Pete Buttigieg in Birmingham’s Historic Black Business District to Highlight Infrastructure Funding

By Sym Posey | The Birmingham Times U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was in Birmingham on Wednesday to celebrate a $14.5 million federal grant to turn Fourth Avenue North in the city’s Black Business District into a two-way street. “We’re here because everybody recognizes all the ways in which infrastructure shapes our lives and we feel it when something goes wrong,” he said. “Sometimes we don’t pay attention to it when everything goes right, but a lot of work goes into making sure that it goes right. And that’s what today is about.” The grant of $14,556,040 will come from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Neighborhood Access and Equity grant program to re-connect the historic Fourth Avenue Black Business District. Buttigieg was joined by Congresswoman Terri Sewell, Mayor Randall Woodfin, community leaders, and Fourth Avenue businessmen and women outside the historic Carver Theater/Jazz Hall of Fame in the Birmingham Civil Rights District. The transportation secretary said his visit was “about better infrastructure for the future and it’s about putting right things that have been done wrong in the past. Part of what brings me to Birmingham today is recognizing the consequences of infrastructure decisions that were made generations ago and...