MA Transportation Head Chosen By Biden For Federal Post

Massachusetts Department of Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack is heading to Washington for a top federal position.

Pollack will become the Federal Highway Administration deputy administrator, stepping down from her state post Jan. 26 and beginning in the Biden Administration the following day.

Gov. Charlie Baker has appointed Registrar of Motor Vehicles Jamey Tesler acting transportation secretary. Tesler was previously MassDOT's chief operating officer.

Pollack's move was first reported by Politico.

"Stephanie has led MassDOT through many difficult challenges over the past six years; from the historic blizzards that exposed the problems of the MBTA, through saving the GLX project, instituting a data-driven Capital Improvement Plan, and guiding the RMV through a crisis last summer," Baker said in a statement. "She has provided MassDOT with stability and leadership through the last six years, serving longer than her three predecessors combined. She has allowed the agency to focus on long term efforts developing the FMCB and upgrading the MBTA’s infrastructure, service and customer relations and much more."

Pollack makes the move after having been the target of much public frustration since she took the position in 2015, coming to Baker's administration after a lengthy stint in advocacy to steer the transportation department through calamities ranging from harsh winters and MBTA disasters to a reckoning after a deadly summer crash in New Hampshire.

The state was found by a federal agency to have contributed to a June 2019 crash in which seven bikers died after a West Springfield trucker drove into them on the highway. The National Safety and Transportation Board said Volodymyr Zhukovskyy would never had been on the road that day if the state had revoked his driver's license following after his impaired driving arrest in Connecticut earlier that year.

The scrutiny revealed a massive backlog of out-of-state violations by Massachusetts drivers. The Registry of Motor Vehicles went through tens of thousands of reports from other states that had been tucked away in bins in a Quincy storage room.

The head of the RMV, Erin Deveney, resigned and was succeeded by Tesler.

"The Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles has a responsibility to enforce the laws governing safe operations of motor vehicles and carries out its mission to the best of its abilities," Pollack said at the time. "But in this case, the RMV had not acted on information provided by the Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles about a May 11 incident that should have triggered the termination of this individual's driver's license."

Pollack will join New England leaders Mayor Marty Walsh (labor secretary) and Gov. Gina Raimondo (commerce secretary) in the Biden Administration if they are confirmed by the U.S. Senate.