‘ALL CARS ARE BAD’: Pete Buttigieg’s Equity Advisers Want You To Stop Driving – ‘Vehicles have wreaked havoc on the environment & communities’
Free Beacon: Buttigieg, in August 2023, appointed 24 new members to his Advisory Committee on Transportation Equity, an Obama-era body that Buttigieg is reviving after the Trump administration scrapped it. Included on the committee is Andrea Marpillero-Colomina, a “spatial policy scholar” who says “ALL CARS ARE BAD” given that they cause “a myriad of environmental issues and conditions.” Another Buttigieg appointee, self-described “transportation nerd” Veronica Davis, argued in an August essay that cars perpetuate “systemic racism” and are therefore “the problem” in America’s transportation system.
Marpillero-Colomina told the Washington Free Beacon that she is not “advocating for a complete erasure” of cars but intends to push Buttigieg to move America away from its reliance on private motor vehicles.
“My interest in being on the [equity committee] is to raise the question and push the Department of Transportation to really think about: What are some equitable, environmentally sustainable, economically beneficial, and feasible alternatives to policy that is car-centric?” she said in an interview. “How can we reimagine streets to prioritize people instead of cars? How can we create streets that are inclusive of modes other than cars?”
“If we just replace all the gas-powered cars with EVs, we’re going to have many of the same problems that we have with gas-powered cars,” equity committee member Marpillero-Colomina, told the Free Beacon.