Maria Palma: Mr. Secretary, thank you so much for being here.
Secretary Buttigieg: Thank you for having me.
Palma: Earlier this week, you were here in Reno to celebrate the start of the Arlington Avenue Bridge Replacement project. The current bridge is about 100 years old. What needs to be done to make sure our bridges are safe?
Buttigieg: Well, the bridge needs to be placed and that's what we're doing. We're contributing $7 million to help with a project to replace it. We celebrated the start of work, most of the construction will launch next year and then it's gonna be a great resource with better durability, better sustainability and better safety.
Across America, we are seeing bridges that have reached the end of their useful life, which is why we are funding. Last time I checked just over 9,000 bridge projects to either improve, repair or replace a bridge. And it may be a neighborhood bridge or one in the heart of a city like the Arlington Avenue bridge.
The point is these projects have needed to be done for a long time, but they didn't happen because there was a lack of funding and part of the goal of the Biden-Harris infrastructure plan and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that's funding it is to finally address that to make sure that the backlog begins to shrink rather than grow. And at long last, that's happening now.
Palma: That's great. Now, let's talk about high speed rail. There is a line being built between Las Vegas and Southern California. What's the possibility of a similar high speed rail line connecting Reno to Sacramento or the Bay Area or Reno to Salt Lake City?
Buttigieg: Well, that project from Las Vegas to southern California, if it meets the schedule that we have in mind will be the first place on U.S. soil where there is true, high speed rail in operation, the project sponsors wanna have it up and running by 2028. I believe that once Americans experience that there's gonna be no going back, people are gonna want it everywhere.
Actually, we're already investing in planning for a rail route that would have enhanced service for Reno called the Capitol Corridor.
That's not yet a high speed plan, but it could eventually accommodate high speed options as well for the future. Part of what we're doing because we know that we've got a long way to go is we're not just funding construction, there are projects ready to go to construction like the Brightline West that connects Las Vegas or will connect Las Vegas to southern California. But we also need to help some projects get on the drawing board so that they can eventually be ready for implementation and for construction.
Palma: Why do you think there's so much resistance to high speed rail?
Buttigieg: Well, unfortunately, I think we as a country kind of got backed into a corner over recent decades, where more and more of the way that our roads, our highways and even our cities were designed really forced you to have no choice but to use a car.
I think the future has to be a much more all of the above strategy. Of course, we need to make sure we have good roads and highways that promote safe travel for our cars. But you shouldn't have to bring two tons of metal with you everywhere you're going just to go about your day. That's why we need better transit. We need better active transportation alternatives and we certainly need better passenger rail in this country.
Any developed country should have robust passenger rail and that's what we're working toward here in the U.S. It's been a big priority for President Biden, but also something that I think will be a growing priority for the public, again, especially once there's more of an experience with the kind of high quality and higher speed rail that we're working on right now.
Palma: Many people travel between Reno and Las Vegas. What is the possibility of seeing a major highway built to connect the two or even a high speed rail?
Buttigieg: I certainly think those could be important opportunities and visions for the future.
One thing that's important to stress is any project that we fund is one that is developed at a state or local level. We are funding 60,000 projects around the country from multi billion dollar efforts to six figure projects to improve a streetscape or a crosswalk somewhere. None of those were invented at our headquarters in Washington D.C. Our role is to come in and support as many projects and plans as we can.
So, if the community and the state want to move in that direction, we may have an opportunity to provide funding to help make it a reality.
Palma: Thank you so much for your time.
Buttigieg: Thank you for having me in.
