Outgoing Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack briefs reporters on an MBTA construction project in February 2020. Photo by Joshua Qualls | Governor’s Press Office
Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack is leaving Gov. Charlie Baker’s cabinet to join the Federal Highway Administration next week.
Pollack will step down on Tuesday to become the FHA’s deputy administrator in the new Biden administration, Baker’s office announced Thursday morning. Registrar of Motor Vehicles Jamey Tesler will take over as acting transportation secretary, while Colleen Ogilvie will rise to the role of acting registrar.
Pollack departs after six years as one of the state’s most visible cabinet secretaries, and she is leaving at a time when the transportation landscape has been upended by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“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.”
Federal Highway Administrator Executive Director Thomas Everett told staff in an internal email Thursday morning — first reported by POLITICO and acquired by the News Service — that Pollack will start on Monday, but Baker’s office said she will begin her federal position on Wednesday.
“Ms. Pollack was most recently the Secretary and CEO of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, and served on the boards of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and Massachusetts Port Authority,” Everett wrote. “We will benefit greatly from her knowledge of transportation and breadth of experience.”
Advocates were quick to react, giving Pollack mixed grades for her leadership on public transit issues.
“Stephanie Pollack was an integral contributor to the T4MA coalition in its formative days. While we disagreed with many of her decisions during her tenure at MassDOT, she deserves respect and appreciation for her transportation advocacy and research over many decades,” said Chris Dempsy, director of Transportation for Massachusetts. “We wish her well in the Biden-Harris Administration and look forward to working with her to reform the nation’s highway system to make it more equitable and sustainable.”
But Jarred Johnson, executive director of Transit Matters, called her tenure at the head of the state’s transportation bureaucracy a disappointment. The organization was a vocal critic of plans backed by Pollack and MBTA General Manager Steve Poftak to continue curtailing MBTA service despite the receipt of significant federal COVID-19 financial aid and prior to the pandemic, frequently pushed the Baker administration to provide more robust support for public transit projects.
“[I]t’s a shame that one of the smartest and most talented transportation advocates this Commonwealth has ever seen decided to work for an administration with so little vision. This is not a time for fawning praise,” Johnson wrote on Twitter. “[Secretary] Pollack has left our transit system in crisis with avoidable cuts, frustrated years of productive work on Allston I-90, given cover to plans to shrink the T and focus on [electric vehicles], and shut down productive conversations on road pricing. You cannot change things from the inside when the inside is run by people who fundamentally disagree with your line of thinking.”
