Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the 1819 Innovation Hub in Cincinnati Friday afternoon for a roundtable discussion.
She was joined by Sen. Sherrod Brown and public transportation leaders. The roundtable discussion was centered around infrastructure and public transportation.
“I think about good transit equals vibrant communities,” Harris said. “So if we think about it in terms of an investment in public transit it is an investment in job creation. It is an investment in improving communities. It is an investment in increasing access to opportunity.”
According to Harris, $110 billion would go towards public transportation, including $85 billion to modernizing and expand services. And another $25 billion for buses to go green.
“There’s so much good work happening here and happening around our country as an extension and let’s continue to invest in public transit in America understanding that it’s about supporting working families, supporting our infrastructure, our economy and public health,” Harris said.
After the roundtable discussion, Brown met with the staff at the Sorta Access Paratransit Center in Cincinnati. His message to the employees was the importance of improving public transit and how much it matters.
“It matters to the woman needing to get to work, get home from work on a Sunday evening when some places may not have bus service,” Brown said. “It means a lot to young people who don’t yet have a car.”
Brown said part of the plan is to upgrade the buses.
“Over a period of time, shorter rather than longer, we will replace those 60,000 mostly diesel buses with low emission buses,” he said.
And a plan is already in place for Metro public transportation in Cincinnati to modernize and expand. Fixing roads and bridges and improving disabled access are just some of the things Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority CEO Darryl Haley said will be done.
“With reinventing (the) Metro plan with more frequency, more span, those challenges will go away for the people in our community,” Haley said. “Our transit will work for everyone in our community and we’re really, really excited about what we’re building here.”