Tasked by Austin’s City Manager with creating a coherent transportation policy for Austin, Texas, Robert founded the Austin Transportation Department in 2008, growing the program from a single employee to over 450 professional engineers and skilled field staff. The Department operates the city’s multimodal transportation network as an enterprise unit, generating its entire $64M annual budget for operations and maintenance from non-tax revenue sources.

The Department successfully led seven (7) capital bond efforts with Austin voters, increasing the Transportation Capital Program to over $1 Billion.  Through inter-governmental partnerships and collaboration, the Department helped to ignite a regional mobility construction boom totaling some $27 Billion.

As Director, Robert led major initiatives within the transportation portfolio, including:

• Coordination and extension of Capital Metro’s Red Line Commuter Rail program, with major improvements at the Convention Center, and Q2 Stadium Stations.
• Austin Urban Rail Studies, leading to the adoption of the Austin Transit Partnership project now under construction.
• Expansion of the Austin bicycle network, achieving major funding exceeding $400 Million for on-street bike facilities, completion of the Lady Bird Lake (LBL) Board Walk, construction of the new “Wishbone Bike and Pedestrian Bridge” near the Pleasant Vally Rd. Dam, introduction of Dutch inspired intersections, and the expansion and conversion of Austin’s B-Cycle system into the electrified Metro Bike system.
• Support and expansion of Austin’s award-winning Vision Zero program, designed to eliminate on-road serious injuries and fatalities.
• Replacement and modernization of Austin’s on-street parking management system, converting the City’s antiquated single-space coin operated metering system to modern multi-space kiosks, with credit-card and pay-by-phone technologies. The system, originally running at a loss of $3 Million net annually, was able to generate nearly $16 Million annually by the end of Robert’s tenure with the agency, becoming a major financial resource for operating and maintaining the City’s mobility systems.
• As Director, Robert was also responsible for all special events affecting the City’s street networks, including SXSW, Formula 1 Races, and hundreds of parades and similar events requiring street safety closures.
• Robert led Austin’s Live from Austin Texas Proposal to the USDOT 2015 SMART CITY competition. The proposal established Austin as a national transportation technology leader.  Although not chosen as the winning proposal, the Austin Transportation Department achieved all of the outcomes proposed as part of the competition (without Federal funding).  The success of the resulting program established Austin’s leadership and reputation as a technological leader amongst cities, known for achievements such as electric scooters deployed at scale, early deployment of self-driving vehicles and self-driving taxi operations, debut of North America’s first Car2Go Car Share program, use of low-cost pedestrian solid-barriers to eliminate freeway pedestrian crashes (now used as a Texas state-wide standard), introduction of Dutch-inspired intersection design, introduction of pedestrian hybrid beacons for marked cross-walks as well as funding innovations such as the use of municipal bonds to construct transit assets to be operated by others.