February 17, 2025

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Health's Like Heaven.

Scott Bricker and Laura Chu Wiens: Biden’s jobs plan can help us move better

The Biden administration’s bold American Jobs Plan aims to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into public transit and transportation infrastructure. The plan has the potential to massively improve everyday Americans’ ability to get around safely, in addition to creating jobs, growing a sustainable economy and moving toward climate goals — if it’s done right.

Biden unveiled the American Jobs Plan in Pittsburgh last month, nodding to Pittsburgh’s industrial history and indicating that the plan is designed to improve infrastructure in cities like ours across the country. Nearly a quarter of Pittsburgh households have no access to a car, and many workers and residents rely on public transit, walking and biking to access food, work, health care and other necessities.

Biden calls the plan a “once in a generation investment in America, unlike anything we’ve done since we built the interstate highway system and won the space race decades ago,” and that is exactly the type of guiding sentiment we need for the future of transportation; some have argued that Biden’s plan is not big enough to match what is needed.

The American Jobs Plan allocates $115 billion to repair our “highways, bridges and main streets.” The explicit inclusion of “main streets” here is extremely important; this is not just for interstates, this is for infrastructure for everyday people to get around. The work is described as maintenance, fixing and updating what we have now as opposed to building new roads and bridges. That’s good, especially for a place like Pittsburgh. The “fixing it first” and “fixing it right” approach with attention to all users of the road can strengthen our ability to get around Pittsburgh by walking, bicycling and public transportation.

Of this funding, $20 billion is specifically earmarked for safety, with a focus on people who walk and bike. This is a big deal, adding up to 17% of overall spending on safety as compared with the 5% for safety measures in the 2015 transportation bill (FAST Act). Importantly, the plan also specifically names Vision Zero, a comprehensive strategy with the goal of eliminating traffic fatalities and serious injuries while increasing, safe, equitable, healthy mobility for all.

The plan also marks out $85 billion for transit, which, combined with the additional $80 billion in funding for Amtrak, is more than the funding for highways, moving us toward a more sustainable, more equitable mass transit society. There is also $174 billion for electrifying vehicles, which includes funding for 50,000 transit buses and school buses, which is great.

The emphasis on public transit is absolutely crucial in building a safe and efficient transportation system that is focused on people, not on the automotive industry. At the same time, how the funding can be used is just as important. Funding for public transit must be flexible so that it can be used for operations — bus service expansion in particular — and not just capital investments. Up until now, federal dollars have only gone toward infrastructure, and we know that simply having more frequent and expansive service is the best investment to improve equity and to take cars off the road.

Pittsburgh is poised to use an influx of transit funding to tackle long-needed projects. Pittsburghers for Public Transit has just concluded a several-year participatory planning process for riders in the Mon Valley and eastern suburbs to uplift the infrastructure solutions that will support quality public transit to get to their key destinations. Our process points toward the need to expand the Martin Luther King East Busway into the Mon Valley and Monroeville. State Reps. Austin Davis, Summer Lee, Nick Pisciottano and Brandon Markosek have recently named the extension of the East Busway as a key priority for the region.

The American Jobs Plan also includes other encouraging priorities, such as $20 billion for addressing historical inequities by taking down highways that divide communities as well as repairing and restoring community connections and economies. In the congressional discussion of this type of program, measuring reconnection was correctly defined as being walkable or bikeable.

Overall, the American Jobs Plan looks incredibly positive. Pittsburghers stand to benefit from safer streets and increased connectivity between neighborhoods via public transportation and accessible walking and bicycling infrastructure. The emphasis on maintenance — bringing roads and bridges up to complete streets standards by “fixing them right,” with all users in mind — as well as on safety, climate and equity throughout the plan are very encouraging.

But the devil is in the details. A lot of work is still required to ensure the public and employment gains of the package are distributed equitably, and that the results benefit the people who need it most. Here, the process is as important as the outcomes. Those most impacted are the ones most capable of designing solutions to address their needs, so transit riders and transit workers need a seat at the table, as do people with disabilities and people with small children. If we begin with those most vulnerable, we build an environment that supports all users.

And finally, barriers to access don’t begin and end with the built environment. Most people have transportation needs not because there is a shortage of roads, but because they lack access to safe, affordable, effective means of transportation to get to critical destinations, and safe and affordable housing that would allow them to live within walking, biking or transit access of those services. So policy improvements like low-income fares, transit service expansion and legislation that ties affordable housing to transit access must go hand-in-hand with any built infrastructure improvements.

Scott Bricker is co-founder and executive director of BikePGH. Laura Chu Wiens is executive director of Pittsburghers for Public Transit

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