Buttigieg discussed his achievements during his time in office, highlighting his success in obtaining millions of dollars in grant funding for the North Coast Connector project in Cleveland.
In Cleveland, at the Mimi Ohio Theatre in the city center, a large crowd gathered on Monday evening to listen to Pete Buttigieg, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, as he approaches the end of his term. Buttigieg was a speaker at a City Club event.
Right out of the gate, the South Bend, Indiana, native and former mayor of his hometown bragged of his Midwestern roots.
“I’m a creature of the Great Lakes,” Buttigieg noted. “I grew up in northern Indiana. My first real job was in Chicago.”
Due to his appreciation for the Great Lakes, Buttigieg mentioned his admiration for Cleveland’s lakefront, noting its significance for infrastructure development. Despite this, he noted that there is still room for improvement.
“‘Mayor Bibb, you guys have one of the most underdeveloped coasts in America,'” Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb says Buttigieg told him recently.
Shortly after that conversation, the Department of Transportation allocated nearly $60 million in grant money for the North Coast Connector project, a proposed land bridge that would literally “connect” the city to the shores of Lake Erie. Buttigieg says its just a part of his mission as leader of the agency.
“We have taken action to leave every form of American transportation better than we found it,” he said Monday.
Buttigieg highlighted several accomplishments under President Joe Biden’s administration, including the passage of a bipartisan infrastructure law, a push for giving railroad workers sick leave, and after the pandemic, proposing regulations to give airplane passengers more rights when flights were delayed.
Additionally, while not everyone believes in global warming, Buttigieg is adamant we have to be prepared for it.
“While and after I have this job, it’s a message I’m going to keep doing my part to spread,” Buttigieg told 3News in an interview following his remarks, “in addition to the fact that climate change is a thing whether, we admit it or not, and the best thing we can do to protect American lives and property is to make decisions that will help us face that challenge.”
Such environmental challenges were highlighted less than two years ago with the train derailment and chemical spill in East Palestine. Buttigieg received some criticism from both sides of the aisle, and admits he should have told the Northeast Ohio community how he felt about the disaster as the federal government did its job. Even so, with only six weeks left in the White House, he is optimistic for the future.
“If I think about where we started, if I think about what it was like when I was growing up and where we have come today, I think we are more than halfway their.”
Buttigieg now lives in Traverse City, Michigan, and come Jan. 20, he will be heading there to regroup and spend time with his family. When we asked him about what might come next in his political career, he would not commit to anything, saying he’s instead focused on completing the job he currently holds.
Besides his speech, Buttigieg also sat down for a conversation with Cleveland City Planning Director Joyce Pan Huang and took questions from the audience. You can watch the entire event below:
