Reorganizing the U.S. Department of Transportation

By the time this article is published, it may not be too late for the incoming Trump Administration to reorganize the U.S. Department of Transportation to become far more effective than it has been since the days of Lyndon Johnson (who created it in 1967). This may not be possible because the appointment of tens of thousands of civil servants are expected to mirror the guidelines of 2025, and all appointments to top positions and throughout every Federal agency are rumored to mostly mirror fealty to President Trump and what, in truth, can and should be called Trump values. These are not at all like traditional Republican values, although there are obviously some overlaps. But 2025 values and ideas are not all bad ideas. I reviewed much of it to find, to my surprise, plenty of fine ideas well worth considering.

As one can say about any leader, especially one with a slim majority, everything he or she wants or does is not likely, much less certain, to be negative. I think this is true of President Trump. And if anything in the Deep State sorely needs restructuring, it is inescapably the USDOT. So it would be a mistake to not think our new President does not present an interesting opportunity for the U.S. public transportation community – assuming the right people can get his attention. This is particularly true as restructuring certain Administrations in both USDOT and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) could almost certainly save several hundred billion dollars (see https://transalt.com/article/nemt-brokers-motivecare-and-mtm-stealing-hundred-of-billions-from-our-healthcare-system/) – hardly inconsistent with what the new Administration desires and has promised (even though the $2B total will never be reached, and new costs and tax structure changes may offset much or all of the savings). Regardless, at least officially, we have a new administration giving at least lip service to saving money. So the potential to restructure USDOT lies within our reach. And as I have argued in past National Bus Trader articles, the motorcoach industry is among those sectors within public transportation with the greatest opportunity for growth and prosperity (see https://transalt.com/article/expanding-the-mode-split-dividing-line-part-1-exponential-airline-industry-corruption/ and ?https://transalt.com/article/new-opportunities-for-increased-motorcoach-usage-in-transit-service/).

This installment provided some starting-point ideas for how the US Department of Transportation could and should be structured to revitalize the most corrupt, wasteful and vulnerable sector of the U.S. economy into one that at least functions, which values productivity, which aims at reducing waste, and which may grow to help other sectors of the economy survive and prosper.

Missteps and Mistakes

As one who had spent decades of his career working for and with (and a small part of it inside) the government structure at all levels, in the very first few weeks of my presence in the transportation field, I have been both aghast and repulsed by the misconception that any government agency could be run by someone with expertise solely in administration rather than someone with at least a rudimentary knowledge of the subject matter, and some experience working in, the field that the agency he or she is expected to run. In transportation, the most recent cabinet official, Pete Buttigieg – an extremely, intelligent and articulate Democrat -- had no remote experience performing any role in any mode of transportation, public or private. He was preceded, during the first Trump Administration by Elaine Chao, the wife of long-time Republican Senator Mitch McConnell – who, too, had no experience whatsoever working in any form of transportation. Both were intelligent, and both were probably decent administrators. But look at the mess public transportation is. And look at the waste. And look particularly as how much worst they have become in just the last decade.

President Biden was typically inept in staffing the rest of USDOT in his obsession to make the American government “look like America.” At the expense of everyone affected by the field, he seems to have succeeded in this stupid and superficial goal. President Biden chose a Gay individual to head USDOT. As new Secretary Buttigieg had no knowledge of transportation, President Biden then appointed Polly Trottenberg as the Deputy Director of the agency for Secretary Buttigieg to rely upon. Ms. Trottenberg was plucked out of an upper-level job at USDOT seven years earlier by former Mayor Bill De Blasio, presumably to help New York City obtain Federal grant funds, much of which were completely squandered. After presiding over the ruin of almost every mode in the City, Ms. Trottenberg was then returned to USDOT – only now to help run it. At the start of Ms. Trottenberg’s run in 2014, NYC’s transit agency had been recovering the nation’s highest percentage of operating costs from farebox revenues – 35 percent (see https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/upshot/transit-battered-by-coronavirus.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage). By 2018, like most U.S. cities, transit ridership in NYC began falling by about 10 percent. Ms. Trottenberg escaped “the COVID era” and the collapse in transit ridership in NYC when thrust back into USDOT in early 2021 – not at the top of the agency -- when Mayor DeBlasio’s term also ended. How lucky can a knowledge-proof bureaucrat get? ?

