With the backdrop of sun-splashed blue waters, federal and local officials gathered at the 28th annual Lake Tahoe Summit, where they focused on transportation challenges in the age of climate change.
Secretary Buttigieg said communities like those at Lake Tahoe, a high-elevation area with delicate ecosystems, need infrastructure more resilient to extreme weather.
“We’ve seen a lot of places where what used to be considered a hundred-year flood is now almost an annual event,” Buttigieg said. “So, we can’t just be instructing communities to put your road back just the way it was if it’s getting washed out every other year.”
Buttigieg said the U.S. Department of Transportation is spending $7 billion on projects across the country that address climate impacts.
“Sometimes it’s a new evacuation route, sometimes it’s moving a road higher in the face of sea-level change, sometimes it’s making a key supply chain more resilient to the risk of wildfires,” Buttigieg said. “The specific prescription will vary from place to place, but the common pattern is we need to recognize that good infrastructure in the 21st century has to weigh climate considerations that were not on anybody’s mind in the 20th.”
Buttigieg said that’s why the department is also working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions coming from transportation, which contributes the largest portion of America’s emissions (28%), according to federal data.
He pointed out that the agency is investing billions of dollars in electric vehicles and charging stations across the U.S. Federal funds are also flowing to communities to help take cars off the road, he noted. At Lake Tahoe, for example, $24 million is going toward improving and extending a walking and biking trail along the lake’s eastern shore.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
