'Safety Is Key': Sec. Sean Duffy Speaks At Transportation Conference Amid Issues At Newark Airport

Forbes Breaking News

Transportation Sec. Sean Duffy spoke at the American Public Transportation Association Conference on Monday.

Transcript

00:00Hey, everybody. Thank you for having me. So, just a side note, lumberjack sports,

00:12chopping, sawing, log rolling, tree climbing, all the skills of the old-time lumberjack

00:18in modern-day sports. Maybe you watch ESPN 6 at 4 o'clock in the morning, you might see these

00:24sports, but a great part of American history. Just my other claim to fame is I did a reality

00:32TV show back in the day, and I met my wife on reality TV. We're the first reality TV couple

00:38in the country, and we're the most productive. We have nine kids, so beyond that, all is good.

00:46So, you know, listen, when I took this job, someone warned me, and they said, listen,

00:53you could get caught up in just going from crisis to crisis to crisis, and after four

01:01years, you will have never accomplished the goals and the mission that you set out when

01:07you first took the job. And as I've been on the job for 111 days, I see that as absolutely

01:14true. You can go from crisis to crisis. But I don't want that to be the story of my four

01:21years. That doesn't mean we don't deal with crises, but we always have to be mission-driven

01:26on all of the priorities that I have as a secretary, but also the priorities that the president has

01:33for the department. Now, just another side note on that. The president, when he called me,

01:40he, by the way, he said he loves the Department of Transportation. He said if he wasn't the president,

01:46and he could pick any department, he would love to be the secretary of the Department of

01:50Transportation. So it's great because we've got a good supporter in the White House, but also

01:56the problem is that if I mess things up, he's watching, and I will be held to account. So

02:01he, but he does care because he's a builder. He likes to build things. And he said, you know,

02:07I want you to focus on building the big, beautiful infrastructure that connects our people, that

02:13moves our products. That's what's so important in America, and I think we could do a better job

02:17building those projects, being more efficient with the dollar, and being more effective in

02:23the dollar spent to assist and help the American people. And so I would tell you that when we

02:29think about big, beautiful projects, it does include roads and bridges, but it's not just

02:34roads and bridges. That also includes transit and transit infrastructure.

02:39And maybe contrary to popular belief, I don't have a favorite. I don't care if you want to

02:53use planes, trains, or automobiles, your EV or your combustion engine. I think America has a right to

03:00choose, and I think they should choose. And so in our department, I don't see transit as the ugly

03:07stepchild of the department. But I have nine kids. I tell you that, nine kids. And if they ask me who is

03:15their favorite, I tell them I don't have a favorite. I love you all equally. It's kind of the same as the

03:20modes. I care, everyone, all the modes are different, but I care about the success of all of the modes that we

03:25have at DOT. And we're going to focus on making all the modes great, trying to leave each mode better off than the

03:33way we found them. And speaking of transit, our work, your work, has such an important impact

03:42on the people that you serve and the cities that you serve. You get it right, and people have a

03:50remarkable relationship with you. You don't get it right, and people don't want to invest in you.

03:56So doing your jobs well and serving people well matters because you move families, you move

04:02commuters to work, you allow people to get to their health care appointments, and you allow people to

04:09shop with local businesses. What you do matters for the communities in which you serve. And if you do

04:16your job well, it has a great impact on the jobs that someone could take, or the neighborhood in which

04:22you can live, or the school in which your kids can go to, can all be dictated by how well our

04:28transportation systems work in the cities in which you all serve. I didn't grow up in a place where

04:39people had a lot of money. I come from rural America, I come from poor America, and there's a lot of people

04:48that you serve that you're the last lifeline. That if they can't access public transportation,

04:56they can't access opportunities. They can't get to a job. And if they can't get to a job, they don't have

05:03a shot at supporting their families. They don't have a shot at the American dream because many of them

05:09can't afford a car, which by the way, we're working on the price of a car. But in America, the average

05:16teacher salary won't allow you to buy the average price of a brand new car. We're working on that.