President Biden then chose an Indian-American lawyer (Meera Joshi) to head the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) – which regulates trucks and motorcoaches – in the heart of the pandemic. From 1914 through 1919, Ms. Joshi , a lawyer, was the Chairperson of New York’s Taxi and Limousine Commission, and presided over it during the key years where the City allowed “transit network companies” – mostly Uber – to decimate the City’s own taxi industry by not charging Uber drivers for a taxi medallion – valued at $1.1M in 2015 (see https://transalt.com/article/bad-regulations-and-worse-responses-part-1-introduction/; https://transalt.com/article/bad-regulations-and-worse-responses-part-2-the-rise-fall-and-transformation-of-supershuttle/; https://transalt.com/article/bad-regulations-and-worse-responses-part-3-invasion-of-the-tncs/; https://transalt.com/article/bad-regulations-and-worse-responses-part-4-judicial-heroism/; https://transalt.com/article/bad-regulations-and-worse-responses-part-5-executive-branch-responses/; https://transalt.com/article/bad-regulations-and-worse-responses-part-6-industry-and-association-responses/ and https://transalt.com/article/bad-regulations-and-worse-responses-part-7-conclusions/), as governmental and private organizations throughout the country, at all levels, failed to limit the expansion of these largely criminal enterprises throughout the country. (Even if 10% of these Uber drivers had purchased medallions, the City’s coffered would have swelled by about $7M.) Two years ago, newly-elected New York City Mayor Eric Adams placed a cap on the number of Ubers allowed in the City – at 60,000!

Needless to say, this army of gnats not only decimated the City’s taxi industry, but helped eliminate ridership on the City’s transit system, costs for which were compensated for by taxpayer contributions – mostly from those who never used the City’s bus system and some of whom may have used its subway system.

I am not familiar with the heads of other USDOT Administrations. But this glimpse of the most visible individuals above illustrates what happens when one strays from placing people in charge who actually know the subject matter. Now cowered by a cult figure (Donald Trump) who has effectively replaced Christ as the functional God of America, the Democrats (which I am no fan of either) fought bitterly to keep President Trump 2.0 from filling his cabinet with a bevy of characters who, similarly, had zero experience in the subject matter of the agencies which they were nominated to run. As this piece is being written – a week before the Inauguration, after which Senate confirmation hearings will begin -- Pete Hegseth is being touted as the Secretary of Defense, while Tulsi Gabbard is being debated as the Director of National Intelligence. Ms. Gabbard at least has some intelligence experience, with a personal relationship with Vladimir Putin and Kim Jung Un. Mr. Hegseth was fired from the two agencies he ran – Vets for America and Concerns Veterans of America – as they approached financial ruin. (In fairness, Mr. Hegseth was an infantry officer in the Army National Guard and served as an Army scribe in both Iraq and Afghanistan, although he did not see a nanosecond of combat.) Hegseth is light years away from the qualifications needed to run an organization with roughly three million people, including military personnel and military contractors.

Substantive Control of USDOT

Given the near collapse of mode after mode that began (largely a coincidence) just before Trump’s first Administration – public transit and taxi transportation – it would make sense to place individuals with experience in those Department positions whose modes they will be expected to govern and a modicum of experience in their substance. So without naming names, I suggest the following starting points for a restructuring of USDOT, including the political orientation that would serve this Department the best:

Federal Transit Administrator. This individual must be a staunch conservative. Even while most transit riders are poor, and many are transit-dependent, transit ridership has sunk like a stone since its rescue by the Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA) in 1964. By 1977, a decade after UMTA was moved from HUD into the newly-formed USDOT in 1967, farebox revenue had shrunk to cover only 50 percent of operating costs. As noted, two years before COVID-19 struck, NYC had the nation’s highest percentage of operating costs covered by farebox revenue 35 percent. Now, its likely half that. (The farebox recovery ratio is 160 percent in Tokyo.)?

