Alfred H. Foxx Jr., Baltimore's longtime transportation director, is transferring out of that job to serve as head of the city's Department of Public Works. He will be replaced by Khalil A. Zaied, who now heads the Department of General Services.

The move by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake comes after public works director David Scott "resigned to pursue other opportunities," the mayor said in an apparently euphemistic press release.

The changes take effect immediately.

Foxx, originally appointed transportation director by former Mayor and now Gov. Martin O'Malley, had been in the post for nearly a decade. Zaied is a former chief of the Department of Transportation's highway design offcie.