USDOT Secretary Elaine Chao gave the incoming Buttigieg USDOT team a parting gift with the release of the AV Comprehensive Plan, which is a summary of Chao's departmental AV work during the past four years. It's as if Chao wanted to organize the AV-related papers on her desk and file them nicely for her successor to spare him the extra work. Here is the link to the Federal Register notice; comments are due within 60 days. (As of publication time, the regulations.gov page for this docket was not yet posted.)
In Yiddish, this is called being a mensch, though Ms. Chao is neither Jewish nor a man. Mensch may literally mean a man or person, but it actually means someone with integrity who does the right thing. And I'll add that a mensch is very much not a maven, a word that is sometimes translated into English as an expert, but is used in Yiddish and English sprinkled with Yiddish as referring to someone who thinks they know more than everyone else about something, but likely doesn't or by a person who does, but whom others resent. Elaine Chao is very much more a mensch than a maven. She did her job, she didn't point attention to herself unless it was helpful, and, even when she was accused of wrongdoing, she continued focusing on her job. In the Donald years, this was something commendable and remarkable.
Elaine Chao never made herself the conversation.
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| From Mensch on a Bench at https://themenschonabench.com/the-mishpacha-mensch-101/. The answer given is a person of integrity and honor. |
Chao's says bye, bye to the transportation world
In a department that received relatively little attention during the Donald years due to its lack of craziness (in my opinion), Chao steered the course not only as a moderate Republican, one who would have been at home in a Romney Administration, for instance, but as someone who in many ways departed little even from the Obama Administration's course. Once it was clear that Obama was never going to make big inroads on livability and high speed rail, his AV work, in particular, was moderate, nee even prudent, one word say conservative with a small "c." There were efforts to steer funding toward progressive transportation and land use, but no big changes to the structure of transportation funding and policy of the last 40 years. Chao could be said to have kept that tradition despite serving in a radical Administration that sought to overturn established traditions, long-held policies, and democracy itself.
True, my personal expectations were low, as I tend to favor pedestrians and transit riders over SOV drivers, but Chao surprised me with her prominent statements at every AV event she attended to include accessibility as a theme and declare the significant possibilities for people with disabilities and older adults. One would never call her "Miss Equity," as she did not talk about the full spectrum of transportation-vulnerable populations or the inherent inequities of the status quo, but she tempered her pro-business statements with both her accessibility statements and those from the heads of her modal agencies. Now for Chao, as with most of that lost tribe of moderate Republicans, encouraging innovation was wink-wink language for not increasing regulations. She headed AV efforts that allowed for voluntary puff pieces from companies, for example, but my expectations were of a Republican and I never awaited her rolling over in bed one morning (especially considering that she was sharing a pillow with the Senate Majority Leader) to become an embracer of separated bus and bike lanes, government-approved performance standards for AVs, scramble intersections, or elevator maintenance at rail stations.
Do you need to read this?
The AV Comprehensive Plan lists USDOT work on AVs, specifically the AV documents issued, the partnerships the forged, the research conducted, and the funding initiatives. The summary - I cannot call this a plan - includes mention of AV work of the Obama Administration as well. That was the right thing to do, above what was necessary. A mensch.
If the question is whether you should read the AV Comprehensive Plan, the answer is "yes" if you want to get up to speed quickly on the USDOT's AV work or you wish to provide comments; "no" if you already follow such developments closely, but you don't care to comment. The report is 38 pages and one can skim this easily. This is not a dense document.
The summary appears on regulations.gov, which notes that comments will be due on .
If a plan is defined as "a detailed proposal for doing or achieving something," then this document is not a plan. I don't know why misnaming the document irritates me, but it does. Just call it a comprehensive AV summary because there is no shame in such a title. Rant over; let's move on.
What we did, whom we spoke with ... yada, yada, yada
Yes, there was lots of talking during the past four years with key institutional players in transportation, both in industry and in public-sector-oriented associations. These tended to be players with access and lobbying. As I said earlier, we are not talking equity, if one defines that word as including the broad spectrum of transportation-vulnerable populations. We're talking car and bus manufacturers, the tech industry as it relates to transportation, and state highway administrators.
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| Photo taken at Battleground National Cemetery in Washington, DC. The text is the Gettysburg Address. |
One should applaud the facilitation, summarized in the summary - not a plan - of AV testing, information sharing, and assessments. It covers, of course, the regulatory activity related to AVs, some coming at the very end of Chao's tenure, one would say when she already had one foot out the door. But unlike her late-Administration peers in history, Chao did not in any way put in screws or make life difficult for her successor with those activities. I would put it otherwise, that in terms of AVs she did her job in a way that will make life easier for the man about to take over her desk.
Where the summary is especially helpful is where it briefly lists and describes activity related to AV testing, exemptions or waivers to FMVSS (federal vehicle safety standards), advance notices of proposed rule making (ANPRMs), research, funding for pilots, updating of traffic control device standards, and other efforts.
Nice redundant information classification
What I like is the redundancy in this publication, which not only classifies and lists USDOT AV activities, but then lists AV operations by type - delivery vehicles, slow-speed shared-use and transit, partial automation for private cars, geofenced mobility-on-demand fleets, and AV trucking for freight - with their related USDOT efforts and accomplishments.
The document goes on to list all of the public engagement activities surrounding AVs during the last four years, followed by its AV research work.
Subtext: Upholding the status quo of modal balance
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| Photo from Battleground National Cemetery. |
While not prominently displaying a credo of the Chao years' AV efforts, there is mention that the role of the USDOT is to be technology neutral. What I see in this summary as well is that by not having an agenda to better balance the availability of modal choices, the balance of power in favor of private vehicles remained the same. I do not blame Elaine Chao for this; she was a Republican in a mainly suburban, exurban, and rural political party and in anti-urban Administration. (Pretty funny when you consider that Donald has never lived outside of NYC before he abandoned the city to call Florida home.) Indeed, she is to be applauded for not exclusively catering to those clutching their steering wheels. She quietly allowed multimodal conversations and efforts to move forward.
Bon voyage to those who worked hard at the USDOT these last four years. I wish you well and I hope that you continue to participate in transportation conversations. We need many viewpoints, we need devil's advocates, and we need intelligent, civil conversations.
Note on photos: During COVID, when brave men and women have lost their lives while serving their communities and our country in driving transit buses, providing medical care, and even working at grocery stores, I was greatly moved during a visit to Battleground National Cemetery on Georgia Avenue not far from Maryland in Washington, DC. Those young men buried in 1864 in one of the smallest military cemeteries died far from home and alone while fighting to save the Union. With death all around now, hearing about COVID deaths and suicides brought on with social isolation, I hope that we erect memorials to all of those who have and continue to perish during the cataclysmic events of 2020 and 2021, to those who put themselves on our front lines and who give their lives.
Historical note
According to Wikipedia:
The Battle of Fort Stevens, which took place on July 11–12, 1864, marked the defeat of General Jubal Anderson Early's Confederate campaign to launch an offensive action against the national capital. During the battle, 59 soldiers were killed on the Union side. There were approximately 500 casualties on the Confederate side of the battle.
This was the only Civil War battle to take place in the District of Columbia and President Lincoln himself was present and in danger. The battlefield is now a park.
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