To make it work again, the FTA (UMTA’s new name since 1991) must build back the system’s structure and components: Alternative work schedules (see https://transalt.com/article/making-public-transportation-work-part-1-alternative-work-schedules/); park-and-ride lots (see https://transalt.com/article/making-public-transportation-work-part-2-park-and-ride-lots/); feeder service (see https://transalt.com/article/making-public-transportation-work-part-3-feeder-service/); engaging in system design and creating a hierarchy of interconnecting modes (see https://transalt.com/article/making-public-transportation-work-part-4-system-design-and-networks/); ridesharing that feeds transit rather than competes with it (see https://transalt.com/article/making-public-transportation-work-part-5-ridesharing/); and creating more high occupancy vehicle lanes (see https://transalt.com/article/making-public-transportation-work-part-6-high-occupancy-vehicle-lanes/). Bus lines transporting fewer than one passenger per hour (I can identify some) must be eliminated. The FTA Administrator must be demanding and stern. And a conservative dedicated to eliminating waste. Electric buses should be mandated in large cities where air quality is such that everything we possibly can must be electrified, yet discouraged in areas where the cost of charging stations, among others, would translate into high system costs, and where such vehicles would barely make a noticeable dent in air quality improvement.

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administrator. This individual, too, mush be a conservative – ideally someone who had grown his or her business into a 200-vehicle trucking company, or larger. As our economy morphs into oligopolies, eliminates stores, and trucking and delivery services have exploded, someone who understands these dynamics (and focuses on owl-period deliveries into the cities, and the optimum relocation of distributors) must be in charge.

Federal Aviation Administrator. This individual must heavily fine corruption (like consolidating flights and stranding passengers) or shut the offending airlines down. Airlines must have spare aircraft – even if they share them. Short flights must be outlawed. This entire industry must be reinvented from the profit-only, customer-victim renegade it has become. Here a ruthless Republican Administrator would be most helpful. Variations of concepts like the “500 mile rule” of the 1970s – never implemented – should be revisited.

Federal Motorcoach Administrator. This position, in a small new administration, must be carved out of the current FMCSA, and the Administrator must know the motorcoach business, including its absurd constraints (bridge and tunnel tolls) and opportunities (replacing small-distance flights). One large motorcoach carries as many passengers as 40 automobiles. We cannot squander realities like this, but must encourage growth. And safety measures like limiting shift inversion – which have been regulations in Canada, the EU and Australia for decades – must be initiated, along with severe enforcement for violating it. A creative disruptor of the norm would do well in this position, irrespective of his or her political affiliation. Tiny lobbying groups like the UMA and ABA have failed to address even obvious issues (e.g., bridge and tunnel fees) at the local level. A new FMA with an aggressive administrator could do much more.?

National Highway Traffic Safety Administrator. One of the better USDOT agencies, NHTSA would benefit from a tough centrist concerned with safety over profits. ?Battles with Congress are inevitable as technology changes. Our inevitable fleet of electric cars must prosper but be safe. And NHTSA’s role in improving the efficiency of pupil transportation services (which are tragically wasteful) must expand beyond a mere safety role. And until the vehicles become much lighter, it would not make sense for them to shift from ICE power to electricity – particular in rural areas where air quality is not as severe a problem.

Federal Car-Sharing, Taxi and Limousine Administrator (FCHHLA). This new agency must be headed by a tough liberal willing to battle multiple conventional modes its vehicles must replace – particularly low-performing transit. Criminal enterprises like transportation network companies must be eliminated, while taxi systems must grow to perform in a much wider variety of roles – such as feeder-to-bus station service, and replacements for low-productive vehicles in every paratransit fleet. (Accessible taxis should replace van-based paratransit systems completely in low-density areas.)

Paratransit Administrator. This new agency, the PA, must be radically transformed. The body-of-knowledge about operating efficient demand-responsible service that only a tiny percentage of public transportation community members have must be expanded through adult education, and robots (i.e., scheduling software) should be replaced or reoriented to produce at least a tolerable and affordable level of efficiency. And non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) services must be consolidated with paratransit services, since their trips and service areas overlap greatly. Brokers must be completely eliminated – especially since a single crooked and profoundly wasteful entity governs most of it throughout the country, while not providing a single trip. Paratransit services should, in some places, serve as feeder service (few do this now). And this agency, with its funding taken away from transit agencies now squandering it (most of which do not even want to operate this type of service), should be operated as an independent agency at the local level. This administrator’s political affiliation is of little importance, since the knowledge of how to provide four-dimensional service efficiently is rare – and that skill is far more important than the administrator’s political affiliation.

Coast Guard Administrator. Thankfully, this agency was transferred from the USDOT into the Department of Homeland Security a few years after 9-1-1. It belongs in an agency associated with the military, as it provides no passenger service. (How it ever found its way into USDOT in the first place is a mystery.) ?

