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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. One of the nominees announced for the Biden cabinet yesterday made me scratch my head at first like why does that person line up with that job? But now I'm starting to get it, but my next guest will help explain it to me as well as to you. It's the nomination of Pete Buttigieg to be Transportation Secretary.

If we in the big cities, think of transportation as running gigantic mass transit systems, like the MTA or NJ transit or the Bart system in the San Francisco Bay area, why pick the former mayor of South Bend Indiana population barely 100,000 with the closest subway stop 100 miles away in Chicago? I think the answer in a word is climate, but here to tell us more is Janette Sadik-Khan, who some of you will remember as the visionary New York City transportation commissioner under Mayor Michael Bloomberg. She now works with his company, Bloomberg Associates, where she works with mayors around the world to reimagine and redesign their cities.

She's also the chair of the national association of city transportation officials. She is author of the book Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution, and yes, it is about transportation. She used to be deputy administrator of the federal transit administration, the FTA so she knows that branch of federal transportation policymaking from the inside. Frankly, I wondered if Janette Sadik-Khan might become Biden's transportation secretary so I guess not, but she's here to talk about the nomination of Pete Buttigieg. Hi, Janette. Of course, I remember when you used to come on as the New York City transportation commissioner so welcome back to WNYC.

Janette Sadik-Khan: Brian is great to be back with you today.

Brian: Do you get this nomination?

Janette: I do. When you think about the President-elect, Biden has been loud and proud about his support for transit, and he's said he'd be the Amtrak president and he's going to fast track infrastructure spending in 2021. I think it's telling that Mayor Buttigieg is his pick for transportation secretary. There are a lot of picks out there about why and is this a good thing, but I'm very bullish on him and I don't think you can underestimate what a smart, politically experienced mayor can do.

I think his best point of entry actually is that he's a mayor of an American town. I worked for mayors and I have soft spot for mayors, but I do think that being a mayor gives you a really unique perspective on how government could work for people at the street level and experience the issues that maybe others underestimate.

Brian: Even a mayor of only 100,000 people with no subway system?

Janette: I think it's also interesting that he-- There's no central casting ideal for transportation secretaries. I don't remember any deep dives about previous secretaries. Many of them in the past have not held elected office and really didn't have any transportation background. Elaine Chao was the secretary. She had a lot of different jobs in Washington, including labor. Mary Peters was from Arizona running highways. Ray LaHood was Republican Congressman.

The position has had a variety of people from all walks of life running it and I think he's smart and he had a fantastic platform when he was running for president. One of the most detailed transportation platforms of any candidate out there. I think there's a lot going for him and transportation isn't just about cars and trucks and things that go, it's about transit and sustainability and climate change and access to opportunity. Really it's a form of justice.

When Mayor Pete, when he was mayor of South Bend, he had these complete streets programs to enhance walking and biking. He put in parking minimums, he rezoned to increase housing and advocated for rail. I think there's a strong background there of the priorities that we need to see at a national level.

Brian: The New York Times article on his nomination says the transportation department under Biden is expected to play a newly climate centric role because of the agency's authority to regulate vehicle emissions, the leading source of climate-warming pollution in the United States to encourage electric vehicles and to provide funding for mass transit. That's interesting because I might've thought those things would be for the energy secretary or the EPA administrator or someone like that, but the federal transportation department can become a climate-focused agency?

Janette: Oh, yes. Transportation policy is climate policy, its economic policy, it's the foundation of all of our conversations about race and equity and access to opportunity. That I think it's critical and I think it's wonderful to see that that connection is being made at the national level, because that's what it's going to take to move forward there. Different sides of the same coin. Transportation in 2021 isn't just a mobility issue, it is an issue of national economic urgency. Our recovery depends on the right response and there's no recovery if transit fails and people drive to work, which if we don't get this right, we're just going to add a mobility crisis to the health and economic, and racial justice crisis that we're facing now.

Brian: Listeners anybody want to weigh in on Peter Buttigieg for transportation secretary or you can also if you're interested in this add a comment or a question about Jennifer Granholm, the former governor of Michigan for energy secretary, it seems like a package deal that they got announced together, they're certainly related jobs.

Listeners 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280 for Janette Sadik-Khan from Bloomberg Associates. She was the New York City transportation commissioner and hailed as a transit and transportation visionary in that respect when she held that job under Mayor Michael Bloomberg. 646-435-7280. Janette, as I just mentioned, the other related nomination that got announced yesterday is former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm for energy secretary. I imagine any governor of Michigan knows something about the auto industry and that, of course, is related to climate change. Do you like that pick?

