A Thought Experiment on Government Silos

In a recent Eno Center for Transportation series on re-imagining USDOT, the items got me thinking about what a complete revamp might look like if we thought outside of the box on transportation. Early on in this newsletter’s history I was asked if I would ever just focus on transportation, and while tempting I ultimately decided against it because everything is connected. And so if you’re not including the things that are tied to the subject, I don’t think you can cover the subject properly.

And so that makes me wonder what it would look like if we took a deep dive at the different agencies under each cabinet secretary or the different committees in congress from the lens of transportation. And not just reforming the DOT itself, which seems sorely needed.

What if we rethought how the Department of Education interacted with transportation policy? Or the Department of Agriculture? What would that look like if we’re trying to get kids safely to school or imagine what is keeping produce from getting to market or the people that need it most?

I realize that would be a huge undertaking but it might be worth the thought experiment. How do we break down all these silos that lead to missed connections. A few years ago we had Chris Fabian on the show to talk about how he helped cities look deep into their budgets to see how they could reduce emissions in each department. The number of small ways that were found to help improve environmental outcomes while find money for programs was quite amazing.

I imagine if a new mayor or governor or even president wanted to think about our systems in a different way, they might find something they can address easily to get some quick wins in addition to the things that are obviously hard to change.

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