Shipping Administrator. If nothing else exists at the Federal level, a formidable agency should be created to deal with large and small commercial water-supported cargo transportation. This agency should be connected to the U.S. Navy, as much nautical travel is international, and our ships and those of our Allies must be protected. However, better coordination and consolidation must occur, given the size of modern cargo ships, which must be protected, and in some cases (e.g., the mouth of the Suez Canal) must be protected. So the U.S. Department of Nautical Shipping (USDNS) must be coordinated closely with our military services, as noted, the Navy in particular. ??

There are a few other USDOT administrations not considered here, and about which I have insufficient knowledge to offer comments. But serious changes to those administrations noted above are sorely needed. Our existing structure, left largely to market forces, is failing, individually and collectively – like the wasted energy and customer victimization of commercial airlines, and the criminal enterprises that most TNC’s comprise. Such parasites, which have decimated one mode of public transportation already (taxis), and which have penetrated and stolen passengers from fixed route transit, motorcoaches, pupil transportation and limousine services, must be eliminated. Their administrators must be willing to create and implement considerable changes, and barring the elimination of public transportation in one form or another for those unable to afford personal vehicles, much of the current U.S. public transportation system must change radically or be eliminated.

It would be nice to leave automobile travel unregulated at the Federal level (exception for things like the replacement of fossil fueled personal occupancy vehicles with electric ones), even while we have just initiated congestion pricing in the dumbest environment in the country, whereas this technology should be pushed hard (by incentives) in those places where it would make sense. Otherwise, private automobile usage should be left alone, except for the creation of public modes offering better service and/or lower costs, and which will lower costs, eliminate traffic, and improve the air quality environment that can favorably compete with personal vehicle ownership and usage.

I have not even spoken of the worst abuses – like TNC’s paying for a driver’s car rental if he or she provides more than 150 trips a week (which Lyft does) – placing fellow motorists, passengers and pedestrians at great risk from drivers who, near the end of these work-weeks, can barely keep their eyes open. These practices must be absolutely eliminated – perhaps by the newly-created FCSHLA.

These thoughts are, of course, only a starting point. But it is clear to almost everyone who is not growing rich by exploiting some form of public transportation in this country (like airline industries and TNCs) that the structure of U.S. public transportation is sorely outdated, and badly needs to be replaced. So bold thinking at the Congressional level may be necessary. But input from representatives of all modes (not the cushy pension-awaiting members of the Deep State) may grab a few Senators’ or Congresspersons’ ears, and serious thought should be given to the importance of such a restructuring, even while this may not be our nation’s top priority. Oddly, the weird and dangerous presence of an unofficial, pirate Department of Efficiency may actually be the best place to begin. But the elimination of brokers in the NEMT field alone should save what I estimate to comprise roughly $200B a year stolen from the U.S. healthcare industry – not even counting the waste, and the failure to coordinate NEMT service with complementary paratransit service (see comments above, and https://transalt.com/article/nemt-brokers-motivecare-and-mtm-stealing-hundred-of-billions-from-our-healthcare-system/). With or without a shadow masquerading department of unpopular multi-billionaires, such savings are much needed.?

Those who are certain that the Trump Administration will be a bust and an embarrassment seem to be gathering steam as its MAGA base appears to be betrayed by a cadre of steep billionaires. But it need not be. And the Democrats have their share of billionaires who cannot be bought off by their Republican billionaires. Regardless, a shrewd and ruthless autocrat who actually cares about delivering on the promises he has made (other than to simply get elected) may turn out to be a Godsend if some of his promises actually materialize.

While many never like the new President, whomever he or she may be, it is worth thinking responsibly about supporting those ideas and programs that such an individual may create when he or she is granted power. Every elected leader deserves a chance. It would not hurt those in doubt to listen carefully. Even if many ideas seem dangerous, dysfunctional or cruel, no leader had only bad ideas. And those programs that show promise of making a difference should be at least considered, and if they make sense, they should be supported, regardless of one’s political affiliation – if one even has one (as I do not).

Where one feels the need to fight injustices of the incoming regime, he or she is right to do so. But one should keep an open mind about those which hold the promise to improve things, even if the status quo is shaken up badly in the process. In our system of government, everyone gets a four-year chance to make a difference. Our society – and out industry as a poster child for the need for change – sorely needs change, and we now have a chance to get it. We in the public transportation industry – regrettably at odds with one another within our respective modes – can benefit greatly, along with the recipients of our services, if we lobby hard for those choices that make sense to be realized.?