Buttigieg touts aid for area transportation
The novelty check had a few extra zeroes, but even if Houston’s airport system is not getting $40 billion, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg assured Houston-area officials Monday that federal funding is coming for a number of road, transit and airport projects.
“We have the funding and we can work on interesting and consequential problems,” Buttigieg said on a quick swing through Houston, touting the $1.2 trillion federal infrastructure bill passed last year as the catalyst for local projects and jobs.
Buttigieg's swing through the Bayou City came as the area has reaped more than $86 million just in the past three months. In early July, officials said Bush Intercontinental Airport would receive $40 million and Hobby Airport $3.6 million for assorted terminal upgrades to flow more people through security lines and make baggage movement from the airlines to passengers quicker, along with other projects, including energy efficiency improvements.
A mock check displayed at an event Tuesday in Terminal A listed the amount as “$40,000,000,000” — 1,000 times more than Houston got — but still was welcomed by local officials.
“Those dollars are already making a difference,” Mayor Sylvester Turner said.
A month after the airport award, Houston won $21 million for a planned remake of a stretch of Telephone Road, via a competitive grant aimed at community altering projects. The 2.8 mile street rebuild will add wider sidewalks and bike lanes and spruce up bus stops between Lawndale Drive and Loop 610 from Eastwood to south of Pecan Park.
“This is dollars that are going to an area that is under-served, and frankly has been for a time,” U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Hous
ton, said.
Days later, Metro secured $21.6 million to fund the bulk of an upcoming purchase of electric buses, part of the agency's early efforts to convert its mostly-diesel fleet of 1,200 buses to cleaner fuels.
The buses will make an immediate difference, Houston Congressman Al Green said, because they will “improve our atmospheric conditions to the extent some people are going to breathe better.”
Chaperoned by U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Buttigieg started the morning in class at North Forest High School, before moving on to Texas Southern University’s aviation program, which is trying to turn out new pilots and airport professionals at the historically Black college.
Jackson Lee said with federal investment and support, the school “could be the heartbeat of more pilots in America.”
Part of making that happen, Buttigieg said, is reducing the costs to enter some programs for disadvantaged students.
“There is a very good-paying job at the end of this road, but it is expensive to get on this road,” he said.
Meanwhile in Houston, many workers need a car simply because a dearth of transit and biking options make vehicle ownership a job requirement. The final stop on Buttigieg’s tour was Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Burnett Transit Center, for a quick rundown of Metro’s longrange plans.
Buttigieg said there is “phenomenal energy” to take the federal investment and put it to work on projects nationwide, where local officials have a long list of projects.
Houston-area officials have the projects, but lack consensus in some cases about what exactly to build. Transit in the region, while increasing in support, still has detractors and skeptics, while opposition to freeway widening — notably the $9.7 billion-plus Interstate 45 project — has increased in volume.
Citing a Federal Highway Administration investigation into the I-45 project, Buttigieg declined to address the project’s specifics, but noted in his time as mayor of South Bend, Ind., contention over projects got results.
“Through dialogue they really did come out better,” he said.
Jackson Lee said she expects the same for I-45.
“I am not going to give up on having harmony,” she said of the divide between those that want the freeway built and those pressing for more improvements in communities split by the wider road. “How can you reject people who are fighting for their quality of life?”
Opponents of the I-45 and others advocating for alternatives to freeway building came to the Metro portion of Buttigieg’s tour, but time constraints turned his scheduled ride into a quick presentation at the Burnett platform. While transit and elected officials were ushered onto a waiting light rail train, members of the Stop TxDOT I-45 group and LinkHouston were kept on the platform.
The lack of access during Buttigieg’s visit frustrated some of the advocates, who often show up to voice concerns, only to be kept at bay.
“If I’d have known it would be like this, I would not have shown up,” Stop TxDOT I-45 organizer Susan Graham said as she left.