America -- Land of the Free; Home of the Pothole

If there's one thing that's true about American politics, it's that you really don't know when a day starts who will be on one side of the other when the day ends. Take Ray LaHood, for instance. A moderate Republican from Illinois, he was one of the few from that party to support funding for Amtrak, usually a target of opportunity for the GOP.

The seven-term Congressman supported the funding during his time in Congress and now finds himself the Secretary of Transportation in President Barack Obama's cabinet with authority not only over Amtrak, but also over the entire American transportation infrastructure. Secretary LaHood will oversee about $48 billion earmarked for transportation projects as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. As noted in this month's "AAA Horizons" for Southern New England, this large chunk of change is part of the $787 economic stimulus package whose aim is getting the U.S. Economy back on course.

The AAA publication scored a coup this month when it was able to sit down for a one-on-one conversation with Secretary LaHood who took the gloves off and held a no-holds-barred conversation with the publication. LaHood described America as "one big pothole right now."

He indicated that we have ignored our infrastructure for far too long and he is "proud to be part of an administration that's really stepping up, providing the money not only to fill potholes, but to rebuild roads, resurface roads and, in some cases, build new roads."

He noted that it is the first time in many years that transportation issues have been given this type of attention simply because they "states haven't had the money." He indicated that infrastructure repair has gained a priority it hasn't had in a long time.

(This is easy to see in Eastern Massachusetts, for example, where there are major bridge repairs occurring on major federal and state highways. Although some of them were funded some years ago, the funding has been continued and more bridges have been included in packages. For example, in two towns in Eastern Massachusetts, several major bridges over a major river have been repaired a lane at a time, while keeping traffic flowing. Interestingly, the same river, which snakes through these towns, also has other, older bridges on which repairs have also been started. Some of the dates on the original bridges go back at least 80 years or more.)

Bridges aren't the only items of concern to the administration, LaHood indicated. He told AAA that when he was with Vice President Joseph Biden in St. Cloud, MN, at a company where they make buses, "the company was actually going to shutter its doors. As a result of the fact that we are going to give $8 billion to transit districts, they had to put on another shift."

He called this a clear example of how the the administration will be able to "put thousands of people to work in good-paying jobs and that roads in America will be rebuilt."

Asked about the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere," LaHood indicated that there are "no earmarks, no sweetheart deals. None. We have a web site called recovery.gov." where people can look at a map to see where the billions earmarked for reconstruction are going. People will be able to "see these are not earmark dollars. They are not sweetheart deal. They are not contracts that somebody was given because they know somebody's uncle who works for a politician." The funds were given on the merits of the projects and eventually "we'll be able to tell how many people are going to work."

In this free-wheeling interview, LaHood was asked how his department's goals fit with the goals of other departments and he indicated that on subjects such as climate change "high-speed rail is all about making America greener, and livable communities is about climate change and making America greener."

He indicated the new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) figures are working and that auto manufacturers have been able to cut CO2 emissions to "make our country greener." (CO2 has been identified as one of the greenhouse gases responsible for increasing temperatures over the last 100 years by various studies.)

Asked about his interest in trains, LaHood pointed to Portland, OR as the model they are using and said it "has to do do with the opportunities for people who want to ride their bike to work or walk to work or take light rail to work or take a bus. The idea for this really comes from the president and his team. The president lived in Chicago and people who live in Chicago use a lot of mass transit."

He was asked by AAA how people will be moved from their cars to to transit and he answered that "mass transit" must "make people feel comfortable riding - whether it's a bus, light rail or a streetcar - and making them efficient and cost effective."

He pointed to Houston's light-rail system that goes from downtown to "their medical center. This is a marvelous thing for people who can't afford an automobile because they can get to their doctor or hospital."

Asked what role his department can play in improving safety, he replied frankly that as "someone who has run for public office seven times and been in politics for 30 years, I know that if you tell someone something often enough, they start to believe it. If you tell somebody they can save their life by buckling their seatbelt and you tell it often enough and you give examples, they'll start to do it."

He indicated his department's job is get the message out through such programs as "Click it or Ticket," where police officers will ticket people they find driving unbuckled. They have also tried other things things to promote safety and indicated that the Department of Transportation (DOT) is a place where people "can look to to find out about the safest vehicles to drive because we perform crash tests on vehicles and we put out a whole scorecard on all the vehicles on our website (www.safercar.gov)."

Concluding, AAA asked Secretary LaHood, about its concerns over the $4 gas prices we saw last year and he indicated that "the bill that came out of the (U.S. House) Energy and Commerce Committee - the American Clean Energy and Security Act - is an example of where the administration is taking great steps to relieve our dependence on crude oil, particularly imported crude oil. The CAFE standards for 2011, 2012 and 2016 are another example of where the administration is taking steps to send a message to people that America can build cars that get 35 miles per gallon."

Secretary LaHood concluded by saying that one positive thing about $4-a-gallon gas is that people started riding Amtrak a lot more and found it "to be efficient and cost effective." People also started using "metro systems, the mass transit systems and found them to be pretty good systems. It helped people understand that you don't always have to get in your car if you want to go somewhere."