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Guests: Veronica Davis; Eric McBride
My guests this show couldn’t be more different in terms of their focus – one is a civil engineer, ardent urban planner, and transportation specialist, the other is an accomplished Master’s bike racer, winning several medals in this year’s PanAm Games.
But, variety is the spice of life as they say… so hopefully you’ll get something from each of them – whether it be inspiration to do more about your local bicycling/walking infrastructure or decide to enter an event you had been thinking about but have yet to sign on the dotted line.
Veronica Davis is a professional civil engineer an transportation specialist. She is currently the Director of Transportation & Drainage Operations, a service line within Houston Public Works. Transportation & Drainage operations is responsible for maintaining and improving the infrastructure that spans Houston’s 671 square miles.
As you’ll learn, Veronica comes to the transportation/planning sector from a family immersed in the business where both her mother and father were involved.
Her new book, Inclusive Transportation: A Manifesto for Repairing Divided Communities, was recently published by Island Press and it’s what drew me to her for our conversation. 
In her new book, Veronica offers some astute observations on the inequalities and destructive practices present in transportation planning: how our cities became divided, and why we need to move on from what we’ve always known and redefine urban transportation.
We dive into a variety of topics including how immigration, always a hot topic for politicians, might actually solve some of the issues we see in the job market and how, when we finally have funding for much needed infrastructure projects, there are not enough workers to complete them.
Bruce Springsteen sings about being born to run… well, apparently U.S. Master’s Champion Eric McBride was born to ride!
Eric is the CEO of Palm Beach Health Network Physician Group during the day and an avid elite road and track racer when he dons his kit and cleats.
Eric has been racing bikes since college and now, as a master’s rider in the 45-49 year age group, captured two golds and a silver at the Master’s PanAm Games in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic this past spring.
Racking up 2 golds and a silver at the 2023 PanAm games on the track, Eric takes every opportunity to race his bicycles – plural – in track, road, and crit disciplines.
His accomplishments this year being what they are, he’s already looking forward to 2024 to see what he and his new squad Kingdom Racing will do.
November 22 Transcript