The U.S. Department of Transporta-tion has five key priorities to guide the work of the federal agency: safety, livable communities, state of good repair, environmental sustainability, and economic competitiveness. Here is how the agency reported its priorities:
•    Safety: Improving safety remains the top goal of USDOT. The department is committed to fostering a safety culture in our daily work and encouraging our partners, stakeholders and the public to redouble their efforts to reduce transportation-related fatalities and injuries and make our nation’s transportation system the safest in the world for all users.
•    Livable Communities: Fostering livable communities, where transportation, housing and commercial development investments are coordinated, place-based, and environmentally sustainable, is a transformational policy shift for USDOT. President Obama has made livable communities a key component of his domestic agenda and has challenged all federal agencies to coordinate and innovate around this goal in an unprecedented way. UDSDOT has formed an interagency partnership with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Environmental Protection Agency to promote livability.
•    State of Good Repair: Over the years, the U.S. has built one of the world’s most extensive and productive transportation systems, representing trillions of dollars of public and private investment. It is essential that we adequately maintain and modernize this vast, existing infrastructure to maximize its productivity and performance, to reduce
operational and replacement costs and to extend the system’s
useful life.
•    Economic Competitiveness: Achieving the maximum economic impact from our transportation investments is essential in this period of economic hardship and difficult budget choices at the federal, state and local levels. USDOT is committed to fostering policies and investments that will produce the greatest economic benefit for the broadest number of our citizens and businesses and lay the groundwork for long-term economic growth and prosperity.
•    Environmental Sustainability: The Obama administration is committed to a comprehensive national energy and environmental policy that focuses on reducing carbon emissions and consumption of fossil fuels as well as protecting and enhancing natural resources. USDOT is committed to advancing transportation policies and investments that reduce energy use for passenger travel and freight movement and foster protection of critical watersheds and ecosystems.