That part about “safest, most efficient and modern” is clearly aspirational, but it is not fact. To go back to the topic of bridges just one more time: this year alone there have been bridge collapses in California, Illinois and Washington D.C. And here’s a sobering statistic: among industrialized nations, the U.S. has one of the highest rates of road fatalities per capita. The World Economic Forum’s annual Global Competitiveness Report reveals that the overall transportation systems in countries like Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Japan all outrank the United States. So there is much work to be done.
When the infrastructure bill is passed, the person overseeing the deployment of this funding in the Department of Transportation will be the 39-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, former presidential candidate, and recently appointed Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg.
The Secretary may be young, but his credentials are impressive: Harvard graduate, Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, an intelligence officer is the U.S. Navy Reserve for eight years, during which he attained the rank of lieutenant and was deployed to Afghanistan. As a presidential candidate, Buttigieg demonstrated that he has a considerable depth of knowledge and is also a quick study.
And a fellow Hoosier, Congressman Frank J. Mrvan from Indiana’s 1st congressional district, attests that Buttigieg “is well familiar with the value of making investments in our transportation and economic infrastructure, including his work to grow the commuter rail and airport systems in South Bend. Secretary Buttigieg’s knowledge of the value of the participation of local municipalities in unlocking federal dollars will be of incredible value as we move forward….”
Buttigieg is the 19th individual to be confirmed as Secretary of the Department of Transportation, which was established in 1966.
That seems like a relatively recent development, given that much of the nation’s transportation infrastructure was already well in place by that time.
In fact, the earliest interstate road-building project was actually inter-colonial. The King’s Highway was authorized in 1650 by Charles II. It was an ambitious plan to establish a 1300-mile road connecting the colonies from Massachusetts to South Carolina. When the project was completed 83 years later, George Washington was just a tot.