Blog: On Martin Luther King Day 2014, Transportation and Opportunity

Statement

In America, the black unemployment rate is twice today what it is for whites -- a fact that hasn't changed since Dr. Martin Luther King led the March on Washington. In fact, it may be slightly worse.

And a child born today to a family in the bottom 20 percent of earners only has a 1-in-20 chance of making it to the top 20 percent. She's 10 times likelier to stay where she is.

"This is," the President has said, "the defining challenge of our time."

Which bring us to the question: What are we in this Administration doing about it?

Well, if you want to know, you can talk to Secretary Donovan over at HUD, and hear how he's using the full strength of the federal government to take 20 poor communities across the country and create in them an economic renaissance.

Or, talk to Secretary Sebelius at HHS, and hear how they have enrolled 6 million people in health care plans since October.

Or, Secretary Duncan at Education, who is working to give all 4-year-olds the chance to go to preschool, especially the kids from low-income families.

Or, EPA Administrator McCarthy, who's making sure those schools are healthy places for our nation's kids to learn.

Now, at some point, you may run out of people to talk to. Which is why you can come talk to me. Because transportation has a role in all of this, too.

If you think about it, when we talk about economic conditions of a community, we have always defined them in terms of transportation: If you were poor, you were said to live on the wrong side of the tracks.

And there's a reason that's the case --because transportation and opportunity are closely linked.

In too many places, roads and transit and rail were put in that uprooted people, locking some into opportunity --and locking many more out of it.

I believe that 21st-Century transportation has to be a unifier, connecting people to 21st-Century jobs and 21st-Century opportunities.

And we are seeing the evidence of that today.

Today, I've been visiting the Crenshaw corridor in Southwest Los Angeles, one of the city's poorest neighborhoods, to break ground on a new light-rail system there. It's an opportunity to bring jobs to a part of the community that has struggled for too long.

What does that mean? For the first time in their lives, people who have been transferring buses three or four times every day to get to work, may soon be able to find a job down the street. Which, in turn, means a dramatically shorter commute. Which means more free time to go to PTA meetings…or to help kids with their homework…or to take online classes to get new skills and better jobs.

And this isn't just happening in Crenshaw.

It's happening in Columbus, Ohio, too. There, they have a mayor who is taking a highway that once cut off a whole city district, and he is capping it, finally connecting that community to the 21st-Century economy. It's happening in communities across the country -- and we at DOT want to help.

Roads really can lead to prosperity. Bridges and transit lines can really link people to the rungs of what President Obama calls "ladders of opportunity."

And transportation can mean a more prosperous, more just America, for all Americans.

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