The Tartan

By William Curvan and Arden Ryan

On Friday, Jan. 26 in Rangos Ballroom, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg answered students’ questions about his work at the Department of Transportation (DOT) and perspective on new technology. Buttigieg was in Pittsburgh to announce $142 million in federal funding to renovate Interstate 376. The section of I-376 running along the Monongahela River, also known as Parkway East, is known locally as “the bathtub” because sections of it are prone to flooding during heavy storms.

Buttigieg said he was considering where else he could stop in town and still get back to D.C. in time to pick up his twins from daycare. 

“This institution is hosting the lead of the consortium that is doing critically important safety research work, the main reason my department exists,” Buttigieg said. “We believe your insights will help us to save lives.”

Pittsburgh is “a place where talent meets purpose,” Buttigieg said, a city he wanted to emulate when he served as mayor of South Bend, Indiana. The technologies developed here are not just “cool,” he said, but they matter in “how they make us safer or help address issues like equity and climate.”

After an introduction by Ramayya Krishnan, Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy dean, Buttigieg sat down with Professor Raj Rajkumar, director of the Safety21 Center and an electrical and computer engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon. Launched in July, Safety21 is a cross-university partnership dedicated to “promoting safety, equity, and the environment at a time of rapid developments in the transportation sector,” Krishnan said, an example of the work Carnegie Mellon is “doing at the nexus of technology and society.”

The fourth DOT-sponsored National University Transportation Center, Safety21 hosts research projects that promote safety and innovation at the local, state, and federal levels. Buttigieg took questions from several students on the Safety21 team, as well as from the many students packed into Rangos on Friday morning.

Asked about his proudest accomplishments in three years with the DOT, Buttigieg said he believes each form of transportation is in a better place than when he was appointed.

“With the humility of knowing that we’ve got a lot of unfinished business and a lot of work to do,” he said, aviation, railroads, and roadways have all seen improvements in safety and user satisfaction.

Buttigieg said the DOT “cracked down on airlines and really pushed them to improve their service,” which has expanded rights for passengers. In the past two years, he said, the percentage of union railroad workers with access to paid sick leave has increased from zero to 87. On roadway safety, Buttigieg is cautiously optimistic. He said data indicates the country is coming off the “horrifying peak of about 40,000” traffic deaths per year, and still has more work to do. Buttigieg is also proud of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which “took a lot of pushing to get done.” He said he is “thrilled” with what can be done now that funding is available, coming to projects nationwide like repairing the “bathtub” on Parkway East.

Buttigieg then heard questions from students about topics ranging from LGBTQ+ inclusivity and promoting equity to self-driving cars and airline safety. Buttigieg was asked how his identity as the first openly gay cabinet secretary shaped his professional career. He underscored the importance of representation and using funding not to temporarily promote diversity initiatives but create a lasting culture of inclusivity.

On that subject, Buttigieg said later that he is striving to ensure that equity and fairness are “not just the project of a U.S. secretary or a presidential administration, but just part of how the department does business.” Fairness in funding distribution should always be taken into account, he said, not just on racial lines but also across the “rural-urban divide, another equity area that doesn’t code the same way politically, but we take it seriously in the same way as a department.”

Buttigieg spoke about the bright future promised by autonomous vehicles, but cautioned people about flaws in the current technology, including advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).

He pointed out how much of the emerging self-driving technology might cause a net reduction in safety by encouraging distracted driving, even though the technology is not yet in a position to replace human drivers. “In theory, we’re working toward nirvana on the other end where we end the murderous track record of human drivers, and save tens of thousands of lives a year,” Buttigieg said.

He also spoke about the logistical difficulties of the rapid, national adoption of new technologies, providing examples of how the federal government can mediate the process. He pointed out that when telecommunications regulators from the previous administration authorized the construction of 5G antennas, they failed to coordinate with aviation regulators “who were concerned about whether that might interfere with radio altimeters.”

Buttigieg noted that “at one point, it looked like those antennas would go on and huge portions of the U.S. aviation fleet would not be able to fly,” claiming that such a calamity “would have made anything that we went to in the last three years look like nothing.” He said the DOT averted this by working with telecommunications companies like Verizon and AT&T. “They agreed to wait until work and testing can be done to make sure this was completely safely compatible with takeoff and landing,” Buttigieg said. 

When asked about the nascent commercial space travel industry, Buttigieg predicted a number of administrative and logistical challenges that regulators might anticipate, including passenger safety and managing launch times that may conflict with commercial planes.

He concluded with his thoughts on challenges for future generations. He expressed a mixture of concern and optimism, noting that “if you were born when my parents were born, you had a 90 percent chance of finishing off economically better than you started. If you were born in the year I was born, you had a 50 percent chance, a coin flip. … This idea of the future, this sense of progress, it’s contingent now, it’s uncertain. It’s not something we take for granted — but it’s still there.”

“Buttigieg told students that, “whether it’s in your civic and activism and advocacy and involvement, or in your research interests, are contributing. And that’s what fills my sails.”