Busting Silos: How the Obama Administration’s Agenda is Broadening the Reach of the Transportation Profession

Therese McMillan Deputy Administrator of the Federal Transit Administration, discusses an early and consistent theme of President Obama’s Administration: increasing the transparency of the federal government process, and making it more responsive to the needs of the American public. In the transportation profession, this has required a new way of thinking in terms of how different modes of transportation work together, and critically, how transportation reaches across its own boundaries to interact with other federal departments. Secretary Ray LaHood has charged his administrative heads to “bust silos” in an effort to make the Department of Transportation more meaningful and responsive not only to the traveling public, but to the American community writ large.

ITS Berkeley alumna Therese McMillan, appointed Deputy Administrator for the Federal Transit Administration in July 2009, will describe how her agency and others in the DOT are responding to this integrated approach to policy and investment.