OAKLAND (KCBS RADIO) – U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg visited the Bay Area this week to as part of a nationwide effort to bolster the Biden administration's infrastructure bill.
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On Friday, Buttigieg’s second day in the Bay Area, he toured an infrastructure project in Oakland with local leaders, Congresswoman Barbara Lee and city Mayor Libby Schaaf. He visited San Francisco's Chinatown the day before.
The Oakland project, dubbed Reconnecting the Town, has received $14.5 million in federal funding from Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE).
The goal is to transform Broadway and Martin Luther King Jr. Way for better biking and walking and make the waterfront more accessible to the community.
According to the secretary, there are links between race, equity, and public transportation.
"People need fair access to opportunity and part of that means literally, physically being able to access where the opportunities are," he said.
In the past, transportation decisions have left certain underserved groups isolated and disconnected.
"Part of justice is making sure we take care of the basics and that's especially important when we're talking about federal dollars and ensuring that they serve everyone," said Buttigieg.
While he's encouraged by new projects aimed at better connecting underserved and low-income communities, he acknowledged that inevitably many of these large-scale projects take time.
"We're fighting that with everything we've got by using the expertise we can gather and a lot of very close coordination with the people who are actually going to be carrying out the projects we fund," he said.
As of right now, more than $10 billion in federal funding is earmarked for public transportation in California.
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