05:22But there's something wrong with that. And so making sure that all of you do your job really well

05:28is incredibly important. But with that said, we also serve communities. And the good people who rely

05:34on transit is who we serve. And I would argue that the mission is safety and efficiently moving people

05:43in and throughout the communities that we serve. But safety is key. We have to make sure we move people

05:49in a way that they can rely on. I would argue that if you think that transit is for a homeless shelter,

05:57or if you think transit is a place where we should allow those who are mentally ill to congregate,

06:01or if you think it's a place that criminals can go to get access to a lot of hard-working Americans and

06:08pick their pockets or grope them, I think you're wrong. I think we have to have transit that's clean,

06:14transit that's safe, transit that the American people can buy into to go, I love my system that

06:20I get a ride on, because it's safe and it's efficient. But I know in so many...

06:31I know there's a lot of places around the country where that is not the mission.

06:34And it may not always be the authority's fault. It might go to a city council, it might go to a

06:41prosecutor, it might go to a judge. There's a lot of areas in play. But I do think the American

06:46people expect that. We invest a lot of money in these systems, and we should expect the very best

06:53for our communities that get taxpayer money. So I think it's important that we actually get back to

07:00the basics. The basics of improving security, deterring crime, stopping fare evasion. By the way,

07:08everybody wants more money, right? You all need more money. I think the easiest and fastest way to

07:15get more money in your pockets is to stop fare evasion. Let's have people pay their fair share when

07:19they ride. Easy one. Some tens of billions of dollars are lost because of those who are fare evaders.

07:28I would just note that I had a chance to meet with WMATA here in D.C. And I think, again,

07:35I don't know that WMATA is perfect, but WMATA is taking steps to go, listen, if you're a repeat

07:38offender, where's WMATA? Right there, right there, right in front. Great. They're sitting right in

07:42front of me. You could have been in the back corner. But they're trying to take people out of the

07:50system that are repeat offenders. Good on you for doing that. Putting more security on your system.

07:55Thank you for doing that.

07:59In L.A., they hired their first transit police chief into the system. Again, steps that are driving

08:06safety and security I think make so much sense. If I could just take a moment too. I look at the

08:14transit workers who serve our systems, the operators, the engineers, the maintenance crews,

08:22the dispatchers, the custodians. All of them keep us moving. They also deserve a place to go to work

08:29that's safe. They don't deserve to be abused and beaten.

08:33And so I want to partner with all of you. You have a friend in me. You have a friend in this DOT.

08:46But I'm going to ask you to actually use your money well to clean up your systems,

08:52to make them safer, to make them cleaner. I don't know why when I travel around the world, I think

08:58so many other countries have safer and cleaner transportation systems. Why should we have

09:04something second best? Why should we have something less than that? I think we should aspire to be the

09:09best in the world, the safest in the world, the cleanest in the world, the most efficient in the

09:12world. I think that's what we should aspire to because we're Americans. And I think our people

09:18actually deserve that. In the coming years, we're going to have a chance to showcase

09:30our great work. The World Cup is coming to America. The Olympics are going to be in America.

09:36Right? It's going to be great. And when you have all of these people come and pack the cities, the host

09:44cities, there's one huge issue that we have in those cities. We're going to try to move people

09:51around these communities in massive numbers. And we have to make sure that our transit system

09:58is going to crush it for all the visitors that come to see the World Cup and see the Olympics.

10:04And we are going, well, we, the Congress is going to have to help us out. But the Congress and DOT

10:09are going to invest in these communities and these cities to make sure we show the world what we can

10:16do with American transit. And, and I'm not going to leave you on a downer, but just a side point.

10:26I get a lot of side points and I'll end like four times for you. And I apologize for that. But we,

10:32we, we are $36 trillion in debt. We are. It's, it's, it's becoming a problem. Our, our credit rating

10:39was just downgraded by Moody's. And we run a deficit of, of $2 trillion a year. So we're spending

10:46a lot of money that we don't have. And we are borrowing, um, off the backs of our children. And I

10:52think across government, if we can do things a little more efficiently, efficiently, or the dollars

10:57that we get, we serve our communities that much better. Um, I, I think it's going to be easier

11:03to ask for the resources that are necessary to do all the great work that so many of you do.

11:08So let's, let's double our effort. Let's triple our effort. And let's make our systems more efficient.

11:14Let's make them safer. And let's make them cleaner. And we'll partner together and make

11:18transportation great again. Thank you. God bless.

Category

Transcript

Recommended