Janette: Yes, I think what I'm very excited about is this looking at these issues through a single lens and that we are not going to address the climate crisis if we don't bring all parties to the table. I think having somebody that gets the need to get to net-zero and achieve the climate benchmarks that we're looking to get done, you have to have somebody that knows how to get that done and so she's got a background in dealing with the auto industry, but I think what we need to do is have a transportation policy that doesn't incentivize driving.

If you have no choice, but to drive everywhere, you're never going to get to zero, you're never going to get to the climate goals that we need to achieve. We need incentives to electrify the transportation network and create transit-oriented communities. We don't have to drive for every trip and so I think matching transportation and energy and housing is going to be the top forward in 2021 and beyond.

Brian: Dan in Flatbush you're on WNYC. Hi, Dan.

Dan: Hey, good morning. I just wanted to mention this incident from 2016, I believe in South Bend when Pete was mayor. He made the decision to have a traffic light removed from an intersection where a public bus stop was that students use and this resulted in the death of a 11-year-old Black child and when confronted about this, Pete blamed the kid for his death for darting across the street in his words.

I just think this is really pertinent because this was a decision that from my understanding was informed by a consultant position. I think that that's emblematic of Pete's larger political personality. He's like a consultant class miracle whip dude. I don't see how-- He has no experience for this position. I just don't get it and it just seems very swampy.

Brian: Dan, thank you. He did have the reputation of being one of the largest generators when he was running for president in the primaries of corporate donations of big-money donations and are you familiar with the incident that the caller brings up Janette?

Janette: No I don't know the specifics of that. The piece that I've been looking at on his background is what he's done and I don't take away from, by the way, the seriousness of what the caller just mentioned that is tragic as every death on our streets and preventable deaths certainly are, but one of the things that I think was strong about his background in South Bend was this focus on complete streets and his focus on connecting low-income workers with jobs using rideshare. I think if you take a look at his presidential platform, he was the only candidate to call for a nationwide vision, zero policy, and even Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren didn't even touch on this stuff.

He's talked about transit investment in state of good repair. We've really got a ticking time bomb when it comes to a backlogs, maintenance backlogs in all arenas of infrastructure, but I'm not here to comment on that specific information. I really haven't heard this, but if we're really looking at what does his background look like and what are some of the policies that he would look to translate as secretary for President Biden.

Brian: Let's take another phone call and another critic. I think Mary, in Westchester, you're on WNYC. Hi, Mary.

Mary: Hi, thanks for taking my call. I'm going to make this short and sweet. I'm a Black woman and I'm gay and I'm older. I don't think that Buttigieg should be nominated for this position. I actually don't trust him. All right. I don't trust him. I feel that he's being nominated because he's a gay white guy and they're trying to make it look diverse. I don't believe that he even understands racism. He was in the military which is actually the largest polluter on the planet. The United States military is the largest polluter on earth and he worked for them. This guy doesn't understand what's going on. That's all I have to say and as I said, I'm not going to make this very [crosstalk].

Brian: Mary let me follow-up with you on one thing that you said because I think a lot of the analysis is that this is in part about cabinet diversity in the environmental area and that they want a person of color at EPA reportedly, who knows environmental justice, as well as technical emission standards and things like that and Buttigieg, also makes history as the first openly gay member of a presidential cabinet. There are those elements that they hope work together to make a good whole not good enough for you?

Mary: No, no. I have known so many gay racist white guys. Okay. Many. Being gay really doesn't mean anything when it comes to these other things like racism, sexism. Okay. It doesn't follow through. Other than he's fluid, the man has a silk tone and that's what gets him through. He's well-educated and he's very convincing and I don't trust him at all. I don't think he knows what he's doing. I don't think he has real experience in life with people and their situations and he just shouldn't be in that office.

Brian: Mary, thank you very much. I'm going to take a call-in next once to pivot in our remaining minutes, I was going to make this pivot to how New York City is doing since you were the former New York City transportation commissioner, Janette, in the pandemic and under De Blasio in general, I'm going to let Adam on the Upper West Side generate this. Adam, you're on WNYC. Hi, there.

Adam: Hi, Janette Sadik-Khan is in part my hero, every time I hop on a bike because she was such a pioneer and leader in rolling out bike lanes across the city and Brailler just talked about this really recently. Currently, during pandemic, this is how I learned it, Paris has rolled out 400 miles of bike lanes and we're barely doing anything. I was wondering what she can say about where we are on that and why are we doing nothing comparable to that?

