{"id":1446,"date":"2025-05-20T01:49:34","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T01:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iet.solutions\/?p=1446"},"modified":"2025-10-02T05:21:59","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T05:21:59","slug":"pete-buttigieg-third-political-appointee-to-be-dot-secretary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iet.solutions\/es\/pete-buttigieg-third-political-appointee-to-be-dot-secretary\/","title":{"rendered":"Pete Buttigieg \u2013 tercer nombramiento pol\u00edtico para ser Secretario del DOT\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2026<\/strong> <\/strong>\u2026no es un r\u00e9cord para presentarse\u2026 ni siquiera para entrar a la Casa Blanca.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(by Bill Stremmel) Normally this column does not wade into partisan politics as transportation infrastructure, prudent + sensible investments into and the efficient\u00a0 sustainable uses of it, should be apolitical benefiting the entire commonweal.\u00a0 And as a non-profit 501(c)(3) the Institute for Effective Transportation cannot take sides with any candidate for public office or political party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sin embargo, el IET podr\u00eda ejercer su derecho a cuestionar la permanencia de alguien en un puesto que afecte al transporte, especialmente en un puesto con tanta influencia como el de Secretario del Departamento de Transporte de EE. UU. Pete Buttigieg, nombrado poco antes de la toma de posesi\u00f3n del presidente Joe Biden en enero de 2021, ocup\u00f3 este cargo durante cuatro a\u00f1os de especial importancia, ya que generosas porciones de las enormes sumas de la Ley de Inversi\u00f3n en Infraestructura y Empleo (IJJA) y la llamada \"Ley de Reducci\u00f3n de la Inflaci\u00f3n\" se asignaron a proyectos y programas de transporte bajo la \u00e9gida del DOT. Desde su salida, el Sr. Buttigieg se ha visto envuelto en una controversia sobre las fallas de la FAA y su responsabilidad en la colisi\u00f3n a\u00e9rea mortal de enero sobre el r\u00edo Potomac. Al mudarse de Indiana a Michigan aparentemente en busca de una orientaci\u00f3n pol\u00edtica m\u00e1s \"azul\", Buttigieg desafi\u00f3 las expectativas de que se postular\u00eda para un esca\u00f1o en el Senado de los EE. UU. que quedar\u00eda vacante en 2026 por un dem\u00f3crata, lo que gener\u00f3 especulaciones de que, en cambio, se estaba preparando para otra candidatura a la presidencia en 2028.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The late Governor of New York State, Alfred E. Smith, offered this advice when evaluating a candidate\u2019s suitability for public office: \u201cLet\u2019s Look at the Record.\u201d  And for \u201cMayor Pete\u201d as he was referred to on the 2020 campaign trail after having served as Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Mr. Buttigieg\u2019s record in public service following the military and on Wall Street begins there.  A heavy lift for Pete and all of his predecessors since Studebaker closed its automobile manufacturing plant in 1963 has been to fill that cavernous facility ideally located on a rail siding with affordable housing nearby for the workers with new firms, but when I stopped by in 2018 it stood empty.  South Bend was cleaned up, but lacked much economic vigor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Especially revealing was a January, 2021 segment of Brian Lehrer\u2019s WNYC radio show dedicated to President Biden\u2019s nomination of Buttigieg.\u00a0\u00a0There were dozens of callers and hundreds of online comments – all of them questioning how a mayor of\u00a0\u00a0a city with barely 100,000 residents could relate that experience to the transportation issues of an entire nation comprised of many cities with populations in the millions served by complex transit systems.\u00a0\u00a0One resident of South Bend called to say that Mayor Buttigieg had removed a stop light in a black neighborhood and six months later a black child was killed trying to cross the\u00a0\u00a0now unsignaled intersection.\u00a0\u00a0So much for \u201ctransportation equity\u201d and balancing traffic flow with pedestrian safety that Buttigieg harped about so much at the helm of DOT.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0When Pete Buttigieg first emerged as a rising star in the Democratic Party ten years ago the first thought that came to mind was: \u201cI\u2019ve seen this face before.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Then it came to me:\u00a0\u00a0the June, 1966 cover of MAD Magazine affixed to the door of our 6th grade classroom just weeks before we were to graduate from elementary school.\u00a0\u00a0Below the image of an adolescent character the spitting image of Pete Buttigieg even a generation older was the caption: \u201cWHAT ME WORRY\u201d.\u00a0
Indeed that seemed to be the theme underlying all of Pete\u2019s pronouncements ranging from pure politically correct drivel to broad policy statements.\u00a0\u00a0He just came off as a modern-day Marie Antoinette brushing off concerns of those who weren\u2019t wealthy or woke enough to fit into the Biden administration\u2019s fractured future for ordinary Americans.\u00a0\u00a0Like owners of non-Tesla electric cars with such a paucity of places to recharge because despite billions of $ earmarked for generic recharging stations by the IJJA, only a few dozen were in operation by the end of Biden\u2019s term.\u00a0\u00a0WHY?\u00a0\u00a0The biggest reason could be a nonsensical provision in the Act prohibiting construction of charging stations in Highway rest areas \u2026 which happen to be the most logical place for them because the duration of time people spend for a rest break is just about sufficient to recharge an electric car for the next leg of its journey.\u00a0\u00a0A truly proactive Secretary of Transportation would have had such a ridiculous regulation removed before the bill even reached the House floor.