Between the implementation of not one but two massive new infrastructure laws, the darkest years of the pandemic, and the rise and (slight) fall of America's roadway death epidemic, the last four years have been nothing short of momentous for U.S. transportation. And as Deputy Secretary at the federal DOT, Polly Trottenberg was second-in-command for all it — as well as being the driving force behind some of the most significant policies aimed at tackling them.
We sat down with Trottenberg for something of an exit interview about the Biden administration's legacy, and why she's staying optimistic even as America enters an uncertain period.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Streetsblog: We're in the final days of your term as Deputy Secretary. Looking back over the last four years, what are some accomplishments that you will carry with you with pride?
Polly Trottenberg: I think [the last four years] have been one of the more transformational times in American transportation. We've seen the combination of the investments of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and a political team from a president who, of course, is affectionately known as Amtrak Joe. [Biden is] a president who won really cares about passenger rail, who cares about transit and cares about transportation, and cares about the outcomes of transportation — not just sort of, "Let's throw money at transportation," but [the] real benefits on the ground.
And I think from where the president sits – and I'll talk about the Secretary and me, too — but just to talk about the president for a minute, [it's] not just about what those investments do in communities. [It's about] the jobs they create, the economic opportunities they create — particularly for communities and populations that have not only not benefited from transportation in the past, but have been actively harmed by some of the transportation legacy systems we have.
We also have a secretary who was a former mayor, and I was former transportation commissioner in New York City. So I think we have had a special focus here; we've been given all these resources to focus on working very closely at the local level, and at the tribal level, trying to bring local voices into the discussion and focus on local priorities. That's particularly [true of] the programs you guys have really covered, like Reconnecting Communities, Neighborhood Access and Equity, Safe Streets and Roads for all, [which is] really a local-community-only program, and that's very rare in the federal transportation space. And then, of course, [this helped us make] unprecedented investments in transit and passenger rail.
One thing we tried — and this was something that really [drew on] from my experience in New York — was to encourage nimbleness, easier applications, and a willingness to be a little more risk-taking. [We] let communities get smaller projects up and running, to be experimental. ... Particularly for communities that are just trying out their first bike lane or building their first pedestrian [-focused project], you let them do that quickly and easily and see how it goes and make adjustments. I think we brought that sensibility to the table of, "Let that local experimentation happen."
A wonky piece of how we did that is that we put out the next edition of the MUTCD, which, as you know, is the Bible in the transportation engineering world. We really tried to encourage change in the way we set speed limits, and making it easier to do bike lanes and bus lanes and other roadway safety designs.
Streetsblog: That's definitely an impressive list. But what would you say to sustainable transportation advocates who are anxious about building on that momentum the next four years? How should we be approaching the project of transportation reform under the next Trump administration.
Trottenberg: Well, I was running New York City duty the whole time during the first Trump administration. And you know this at Streetsblog, because you're very local; I think the dollars we've invested, the technical assistance we've provided, the community of practice that we've helped to foster – that continues, and it's really powerful.
One of the one of the complicated things about getting projects done in the United States is, we're a very decentralized and federated system of government. But at times like this, there's a strength in that; there's a lot that can happen at the local and the state level, the tribal level, the county level. It blooms at that level of government. That will continue to blossom, with these dollars which we've rolled out — and we just rolled out another five billion. It's going to take a while for all those projects to come to fruition.
I also want to mention something that's personal for me, [which is that] when I was in New York City, we were the first city to big city to adopt Vision Zero in the United States. And so I have done lot of a lot of work in roadway safety, and Streetsblog New York City covered every last bit of it. We had years where we saw tremendous reductions in fatalities, and years when we didn't, particularly during the Covid years. So it's challenging work, but I think I would confidently say this administration, this DOT, has done more on roadway safety than, I think, has happened in many, many years.
And knock on wood, it's not only us. There are a lot of partners. But we've seen, I think, 10 consecutive quarters of roadway fatalities going down. And hopefully that means that's not just a statistical anomaly; that is a real trend line.
We've invested in an incredible number of roadway safety projects all over the country. And as we saw in New York, when people see them and like them, that begets an appetite for more of them. We have invested in all these wonderful Reconnecting Communities projects, which in many cases will be great for roadway safety, but of course, also have a lot of other benefits, [like] re-knitting communities, providing transit opportunities, sometimes dismantling or capping legacy highway infrastructure which has divided communities. Through some of our other grant programs like RAISE, we've also invested in bike infrastructure and other roadway safety [elements].
And then, particularly through NHTSA, we've done a ton of rule makings. Automatic emergency braking is a huge one that one is expected to save 360 lives a year. That's more people than are being killed on the streets of New York City, for example; it's a dramatic number. We've done an update to NCAP, finally — something that the federal government had been slow to do, to evolve from not only worrying about the safety of the occupants in the car, but the safety of the vulnerable street users outside the car. I think that's a profound transformation that is now underway.
