Highway Division
Made up of the former state entities MassHighway and the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority.
Interstate Highways, state highways, and the Massachusetts Turnpike. (Some portions of numbered state routes are owned and maintained by cities and towns).
Toll bridges and tunnels: the Tobin Bridge (transferred from MassPort on January 1, 2010), Sumner Tunnel, Callahan Tunnel, Ted Williams Tunnel, and the O’Neill Tunnel.
All vehicular bridges in Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) parks are also either owned and maintained by DOT or scheduled to be transferred following completion of DCR work on them by the end of 2014. MassDOT took over the following urban roadways formerly under the DCR: McGrath and O'Brien Highways in Cambridge and Somerville, the Carroll Parkway portion of the Lynnway in Lynn, Middlesex Avenue in Medford, and Forest Hills Overpass ("Msgr. William Casey Highway overpass") (Jamaica Plain), Columbia Road (South Boston), Gallivan Boulevard (Dorchester), and Morton Street, all in Boston.
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MassDOT Highway Division operates out of six district offices as well as their headquarters based in Boston. Each district office is responsible for construction supervision, engineering support, and maintenance within their respective jurisdiction.
Registry of Motor Vehicles Division
Formerly an independent state entity, which until 1992 even had its own uniformed police force for vehicular traffic law enforcement, the Registry of Motor Vehicles Division is now directly administered by MassDOT. It is the equivalent of the department of motor vehicles in most states, and processes driver's licenses and motor vehicle registrations.
Rail and Transit Division
All public transportation agencies are administered independently. Until July 2015, the MassDOT board of directors had served as the board of directors for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), the major provider of public transportation in the Greater Boston area, when its governance of the MBTA was suspended by the state legislature and temporarily replaced by a separate Fiscal and Management Control Board (FMCB) appointed by Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker. In June 2021, the FMCB was dissolved, and the following month, Baker signed into law a supplemental budget bill that included a provision creating a permanent MBTA Board of Directors and Baker appointed the new board the following October.
The remaining 15 public transit authorities are called Regional Transit Agencies (RTAs), and they provide public bus services in the remainder of the state. The regional transit authorities are:
The regional transit authorities shown in italics above are within MBTA's commuter rail service area, and provide connections to MBTA trains.
DOT retains oversight and statewide planning authority, and also has a Rail section within the Mass Transit Division. Intercity passenger trains are operated by the federally owned Amtrak, and freight rail is privately operated.
MassDOT is a member of the Northeast Corridor Commission.
Aeronautics Division
The Aeronautics Division, formerly the Massachusetts Aeronautics Commission, administers state financing of its airports; inspects and licenses airports and landing pads; registers aircraft based in Massachusetts as well as aircraft dealers, regulates airport security, safety, and navigation; and is responsible for statewide aviation planning. The Department of Transportation does not own any airports; the state-owned airports are controlled by the independent Massachusetts Port Authority (which shares its headquarters with the Aeronautics Division).
Government regulation of aviation in the United States is dominated by the Federal Aviation Administration. Airline passenger and baggage screening is provided by the federal Transportation Security Administration, but airport security is provided locally.
