigieg might just be what they go with in 2024. You see, when he says insane things he makes it sound normal. It won't help them next time!
Is he back after taking months off for paternity leave?
It's a sign of how worthless his position is that he took months off during the worst transportation crises in decades and nobody noticed.
And this is what he returned to do.
Thank God this is finally being addressed. I was traveling down a highway just today and I was thinking "Wow, is this road racist or what"? Good to hear one billion of tax payer dollars will go to changing this. Maybe they should change the color of roads while they are at it. I mean, a black road that white people drive on.........I can't think of anything more racist than that.
“…will consider local desires as they identify projects,”
So, the guy has a cure in his hand and he will now to try to find a disease? Let’s go.
What is he going to do, make asphalt a different color? Add tinting to the white cement?
So, when they build the original Interstate system, it was somehow wrong to use the lowest priced land?
This is what you get when you elect people like Biden.
Dipshits like Buttigieg and Granholm in high cabinet positions.
What a f'n joke they both are.
Is this the biggest problem in transportation today?
The guy couldn't run South Bend Indiana.
It amazes me that people expect big things out of him as US Transportation Secretary.
I'm honestly surprised he can blink and breath without assistance.
Well he does have past experience concerning the Hershey Highway.
Lmfao!
Lol yeah, i hear that's a two way street ....
Here we go with the bla bla bla from four of five cackling right wingers.
The damage you people are doing to this website is obvious.
Address the goddamn seed. Newstalkers doesnt need any more mindless right wing blather.
Lol .... it is being addressed but you have to read it all.
The fact that you don't like what's being said is your problem John.
100% your problem.
I believe the goddamn seed is being addressed. This is a virtue signaling nothing burger once again pandering, they think, to certain demographics using the fucking race card.
Somebody has to keep the delusional left in check.
FFS get over yourself. The seed is being addressed.
But it's good if it's mindless left wing blather. Good to know.