Mayor Pete for U.S. transportation secretary

On Wednesday, President-elect Joe Biden made official his nomination of Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, to head the Department of Transportation. (Video from announcement.)

Some of the top associations advocating on transportation policy were quick with statements of support. On this episode, a conversation with an official at one of those organizations. Lloyd Brown, director of communications at the Washington, D.C.-based American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, talks about their support and what a Buttigieg nomination means. 

Brown talks about the administration’s promised focus on safety, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and sustainable funding for all infrastructure. Also discussed, how Buttigieg can balance an emphasis on safety and Vision Zero, Complete Streets and carbon reduction strategies, with a need for massive recovery in the airline and transit industries because of the pandemic.

Will having a dynamic and gifted communicator at the helm raise his profile and the administration’s priorities? A Washington Post story had this to say: "The choice of Buttigieg, who sought the Democratic presidential nomination and has an ardent following among some members of the party, will bring a dash of star power to what is normally a staid, if important, department."

Echoing the sentiments about the traditionally low profile of the transportation secretary, one observer, acknowledging that “no politically ambitious little kid dreams of growing up to be the transportation secretary,” explains why Buttigieg is different. 

On Dec. 15, Governor Gretchen Whitmer released the following statement after President-elect Biden nominated Mayor Pete Buttigieg for Secretary of Transportation:

“This is great news for our families, our businesses, and our nation’s economy. Every American deserves to drive to work and drop their kids at school safely, without blowing a tire or cracking a windshield. Mayor Buttigieg has shown a deep commitment to getting things done for Americans everywhere, and I know he will work around the clock to fix and protect our nation’s infrastructure. President-Elect Biden has proven once again that he is committed to building an administration that represents the great diversity of our nation, with more women, more people of color, and more members of the LGBTQ+ community at the table. I look forward to working closely with Mayor Buttigieg and the entire Biden Administration to fix the damn roads and protect Michiganders from shelling out hundreds of dollars a year on car repairs. Let’s get to work.”

It was notable that the nominees to lead the Transportation and Energy departments were named the same day. Choosing former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm signals how important the focus on alternative fuels will be as top automakers shift to building more electric vehicles and transportation agencies develop ways to support charging needs.

Podcast photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore.

Transcript

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Narrator: It's time for Talking Michigan Transportation, a podcast devoted to the conversations with people at the forefront of the ongoing mobility revolution. In the state that put the world on wheels, here's your host, MDOT Communications Director, Jeff Cranson.

Jeff Cranson: Once again, it's the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast. I’m here with my friend and colleague Lloyd Brown who is the director of communications for the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials. AASHTO, along with a couple of key Associations advocating for transportation in Washington, came out with pretty strong statements endorsing the selection of former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg as transportation Secretary. I liked, Lloyd, that the Washington Post put it this way: “The choice of Buttigieg, who sought the Democratic presidential nomination and has an ardent following among some members of the party, will bring a dash of star power to what is normally a staid, if important, department.” Is that fair?

Lloyd Brown: I think it is and I think that we are looking forward to working with the new administration. We are fortunate that because AASHTO represents all 50 states plus D.C. and Puerto Rico that we can be fairly moderate, middle of the road, and look for ways for all the various points of view to come together and collaborate, but we do stand for certain things, and among those are safety and fully funding the highway trust fund and investing in infrastructure. Those are things that most administrations, Republican and Democrat, have been able to get behind. We're looking forward to seeing how that works with the Biden administration with mayor Pete at the helm of the USDOT. 

Jeff Cranson: So, I wonder if the people talking about experience, because that's what you're hearing a lot about, understand the value of having a very inspiring orator out there communicating about transportation and its impact on social justice as well as economic development. I mean, to have somebody that dynamic really elevates the profile of transportation and what needs to be done, doesn't it?

Lloyd Brown: Well, transportation is going to be in the crosshairs in the next three to four years. We know this because of the focus on severe weather and the impacts of climate change and the desire to see the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. So, transportation tends to be where the main focus is because largely the energy resources that were previously the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases have been converted and have reduced their emissions, so transportation is where you see most of the greenhouse gas emissions. So, whether we like it or not transportation is going to be in the focus. We want to make sure that as we're looking at transportation, we're not just looking at the at the fuel source, we're looking at the infrastructure itself because ultimately regardless of the fuel source people have a need to move. The economy has a need to move, and whether it's four wheels, two wheels, or two legs you have to have good infrastructure to get people where they need to go.

