Healey chooses top transportation officials

Photo | Courtesy State House News Service Gov.-elect Maura Healey named Gina Fiandaca (left) as transportation secretary and Monica Tibbits-Nutt (right) as transportation undersecretary.

Write a Comment

By Michael P. Norton and Chris Lisinski | State House News Service

Gina Fiandaca, Boston's former transportation commissioner, will join Maura Healey's Cabinet next month as transportation secretary, a post that will put her in charge of helping to turn around the MBTA and addressing traffic congestion and public transit problems that threaten the region's growth.

With less than two weeks to go until their inauguration, Healey and Lt. Gov.-elect Kim Driscoll on Friday tapped Fiandaca to lead the secretariat responsible for infrastructure maintenance, public transit, roadway safety and other major issues commuters face on a daily basis. She'll be joined by former MassDOT and MBTA board member Monica Tibbits-Nutt as transportation undersecretary.

Fiandaca will return to Massachusetts from Texas, where she has served as the assistant city manager of Austin since 2019. In that role, Fiandaca manages Austin Transportation and other infrastructure and mobility departments with a budget of more than $1 billion and close to 3,000 employees, according to Healey's team.

Healey's team credited Fiandaca's work on Project Connect, which will build a light rail system in Austin.

According to Healey's transition team, Fiandaca worked as a transportation clerk for the City of Boston while in college. She rose to director of the city's Office of the Parking Clerk for nearly eight years before serving as transportation commissioner for four years during former Mayor Martin Walsh's administration, during which the department released a 15-year, $4.74 billion "Go Boston 2030" transportation plan.

"Massachusetts residents need to be able to rely on our trains, buses and roads to get them where they need to go safely and on time. This is key not only for people's daily lives, but also for the strength of our businesses and economy," Fiandaca said in a statement. "I'm honored that Governor-elect Healey and Lieutenant Governor-elect Driscoll have placed their faith in me to lead the team that will deliver these critical services and am thrilled by the opportunity to continue my career in Massachusetts."

Former Boston Transportation Department Commissioner Tom Tinlin, who promoted Fiandaca to parking clerk and served as state highway administrator when she led the city's transportation department, said Fiandaca will bring a familiarity with "what it's like to be an important cog in the transportation bureaucracy."

"It's not just an important appointment. I think it's the right appointment," Tinlin told the News Service. "Gina brings the management experience where she's actually managed people in a large, diverse workforce. When you think about the MassDOT secretary's job, that organization is made up of all these different transportation divisions."

"Here's a woman, in a male-dominated field, who has worked her way up the ladder," he added. "She's earned everything she's ever gotten."

Citing her start in parking, Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce President Jim Rooney said Fiandaca "knows transportation from the bottom up" and has the academic and administrative credentials associated with running a large organization.

"I think having come up the way she did will serve us well," Rooney said in an interview. "She gets it. She knows the city well. She knows not only moving around in the city, but moving in and out of the city both on roadways and on transit. She's a good choice."

Rooney added, "From a business community perspective, being in a hot city like Austin, she appreciated the role transportation plays in business and commerce."

During her tenure in Boston, Fiandaca was a supporter of connecting the MBTA's Red and Blue Lines, a project the Baker administration placed on the T's long-term to-do list, and boosting commuter rail train frequency along the Fairmount Corridor -- issues that will soon be under her purview as transportation secretary.

In 2019, Fiandaca wrote to T General Manager Steve Poftak alongside then-Boston Chief of Streets Chris Osgood warning about possible impacts of proposed fare hikes that ultimately took effect.

"Currently, you have been clear about the costs: $32 million in additional payments by riders and a 1.3% loss in ridership," Fiandaca and Osgood wrote at the time. "That 1.3% loss in ridership is a reduction of roughly 4.8 million trips. Those will become either trips not taken or, more likely, trips taken by car; this will cause either a loss in economic activity or an increase in congestion and emissions. Neither are acceptable."

Fiandaca will succeed Jamey Tesler, who has held the secretary's post for the Baker administration on an interim basis and then permanently following the departure of Stephanie Pollack in January 2021.

She takes over at a time when the MBTA faces federal orders to fix glaring safety problems, looming budget gaps, a potent workforce shortage and a ridership base still depleted from pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, the region's notorious roadway congestion has returned in full force, frustrating drivers and spewing emissions.

"We can't have a functioning economy without a functioning transportation system. Gina Fiandaca gets that -- and she has decades of experience managing large transportation departments and prioritizing safety, reliability and accessibility," Healey said. "I'm excited to welcome her home to Massachusetts and look forward to the important work she will do alongside our partners in business and labor to deliver results."

Tibbits-Nutt, the executive director of the 128 Business Council transportation management group, since last month has co-chaired the Healey transition team's "how we get around" policy committee.

She previously served on the board of directors of MassDOT and as vice chair of the MBTA Fiscal and Management Control Board, which oversaw the T from 2015 until it dissolved in 2021.

"Governor-elect Healey and Lieutenant Governor-elect Driscoll are committed to building a transportation system that works for every resident in every region of the Commonwealth, and I'm excited to help this administration deliver on that commitment," Tibbits-Nutt said in a statement provided by the transition team. "Gina and I share a vision for transforming transportation options throughout the Commonwealth, and together we will prioritize transparency, safety, equity and climate resiliency."

Tibbits-Nutt often used her position on the MBTA board to advocate for rethinking how the agency is financed and call out lackluster bus reliability. She joined her colleagues on the panel in a 2021 vote that instructed MBTA staff to draft plans for a low-income fare program, which the T has long studied but hesitated to implement broadly.