Beth Osborne

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) expires in September 2026. As Congress starts to consider what comes next, they should consider this: Including the IIJA, the ~$1.5 trillion in surface transportation spending Congress has authorized since 1991 has utterly failed to improve safety, the state of repair, congestion or emissions. So why even consider putting more money into this broken program?

A shift in messaging about how America gets from one place to another is emerging. At his confirmation hearing, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg pointedly called out the auto-centrism and inequities of our transportation system and noted the economic success cities like his own South Bend have had by making transportation options like biking and walking safer and easier to access. Could we possibly be on the verge of a transportation system that actively serves all Americans, whether they drive or not? Is it finally time to provide real mobility to those that have been denied and harmed by policies of the past? Could transportation infrastructure actually become part of the solution to climate change instead of a liability?

The summit laid out a vision for a transportation planning process that assess errors of the past and the needs of the present, and envisions the future in a spirit of trust, celebration and healing.

The good news is that the number of people killed inside cars is going down. The bad news is that the number of people killed while walking and biking is skyrocketing.

Beth Osborne was deputy assistant secretary for policy, and then acting assistant secretary, at the U.S. Department of Transportation from 2009 until March, when she joined Transportation for America.