Avital Barnea
Policy Analyst
United States Department of Transportation, Office of the Secretary
- One Word to Describe Yourself: Conscientious
- Alma Mater: University of Minnesota
- Favorite Book: “Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell
- Favorite TV Show: “The Simpsons”
- Favorite Hobby: Anything that involves music: playing music, listening to music, going to concerts
- Fun Fact: She has played oboe for more than 20 years and currently plays in the Capital City Symphony in Washington, D.C.
It was a course in transportation planning that clicked with Avital Barnea that made her realize she wanted to work in transportation. She began her career working in the transit control center for Metro Transit in Minneapolis, where she monitored on-time performance of buses and outlined cause and effect of late-running bus service; recommended algorithm adjustments to better reflect real-time bus schedule adherence for public Internet applications and outdoor display signs; and analyzed local transit technologies and studied those of peer regions to influence future bus rapid transit in the Twin Cities.
In 2011, Barnea was named a Presidential Management Fellow and accepted a position through this program with the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) in Washington, D.C. As a community planner with the FTA, she worked on the Capital Investment Grant Program (New Starts/Small Starts) and oversaw metropolitan and statewide transit planning at the regional and local levels.
During her tenure with the FTA, Barnea completed a 6-month detail assignment with the United States Senate Committee on Finance, under Committee Chairman and Senator Max Baucus. In this role she worked on Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21), as well as began working on reauthorization of the Water Resources Development Act.
Barnea currently works in the Office of the Secretary of Transportation as a policy analyst, working in the Office of the Under Secretary for Policy. She oversees nearly 100 awarded Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) discretionary grant projects that have received more than $1.2 billion in funding, and serves as a lead reviewer of TIGER applications. In the Office of the Under Secretary for Policy, she is a subject matter expert on transit policy documents and correspondence.
"I think especially when you work in D.C., it’s important to be informed. I read multiple news sources every morning just to keep abreast of what’s going on in transportation and in politics affecting our field because things change so quickly and it can really impact what we do.”
