The Department of Transportation

rior to the creation of the Department of Transportation, the broad function of the administration of transportation fell to the Under­secretary of Commerce for Transportation. The Department of Commerce, a cabinet-level execu­tive department under the direction of a secretary and also a member of the president’s cabinet, had been the catch-all repository for the various forms of transportation. The nation’s regulation of trans­portation was administered by agencies, like the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Civil Aeronautics Administration, within the department created to deal with specific modes of transporta­tion. Aviation matters had been removed from the Commerce Department by the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 so that, in 1966, both the CAB and the Federal Aviation Agency (formerly the CAA) were independent agencies. Others remained within the Commerce Department. Administration of the nation’s transportation system was fragmented. Some transportation modes were over-funded and over-regulated, while others were under-funded and operated under a system of benign neglect. Debate on the bill was lively, given that many bureaucrats, with their supporters in Congress, had long staked out their turf with respect to their own agencies and authority. The maritime industry opposed the bill, and some in the Federal Aviation

Agency voiced fears that its newly won indepen­dent status (by the Federal Aviation Act of 1958) would be lost. Nevertheless, by October 1966, a compromise had been reached, and President John­son signed the bill into law. It was known as the Department of Transportation Act of 1967.

The needs of the country from the earliest times were seen as including an efficient and accessible transportation infrastructure. But no overall plan had ever emerged to develop or administer transportation.

In 1965, the then-administrator of the Federal Aviation Agency, Najeeb Halaby, recommended to planners in the Johnson Administration that a cabinet-level Department of Transportation be created based, in part, on his experience as head of that agency. For one thing, Halaby believed that the Federal Aviation Agency had been frozen out of the deliberations surrounding the admin­istration’s consideration of a supersonic aircraft transport program. To Halaby, this aviation endeavor was something that the FAA should be consulted on. He wrote to President Johnson that there existed “. .. no point of responsibility below the president capable of taking an evenhanded, comprehensive, authoritarian approach to the development of transportation policies. . .” and that no means existed “. . . to ensure reasonable

coordination and balance among the various trans­portation programs of the government.”

Others in the Johnson Administration also saw the need for unification of transportation activities, legislation, and oversight. At the urgings of Joseph A. Califano, Jr., Special Assistant to the President, and Charles Schultze, Director of the Bureau of the Budget, a special Task Force was created to explore the wisdom and feasibility of creating such a cabinet-level department. In Octo­ber 1965, Alan S. Boyd, then Undersecretary of Commerce for Transportation, and who had been appointed to head the Task Force, forwarded to the president recommendations that included the cre­ation of a Department of Transportation. The Task Force report further recommended that all separate sub-agencies that dealt with transportation matters be included in the proposed department. Represen­tative of these were the Federal Aviation Agency, the Bureau of Public Roads, the Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Civil Aeronautics Board, and the Panama Canal Administration.

Legislation was forwarded to Congress on March 6, 1966, with a letter from Johnson in which he stated: “America today lacks a coordi­nated transportation system that permits travelers and goods to move conveniently and efficiently from one means of transportation to another, using the best characteristics of each.” The thrust of the proposed legislation sought to create one venue for the coordination and management of gov­ernment-funded transportation programs, and to provide a center for the development of a national transportation policy and its administration.

Debate on the bill was lively, given that many bureaucrats, with their supporters in Con­gress, had long staked out their turf with respect to their own agencies and authority. The maritime industry opposed the bill, and some in the Federal Aviation Agency voiced fears that its newly won independent status (by the Federal Aviation Act of 1958) would be lost. Nevertheless, by October 1966, a compromise had been reached, and Presi­dent Johnson signed the bill into law.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) began operations on April 1, 1967, becom­ing the fourth-largest cabinet-level department within the United States government. It com­bined over thirty transportation agencies and functions, and their employees, who numbered some 95,000. During the organizational phase of setting up the DOT were born the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal High­way Administration, and the Federal Railroad Administration. DOT absorbed functions that previously belonged to departments other than Commerce. Urban mass transit, for example, was removed from the Department of Hous­ing and Urban Development, which in turn caused the creation of additional agencies (the Urban Mass Transportation Administration, later renamed the Federal Transit Administra­tion). The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) was created, which assumed the inves­tigative responsibilities formerly carried out by the CAB’s Bureau of Aviation Safety. The administration of aviation was placed in the new department and named the Federal Aviation Administration.