\u00a0\u00a0Buttigieg was aloof in deed as well as in word, taking the first sabbatical of any Cabinet secretary in memory ( my political awareness goes back 65 years) for months in 2021 to help care for his newly adopted twins.\u00a0\u00a0With a hubby to share responsibilities could he not have broken away to make just a few phone calls down to longshoremen on the piers in Los Angeles and Long Beach to unsnarl the logjam with hundreds of ships berthed offshore waiting to unload?\u00a0\u00a0Maybe not because Pete could not seem to relate to working class folks.\u00a0\u00a0The supply chain crisis at the height of the COVID pandemic contributed mightily to the inflation that factored into the Dems debacle at the polls in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Para ser justos, Pete Buttigieg fue el tercero de una serie de nombramientos pol\u00edticos en el DOT con consecuencias tan negativas para el transporte como lo ha sido un patr\u00f3n similar en el DOE para la energ\u00eda. El mandato combinado de Anthony Foxx, Elaine Chao y Buttigieg, que abarca 12 a\u00f1os, se ha caracterizado por una falta de apreciaci\u00f3n de los aspectos t\u00e9cnicos de los veh\u00edculos y aeronaves aut\u00f3nomos, el descuido de los sistemas cr\u00edticos de la FAA y la funci\u00f3n b\u00e1sica de transportar personas y mercanc\u00edas de forma econ\u00f3mica y r\u00e1pida con un impacto m\u00ednimo, subsumida en otras agendas. Durante este tiempo, se ha producido una peligrosa deriva con el espectro esencial para la comunicaci\u00f3n V2X invadido por la industria del entretenimiento debido a la falta de una intercesi\u00f3n contundente del DOT ante la FCC. Planificar con antelaci\u00f3n una nueva dimensi\u00f3n de la movilidad a\u00e9rea exige incorporar pistas de aterrizaje en los tejados de los edificios en las nuevas construcciones, a la vez que se examina con atenci\u00f3n la inversi\u00f3n continua en la expansi\u00f3n de las carreteras de superficie y el ferrocarril subterr\u00e1neo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buttigieg, al igual que el presidente Barack Obama, qued\u00f3 particularmente cautivado por \"The Power Broker\" de Robert Caro, publicado hace m\u00e1s de 50 a\u00f1os, en 1974, para exponer las deficiencias en la planificaci\u00f3n y la metodolog\u00eda del legendario zar de las obras p\u00fablicas de Nueva York, Robert Moses. S\u00ed, hay lecciones importantes que aprender de la concentraci\u00f3n excesiva de poder en un solo individuo con una agenda limitada para facilitar el uso del autom\u00f3vil privado, excluyendo cualquier otra consideraci\u00f3n. Pero Caro nunca pretendi\u00f3 que su libro fuera la biblia integral de la planificaci\u00f3n del transporte urbano que ha llegado a ser considerada por el mundo progresista. El transporte p\u00fablico y el tren de alta velocidad, en crisis, podr\u00edan haber necesitado personas con la determinaci\u00f3n y el coraje de Moses para superar los mezquinos intereses parroquiales, como ocurri\u00f3 cuando las autopistas se arrasaron en las ciudades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buttigieg ahora est\u00e1 involucrado en una andanada de cr\u00edticas sobre las fallas alarmantes del aparato regulador de la aviaci\u00f3n civil de los Estados Unidos, parando efectivamente los comentarios rid\u00edculos de Trump y otros partidarios de MAGA sobre la DEI al citar un r\u00e9cord de cero muertes en el aire durante su mandato, la colisi\u00f3n en el aire entre el avi\u00f3n regional de American Airlines y un helic\u00f3ptero del Ej\u00e9rcito sobre DC ocurri\u00f3 solo nueve d\u00edas despu\u00e9s del inicio de la nueva administraci\u00f3n.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lo que respondo: \u00abNo tan r\u00e1pido, Pete\u00bb. Cuatro a\u00f1os despu\u00e9s, el mismo programa de radio de WNYC que analizaba su nominaci\u00f3n a principios de 2021 emiti\u00f3 estad\u00edsticas que indicaban una mayor incidencia de cuasi accidentes en aeropuertos y en el aire, correlacionada con la escasez de personal de la FAA a principios de 2023. De hecho, a principios de enero, justo antes del final del gobierno de Biden, dos aviones de pasajeros perdieron las alas en un d\u00eda despejado en una calle de rodaje del Aeropuerto Internacional O'Hare de Chicago. La investigaci\u00f3n de la tragedia del 29 de enero revela un conflicto interno sobre el r\u00edo Potomac, con incursiones rutinarias de helic\u00f3pteros militares en la ruta de aproximaci\u00f3n del Aeropuerto Nacional Reagan, mientras que el enlace de comunicaciones entre la FAA y los controladores del Pent\u00e1gono llevaba dos a\u00f1os sin funcionar. \u00bfY d\u00f3nde estaba nuestro ilustre secretario del Departamento de Transporte? \u00a1Desaparecido en combate!<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2026 NOT a record to run on \u2026 or even waltz into the White House (by Bill Stremmel) Normally this column does not wade into partisan politics as transportation infrastructure, prudent + sensible investments into and the efficient\u00a0 sustainable uses of it, should be apolitical benefiting the entire commonweal.\u00a0 And as a non-profit 501(c)(3) the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iet.solutions\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iet.solutions\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iet.solutions\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iet.solutions\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iet.solutions\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1446"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/iet.solutions\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1505,"href":"https:\/\/iet.solutions\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions\/1505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iet.solutions\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iet.solutions\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iet.solutions\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}