Jeff Cranson: Yeah, no matter how you get around you really need kind of smooth surfaces to do it.

Lloyd Brown: Yeah, and we learned that back in the turn of the 20th century when it was the bicycle lobby that really came forward and pushed for the first paved roads way back at the turn of the century. The bicyclists have led the way, and it was the automobile later that came in and really made the case for it. We wanted to get people out of the mud. We wanted to get farmers out of the mud. Then we wanted to be able to drive across the country without stopping in the 1950s. Now, you know, we're looking at a new vision of transportation really as a potential solution to solving some of our nation's greenhouse gas emissions and some of the other environmental concerns. You also mentioned environmental justice and I think that the concerns about transportation is harkening back to the 50s, 60s, and early 70s transportation infrastructure as a way of developing communities and eliminating historically minority communities. We have to account for that, and I think that there's going to be a lot of focus on that in the next couple of years in this administration. So, you'll see lots of discussion about transportation as a source of equity and transportation as a source of access to jobs and other things that communities need to be robust and thriving.

Jeff Cranson: So, for a Washington state guy you just gave a really nice nod to Michigan history because I don't know if you realize that the founder of the Michigan Department of Highways that became the Michigan Department of Transportation, Horatio “Good Roads” Earle got onto this whole thing because he was a bicyclist at the turn of the 20th century and was frustrated by the mud and the ruts that you were talking about, so—

Lloyd Brown: Yeah.

Jeff Cranson: I don’t know if you studied or not but that was a good reference.

Lloyd Brown: Oh, well, good. I’m glad I was able to bring that home and localize it for you.

Jeff Cranson: So, yeah, let's talk about that, you know, environmental justice and social justice and the way roads were built and divided communities and what's going to be kind of the competing forces weighing on secretary Buttigieg to balance, you know, what he's done in his advocacy as a mayor for Complete Streets and for, you know, multi modes but safety, and safety is a top priority. So, it seems like whether you're, you know, on the side that thinks we should be building new roads or expanding roads you would agree that when we rebuild them we should make them safer, and many need to be rebuilt, and that doesn't have to be an argument about expansion—it can just be an argument about fixing what we have. Does it have to be either or, or can we try to do, you know, all these things and please folks on both sides of the lobby?

Lloyd Brown: Well, I think that when we begin to have these kinds of conversations one thing that hasn't happened in the past that we need to bring into the conversation now is land use, and land use decisions about where people are going to live and where the resources are going to be developed because transportation is a facilitator in many respects. Yes, we can induce demand by building, say, a new lane on a on an existing highway or even building a new road out into a place that's never had any development before, but ultimately a lot of those decisions are land use decisions. Transportation infrastructure, especially state departments of transportation, often get dinged and criticized for just wanting to lay asphalt and concrete and pave the world, and that's not really the case. So, as we look at transportation as a source of equity and transportation as the foundation for good quality of life and economic development, we need to bring in the conversation about land use and what do our communities look like, where are we going to build the resources, and where are we going to put people, and what are our communities going to look like in 10, 15, 20 years.

Jeff Cranson: Yeah, no, I think you'd make a really good point about land use driving the decision and people beating on the DOTs for, you know, building roads that were made necessary by land use decisions that policy makers and, you know, corporations and people who invested money made, so you've got no choice but to follow up at that point. So, I think—

Lloyd Brown: Here's an interesting thing, Jeff, I read a stat the other day that an anticipated 20 million people will be moving away from major population centers like New York, San Francisco, where we see intense urban Development, into what are perceived to be more livable, moderate size cities and even smaller communities throughout the country, so—

Jeff Cranson: Because of the pandemic.

Lloyd Brown: Because of the pandemic, exactly. With a growing interest or support for an availability of work from home and virtual office spaces, people are going to move where they feel like they're they get a higher quality of life. Well, what that anticipates then is additional impacts on these local communities around the country. That 20 million people moving around the country in the next two to three years is going to be a huge shift in population and demographics. So, what is that going to do with transportation, so—

Jeff Cranson: I read some of those same things, but I wonder if post-pandemic some of those same concerns aren't driving decisions as much as we anticipate. I mean, it's just really hard to tell what the future is going to be. There's still a big draw for younger people just for the energy of urban areas and metropolitan areas in those cities. So, are they really going to just give up on all that? I don't know, but it sounds like you think they will.

