DOT chief: Transportation linked to civil rights

{mosads}”In the mid-1950s, a young woman who sat down and refused to get up — she did it on a transit bus,” the DOT chief continued. “And the boycott of the Montgomery, Alabama, bus system resulted in changes that spread across the South.”

Foxx was commemorating the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 “I Have A Dream” speech.

He said that “the civil rights movement was about all Americans having access to the same opportunities. And our transportation system connects people to those opportunities.”

Foxx said transportation did not always play a positive role in the civil rights battles of the 1960s, however.

“Unfortunately, transportation also has a history of dividing us,” he wrote. “In many places, railroads have served to identify people who were living on ‘the wrong side of the tracks.’ And rarely in the last century did an urban interstate highway plow through a neighborhood that wasn’t characterized as poor.”

But Foxx said that history did not have to repeat itself in future transportation decisions.

“The challenge we face today is how to take a system that at one time codified bias and ensure that it now connects people, creates jobs, and allows people to grab a rung on what the president calls a ‘ladder of opportunity,’ ” Foxx wrote.

“The poetry of that August day in 1963 painted a clear picture of where our country was and where it should be,” he continued. 

“But the way we make progress isn’t always in poetry. Sometimes, the way we build bridges is by actually building bridges … and roads and transit. Through transportation, we can help ensure that the rungs on the ladder of opportunity aren’t so far apart — and that the American dream is still within reach for those who are willing to work for it.”