U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg stopped in Wilmington Friday, giving Delaware a “sneak peak” at a new funding opportunity aimed at putting cleaner buses on the road.
Delaware has already converted 10 percent of its public transit bus fleet from diesel to electric. Now, Buttigieg says more funding for low and no emissions buses is on the way.
Visiting DART headquarters, he highlighted new federal grants to modernize bus fleets and facilities he says will reduce carbon emissions and pollution while creating jobs.
"This is an opportunity to break the old false narrative that there’s a choice between climate and jobs. We’re here to talk about climate jobs and often those are called green collar jobs - but they’re also blue collar jobs - it’s the people that will be operating and servicing and manufacturing buses like those you see here today," he said.
Buttigieg said transit companies that apply for the funding must spend at least five percent on workforce and submit a plan showing how they will support, train and retain transit workers.
Buttigieg said the new buses aren’t just impacting transit riders and workers - but those who may never even board a bus.
"There might be a child whose bedroom is behind one of those air conditioning units of the second floor of the homes right over there whose life will be better because they will not become ill because they will not be inhaling pollution because of these clean buses. That's the kind of difference we can make right here," he said.
The money comes from the new federal infrastructure law. Sen. Tom Carper says Congress has allocated $5 billion to put new buses on the road over the next five years.
Other funding provided by the law will pay for improvements to roads, bridges and expand broadband services.
Some in Wilmington hope federal funds will be steered toward a project to "cap" I-95, covering it with urban parks and other attractions. Elected officials representing the city have asked Buttigieg to get behind the idea.
"We're very excited about the opportunity to respond where a piece of highway structure
that was meant to connect also winds up serving to divide," Buttigieg said Friday.
"The solutions are going to be different based on local context and so we’ll look to leaders here in Delaware to talk about what’s right for Delaware, but we are very interested in projects that bridge across or beneath a highway or stretch of roadway or sometimes submerge it completely and cap it, then you have the rarest of things which is new land to work with," he said adding that a "Reconnecting Communities" fund, part of the infrastructure law, contains about a billion dollars for such projects.
