U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg sat down for an hour-long conversation with TIME correspondents and editors on June 9 in its D.C. bureau, and discussed the Biden Administration's summer plans to aggressively promote the new bridges, roads, airport and broadband projects getting underway that may otherwise go unnoticed until their completion.
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00:00 It's clear even just in the wake of the American Rescue Plan, I've seen a lot of communities
00:22 where people had major benefits from the American Rescue Plan, but don't necessarily know that
00:29 that's how that happened.
00:30 As a matter of fact, it happened to me once.
00:32 I was back last summer in South Bend for a wedding.
00:36 Went running with an old friend who was a city planner.
00:41 He took me on this rail-to-trail project.
00:46 It was a coal line that's now this great multi-use trail.
00:50 Halfway through the run, I said, "Wait a minute.
00:52 I don't remember this being in my park spot.
00:54 How'd the new mayor get this done?"
00:57 He said, "Oh, ZARPA."
00:59 That was a real wake-up call to me that I'm a member of this administration.
01:04 I was the mayor of this city.
01:06 It was not obvious to me that I was benefiting from an asset created under the president's
01:13 leadership.
01:14 When something is unambiguously and uncontroversially good, you have to work 10 times harder to
01:21 get attention to it.
01:22 The best things we're doing, because it's pretty hard to argue against them, don't
01:27 always sizzle, especially online, which is one of the reasons why it's important to make
01:33 up for that dynamic by physically getting out there.
01:36 When we do get out there, it's magnificent.
01:38 Yes, we're going to be on the road.
01:40 We're going to be drawing attention to this good work.
01:44 Where appropriate, we're going to be drawing attention to the contrast with legislators
01:51 who described this as wasteful spending when we were trying to get it through Congress,
01:56 but are just as happy as anybody else now that the spending is coming to benefit their
02:01 communities.
02:02 We've got to tell the story of how this got there.
02:05 The other challenge we face, obviously, is that unlike some of the president's other
02:09 accomplishments like the PACT Act, the eligibilities there for veterans or the $35 insulin, if
02:20 it's a new airport terminal or a new bridge, it can take years to get done.
02:24 But I would also add, even if it's a few years before you are driving on that bridge, it
02:31 may just be a few more weeks before your cousin's got a job working on that bridge.
02:35 We're going to be emphasizing the economic benefit as well as the better infrastructure
02:39 that's coming out of this work.
02:40 President Biden has established a sense of belonging that's benefiting every generation.
02:45 That's what I would add, leading on policies that really speak to what I think is one of
02:49 the central problems in this country, which is short-termism versus long-termism.
02:54 He's dialed in on the details, but also very, very focused on the big picture and applying
02:59 a level of energy that moves through the administration and certainly makes departments like mine
03:05 feel accountable for matching the pace of his ambitions for the country.
03:09 Thank you.
03:10 Thank you.
03:11 Thank you.
03:11 Thank you.