Karina Ricks on the Past, Present, and Future of Transportation

Pittsburgh's transportation chief talks the history of cities in fits and starts, her city's unique topography, and above all else, dignity in transportation.

I’ve been fortunate enough to pick some excellent transportation minds during this interview series, and Pittsburgh’s Karina Ricks is no different. She leads the City of Bridges’ Department of Mobility and Infrastructure, which is more than your typical city Department of Transportation. I’d go so far as to call it the United States’ first Department of Human Dignity and Travel, based on the values the department espouses, and subsequently acts upon in their planning and execution.

Karina came to Pittsburgh in 2017 after years working in a public and a private capacity, mainly in DC. We met a few years ago in Seattle, at an annual meeting of transportation minds, which I helped to organize. I had admired the city’s ambition and I admired Director Ricks’ obvious desire to transform the city’s transportation department into a nimble and humanistic department where people came first. Almost five years after Mayor Peduto reshuffled the department, the Department of Mobility and Infrastruc…