Lloyd Brown: Well, here's I think a contributing factor and now we're getting maybe a little beyond infrastructure, but if you look at another statistic I read recently that the largest demographic in the workforce in the next three, four years is going to be the millennials. If you look at the age of the millennials, they're having children later, and there’s been a belief for a while that this drive toward moving into the urban center that you would see the millennial generation actually wanting to move back out to the suburbs and back out into the more rural communities once they have children. So, if you look at that lineup of virtual workspace, virtual office environment, I actually do believe that we are going to see a shift in people moving back out to communities, maybe not to the extent that some people are forecasting, but you're going to see it.

Jeff Cranson: And you're going to need maybe other means of transportation. Maybe that's where connected corridors and, you know, autonomous vehicles running back and forth all day long come into play.

Lloyd Brown: Yeah, yeah.

Jeff Cranson: So, I think one fear I have is that given all that's going to be on a new secretary's plate because of the pandemic, you know, what's going on with the airlines, what's going on with transit systems, and the need to help recover, is that his focus on safety and vision zero and carbon reduction and all those strategies that are really important are going to be kind of lost or set aside for a while. I mean, do you think that there's a way to dovetail all those things into a priority structure and get something done?

Lloyd Brown: I do, I think that what you'll see are a couple of vehicles in the next year for sure that will tee up some of these issues on the USDOT's to-do list. One of them is the anticipation that the new Biden administration will want to do some sort of stimulus bill early in the administration, so you're looking at late spring maybe April, May in that time frame where they were they're going to really try and get something done. Among that could be some investment in infrastructure and that means infrastructure writ large, so that would be the electrical grid or that might be pipelines or that could be other—

Jeff Cranson: Broadband.

Lloyd Brown: Exactly, could be a big issue, but the idea that, you know, let's build it and put people to work and help the economy get back on its feet after the battering it's taken from COVID. We hope to be part of that conversation from a transportation infrastructure perspective, so that'll be one opportunity. The second I think will be later this year, I’m sorry later in 2021, when the surface transportation bill is up again for reauthorization. There's going to be a lot of conversations in that, and there's a little bit of a constructive roadmap, if you will, if you look at what came out of the House Transportation Infrastructure Committee in 2020 and some of the proposed legislation led by Chairman DeFazio and how that could be crafted into a broader bill and watch the senate side come along and see if they we can match those things up, but there's a lot of policy in the house transportation infrastructure bill that probably will be informative and that we anticipate the administration will want to build on.

Jeff Cranson: Well, the secretary nominee has already thrown a little shade toward that term “Infrastructure Week,” would it be okay with you if we never heard that again?

Lloyd Brown: I mean, it started as a good idea, but the unfortunate thing is that when we begin to make commitments people who are listening on the other end want to see some action, and that was the problem with the co-opting of that term. There's lots of terms in transportation we try not to use anymore. We try not to say things like “shovel-ready projects.”

Jeff Cranson: Yeah.

Lloyd Brown: But I think you'll hear a lot of conversations about projects that are “shovel-worthy,” so they're worthy of moving ahead.

Jeff Cranson: That is a better term.

Lloyd Brown: Yeah, absolutely.

Jeff Cranson: So, thinking about the big lift and another stimulus and, like you said, it would be omnibus for infrastructure, not just roads and bridges, not just what we think of as transportation infrastructure. How much of this depends on agreements between what happens in the senate especially? I mean, we know who the who the advocates are there. We know that the senate majority leader is married to what will soon be a former transportation secretary. Do you think that there's shared priority enough to do something big like that?

Lloyd Brown: Well, we hope so, and traditionally transportation has been, like I referenced earlier, it's been one of those issues that both conservatives and progressives have been able to get behind. They come at it from different perspectives, but ultimately there's a lot there that is a shared value. I think the other thing that you'll see this year that could enhance the ability of getting some things done is that in the house. Specifically, there's talk about adding back ear marks in a controlled way, and if that's something that is in the mix you could see more congressmen and perhaps some senators coming forward and saying, “yeah, I can get behind a transportation bill because I can more easily point back to something that's going back into my home state or my home district.”

Jeff Cranson: Isn't it interesting that something that became such a pejorative earmark has now, over the years, kind of evolved again and been recognized as an important component of getting something done?

Lloyd Brown: Well, a lot of people will analyze why we lost earmarks in the first place, but the truth of it is that without the ability of a congressman or a senator to be able to identify a project of significance it's very difficult to go back into their reelection campaign and say hey, I was able to help bring back this particular pot of funding for this particular activity. So, it does, I think, help when we're trying to get agreement with all those congressional members and all those senators just to have them be able to be on the record with something that is positive for where they're going. The federal program's so large, so vast, and covers so many different areas that it is a challenge helping people see the direct benefit from the 19 cents per gallon at the pump into what they receive back in value.