Brian: Janette, you have a comment New York, 19 miles, I think is the number of bike lanes, Paris in the hundreds, as a specific response to the pandemic.

Janette: I really appreciate the caller's comments, so thank you for that. I think it's been really exciting to see what cities have done during the pandemic to transform their streets, to make it easier for people to get around, safer for people to get around and access opportunities and whether it's Paris or London or Milan or Barcelona, it's been exciting.

Everybody's following the same playbook and it's interesting to say people thought that the future of transportation and the next thing to do is to build-- We were going to have like flying cars and [unintelligible 00:15:33] and all of that. It's been interesting to see that everybody, the first thing that successful mayors did was open their streets to make it easier for walking and biking and the like.

I think that it's inspiring to see what Mayor Hidalgo did in Paris and what Mayor Sadiq Khan is doing, Mayor [unintelligible 00:15:51] is doing. In New York, I think it's been interesting to see perhaps not as much on the bike lane program, but the open restaurants having 10,500 restaurants certified for outdoor dining using 15,000 parking spaces just shows you what the potential is that's been hidden in plain sight.

This crisis, I think is a huge opportunity and we shouldn't be bound by the timeline of the crisis. We should be looking long-term and thinking about what we need for the recovery and to get ready for the next crisis. We've been through so much in New York City and just a generation you think about 9/11 and the Blackouts and Sandy and now with the pandemic in 2020 and we always needed our streets and that's never been made more clear.

I think the other piece of the caller's point is, it's interesting to see how all mayoral candidates are talking about ways to build on the legacy. It certainly started under Mayor Bloomberg with the protected bike lanes and the bus lanes and following-up on the good work that Polly Trottenberg did. I think it's going to be important to track candidates to see that their vision is there for what we can do to make the next generation of bike lanes and bus lanes happen. Look forward to hearing more on that.

Brian: Last question. What about the large majority of America where transportation by car is still the norm? I think a third, I saw the stat somewhere and it blew my mind but then when you think about it, it makes sense. A third of all the Americans who take mass transit to work do so in New York, most of the country really is different and a lot of it doesn't have that option even. Should Biden and who whoever he appoints in whatever environment-related positions, transportation-related positions be making life harder for drivers who are not in Manhattan and Brooklyn?

I remember when he used to come on the show is transportation commissioner and we would get the hate calls from people saying, "Why do you hate cars? Why do you hate drivers? Why are you discriminating against me? I need to drive on the working class person, the subway doesn't go where I need to go," whatever it is. Even New Jersey is famous for being car dependent in large measure because the mass transit options aren't there. Should the Biden administration also make it easier for drivers in some way, or just make it harder for drivers?

Janette: As you know, we had lots of callers, as you say, say all sorts of things on your show. It's not about being anti-car, it's about being pro-choices and transit should never be politicized as the MTA carried nine million people, nine million Americans daily across its divisions during better times and not just any nine million people. It's not just New York swagger that our workforce is the core of the national economy. New York accounts for 10% of national GDP.

As New York City goes, so goes the nation, it's in the nation's interest that New York city transit works. Our buses and trains are used by Americans, by essential workers and people who don't own cars and that's a majority of commuters in New York City. 65% of essential workers take transit, but it's also used by bikers and lawyers. A whole world of people who keep the city and this whole nation moving so that's not how Washington looks at it. As you point out Brian, the MTA carries almost 40% of transit passengers in the United States, but it only got 14% of the funding in the CARES Act, which is heartbreaking.

The other piece that I think is interesting is, the MTA alone carries three times the number of passengers, as all of the nation's airlines do on a single day. We're not going to get far with the equivalent of ice cream money here. We need a federal strategy on a national recovery level that's equivalent to what we did after the depression. I think we need WPA for the MTA.

Brian: Janette Sadik-Khan, she was the transportation commissioner for New York City under Mayor Bloomberg. She now is the principal with Bloomberg Associates where she consults mayors around the world on transportation policy and related environmental policy. She's chair of the National Association of City Transportation officials and author of the book Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution.

Well, we'll see if the Pete Buttigieg's nomination for Transportation Secretary goes through and on a broader basis, what transportation and environment policy turn out to be under President Biden. Janette, thanks so much for coming on to this.

Janette: Thanks, Brian. It's great to be with you.

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