A Proclamation on Countrywide Protection Transportation Day and Countrywide Transportation Week, 2021
Since our Nation’s founding, our transportation infrastructure has enabled our economic development and increased our national security. From the American merchant ships that carried provides to help armed forces operations during the Groundbreaking War, to the Erie Canal opening the Midwest and West for advancement, to the transcontinental railroad linking our Country just after the Civil War to the interstate highway program reworking the way we vacation, dwell, and get the job done, our transportation infrastructure has supported nationwide defense and driven interstate commerce. On Nationwide Defense Transportation Working day and all through National Transportation 7 days, we get time to realize the transformational part infrastructure has performed during our historical past, and reflect on the do the job and investment decision necessary to make an even much better, a lot more sustainable, and a lot more equitable transportation technique of the future.
America’s transportation procedure has always established very important for civilian and armed forces organizations, some thing we have found shown in our Nation’s reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic. Dedicated personnel, utilizing a in depth transportation prepare, including airports, highways, railroads, waterways, and public transit, enabled the Federal Federal government to distribute tens of thousands and thousands of COVID-19 vaccines and served us supply around 200 million pictures in my initially 100 days as President.
Even as we recognize the critical mother nature of our transportation method, we have to understand that the procedure was built in a way that harmed vulnerable communities, does not give equivalent solutions to all men and women, generates harmful community pollution, and contributes to climate alter. We also will have to deal with the truth that decades of disinvestment and neglect have prompted our roads, bridges and water techniques to slide into disrepair.
A disproportionate range of infrastructure desires manifest in underserved or underrepresented communities the place persons rely upon transportation programs for get the job done and every day actions. The absence of cost-effective transportation possibilities means deficiency of access to excellent-shelling out careers, training, and overall health care. Modern day and resilient infrastructure supporting trustworthy and economical transportation options make the American Dream probable for all of us, irrespective of geography, race, incapacity, or financial standing.
For all of these motives, I have proposed an American Work opportunities Strategy that will modernize 20,000 miles of highways, streets, and most important streets, resolve the Nation’s 10 most economically major bridges in The usa in need of substitution, and repair 10,000 bridges desperately in require of updates to unclog targeted traffic, preserve individuals safe and sound, and join our cities, cities, and Tribes across the country. It will develop back again a better transportation system — just one that is resilient to floods, fires, and storms, and supplies equitable, inexpensive accessibility to option for all Us citizens.
The American Work Plan will switch buses and rail autos, make new rail corridors and transit strains — easing congestion, reducing pollution, slashing commute situations, and opening up investment decision in communities that can be linked to city facilities. It will lessen the bottlenecks of commerce at our ports and airports. The system will also create fantastic-top quality careers spending prevailing wages in protected and wholesome workplaces whilst making sure personnel have a absolutely free and honest decision to arrange, join a union, and bargain collectively with their companies.
As our Nation recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic and the financial destruction it brought on, we have a likelihood to construct back again greater by concentrating on infrastructure that reconnects communities, gives equitable access to transportation expert services, and mitigates the devastating outcomes of climate adjust.
This thirty day period we understand the committed adult males and females who saved this Nation shifting in the course of the depths of a worldwide pandemic: the truckers who shipped groceries to vacant keep shelves the airline crews who flew health care employees to COVID-19 hotspots the United States armed forces associates who remained on the front traces to distribute and administer vaccines in file time and the transportation employees who kept our systems working as economies shut down. We thank you for serving the American individuals and the traveling public.
In recognition of the ongoing contributions of our Nation’s transportation program and in honor of the devoted gurus who work to maintain its tradition of excellence, the United States Congress has requested, by joint resolution accredited Might 16, 1957, as amended (36 U.S.C. 120), that the President designate the 3rd Friday in May well of every single calendar year as “National Defense Transportation Day” and, by joint resolution accepted Could 14, 1962 (36 U.S.C. 133), that the 7 days in which that Friday falls be specified as “National Transportation Week.”
NOW, Thus, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of The united states, do hereby proclaim Friday, May 21, 2021, as Nationwide Defense Transportation Day and May possibly 16 by May 22, 2021, as Countrywide Transportation 7 days. I urge all People to notice these instances with appropriate ceremonies, packages, and activities as we display our appreciation to those who create and function our Nation’s transportation devices.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fourteenth day of May possibly, in the yr of our Lord two thousand twenty-a single, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fifth.
JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.