Streetsblog: What about your progress at the intersection of technology and transportation? It seems like the last four years have been consequential in that space, particularly when it comes to automated vehicles.
Trottenberg: We have really started to step up our oversight and enforcement [of AVs]. I know today secretary-designate Duffy talked about how, obviously, that's something the next administration is going to be looking at as well. So we've also gotten a lot of partners in our national roadway safety strategy [involved] — again, in the spirit that no one level of government, no entity controls all the levers.
Again, having worked at the local level, the innovations that happen at the local level can be some of the most powerful. When we were in New York, when I was commissioner, one of the things we did early on was create heat maps of the five boroughs with the crash rates in every quarter. It was phenomenally eye-opening, just that bit of data; [there were] neighborhoods where people were coming to me and saying, "It's so dangerous here you have to fix it." And you looked at the data and [said], "No, there actually hasn't been a fatality here for five years."
And then [there were] neighborhoods — maybe an immigrant neighborhoods, people [for whom] English was second language, low-income neighborhoods — where people weren't saying anything, because they were focused on the day-to-day. And you'd say, "Wow, look at this quarter; this is a high-crash quarter." That data was so important.
Streetsblog: Do you have any thoughts on what we might expect during the second Trump term?
Trottenberg: Look, I want to be very careful not to prognosticate about an incoming administration. I can only say this: I think DOT has had a very strong bipartisan tradition. Federal transportation is one of the more bipartisan areas.
And, look, there will be differences in philosophy, for sure; you're already hearing some of them. But I want to give people heart [about] a lot of the good work that we've done — and we're very proud of the fact that we have made investments in all parts of the country, red and blue, on everything from roadway safety to EV chargers to passenger rail.
It's funny, and sometimes it's counterintuitive. One of the states Streetsblog's written about extensively [because it] has some of the deadliest streets is Florida; Florida cities typically rank [among] the highest in terms of pedestrian and cyclist fatalities. [But they're also] incredibly enthusiastic about Safe Roads and Streets for All investments. Likewise Texas.
So I think a lot of the work we've been doing, there actually is a lot of appetite for it all over the country. EV chargers, too; it's not just the blue states. Some of the states that have done the most with EV chargers are Texas, Oklahoma, and Kentucky.
So I think when you get away from some of the political discussions, a lot of what we have done is pretty bipartisan on the ground. We'll see what a new administration brings. But I'm going to be an optimist.
Streetsblog: Anything you want to close us out with before you sign off?
Trottenberg: There is one thing I want to talk about — and I saw you guys had written an interesting piece when you talked to Roger Millar, who's now stepping down [from the helm at WashDOT]. And it's funny, he talked about something that I think is one of my important takeaways from this time in the Biden administration — and also, thinking a little bit about my future.
I was at a conference down in Miami [recently], where we were talking a lot about EV charging. And I was interviewed on some podcast, and the reporter sort of said, "What's the silver bullet that's going to tackle climate change?" And, fine; I think he wanted me to talk about EV chargers. But I said, "Well, there's no silver bullet."
The transportation system is large and complex. And of course, EV chargers are going to be a piece of it, but EV chargers aren't going to be for everybody, everywhere. ... It's [about] investing in transit; it's investing in rail; it's decarbonizing where we can; it's giving people alternatives. But it's also getting to those bigger questions of housing and land use.
Transportation cannot do it alone. You need to tackle that entire system. I know that was one of Roger's messages. And to me, the more time I've spent in this work, the more I think about that: that transportation, disconnected from housing and land use, will never be able to tackle all the things that we all want to tackle. I know Streetsblog readers care a lot about that.
So we have tried in our time here to have a closer partnership with HUD, with EPA. We've actually worked closely with Department of Energy, which didn't happen in the Obama administration, [through] our Joint Office of Energy and Transportation. So obviously, [we're] constantly getting more interdisciplinary in how we tackle the challenges that the transportation system brings, but that the transportation system alone cannot solve.
As for me personally, I don't know what I'm doing in the future. I don't have a job yet. But really, in whatever guise I do my next work, I hope to continue to bring those systems together more. I really got to experience at this at the local level in New York, where land use and housing are very, very difficult issues, and finding a way to harmonize and bring them together is an epic challenge. But it is what our field needs to do.
And again, doing it will give people choices. They won't always have to use their cars. We'll have location efficiency, you know, hopefully we'll create affordable housing in the process. That is the future transportation: transportation as part of this larger set of disciplines. [That's what's been] on my mind, particularly in this final year on the job.
— Aaron Short contributed reporting.