Jeff Cranson: So, you know, at the same time, just to touch on this again briefly, when talking about greenhouse gases and reducing the footprint and everything that we know mayor Pete supported as a candidate and supported in his infrastructure plan, and obviously his infrastructure plan now is whatever president-elect Biden’s plan is, but energy is a big part of that. It's a huge component, and the big automakers, certainly GM and Ford, are going all in embracing electric vehicles and seeing that as the future. The nominee for secretary of energy is former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm. It's probably not a coincidence that those two were announced the same day, really within hours of each other, so how big a deal is that do you think in terms of priorities going forward?

Lloyd Brown: Well, it's a big deal on two levels: one is that the state departments of transportation will play a key role in helping to build out the infrastructure to support an alternative fuel system for personal vehicles and trucks. So, what you see is, for instance, out on the west coast Washington, Oregon, California coming together and building a coalition that has actually helped facilitate the installation of infrastructure to support electric charging, electric vehicle fueling. Other places around the country have done some of the same thing but on a more intentional and broader basis. I see that coming, and I see that money coming through the Department of Energy but also through the US Department of Transportation, FHWA, so, that's the first thing. The second thing is as you see electric vehicles, if electric is the fuel of choice, or maybe it's hydrogen or both or a mixture, you're going to see a move away from the use of gasoline and carbon fuels, so what does that do to the highway trust fund that is reliant upon the 19 cents a gallon that people pay at the gasoline?

Jeff Cranson: It makes it even more broke than it already is.

Lloyd Brown: It does and then it's an erosion that is slow trickle for a period of time, but then we get to a tipping point. I don't remember what the number is but you get to a tipping point, a certain percentage of the light duty fleet that goes to an alternative fuel, and all sudden it's like falling off a cliff, and you see real significant impacts into the Highway Trust Fund.

Jeff Cranson: Well, this has been helpful. We’ll wrap it up, but let me ask you this: let's say that the first time that secretary Buttigieg gets to address AASHTO virtually perhaps or maybe, you know, in person at some point and you get a chance to ask a question, you get one question, what would it be?

Lloyd Brown: I guess if you recast the question into “what would I expect to hear,” I hope that what I would hear would be a rhetorical bridge to relationship building. I know that it would be easy to fall in line with some of the more progressive perspectives that transportation agencies like state DOTs are part of the problem, but ultimately what we're looking for is the opportunity to work with the administration work, with USDOT, FHWA, and the other modal administrations to come up with solutions to some of the nagging problems and some of the things that have caused so much unrest, whether that's environmental justice, whether that's public involvement, whether that's looking for alternative fuels to convert over, but, you know, I think that they'll find a good partner in the in AASHTO and its member departments in the next four years.

Jeff Cranson: No, I think that's good. I think that I, along those same lines, I think I’d want to ask him how he can balance, you know, what seem like competing interests but don't have to be because his focus on safety I think is so important now. I mean, as you know across the country certainly—Michigan is going to be up probably 10 percent in fatal crashes over 2019 despite the fact that we had, you know, 60 percent fewer vehicles on the road for weeks and settled in at about 20 percent fewer. I mean, it makes no sense, right? That focus on safety is more important than ever I think, so he can say look, you know, rebuilding roads for safety especially as it affects pedestrians and cyclists, that's a social justice imperative when you think about the demographics and who those users are, so we can do all that and please all sides, I think. It doesn't have to be either or, but I’d like to hear him talk about that.

Lloyd Brown: Well, his track record so far has been one where he seems to look for those kinds of solutions that are in addition to rather than in spite of, so, you know, you see him as additive rather than as sort of, you know, looking at a single issue at a single time.

Jeff Cranson: Yeah, well said. Well, Lloyd, thanks, as always, for doing this. I really appreciate it and hope you and your family have great holidays.

Lloyd Brown: Yeah, happy holidays to you, Jeff. Thanks for asking me.

Jeff Cranson: Okay, thanks again for listening to this week's edition of Talking Michigan Transportation, and I want to give a special thanks to Cory Petee, who does the sound engineering for the podcast, and to Sarah Martin, of MDOT, who does the show's intro and closing.

Narrator: That's a wrap for this edition of Talking Michigan Transportation. Check out show notes and more by subscribing on Apple podcast.

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