Transit California sat down with Laura Podolsky, Executive Director of the UC Institute of Transportation Studies.
Transit California: In July 2024, you became the Executive Director to the University of California’s Institute of Transportation Studies (UC ITS), where you previously served as Assistant Director since 2018. What are some of your priorities for UC ITS in the coming months and years?
It’s an honor to serve the UC ITS as Executive Director. It’s inspiring to work with world-renowned scholars from across the four ITS campuses–ITS-Berkeley, ITS-Davis, ITS-Irvine, and UCLA ITS–to advance research that informs policy and improves the lives of Californians. This year, we’re focused on sharing findings from our Resilient and Innovative Mobility Initiative (RIMI), a 4-year research effort launched in 2021. RIMI is organized around three core areas: the recovery of public transit and shared mobility, carbon neutral transportation, and emerging transportation services and technologies.
Transit California: Can you tell us more about RIMI research related to the recovery and resilience of public transit coming out of the pandemic shutdown? What did researchers learn?
First, I want to express my deep respect for public transit agencies. The challenges they’ve navigated over the past five years have been extraordinary to say the least. For RIMI, our research explored how the pandemic impacted ridership, agency finances, service adaptations, among other topics. A top-level finding is that recovery, both in terms of ridership and fiscal solvency, coming out of the pandemic has been uneven across agencies. Low-income workers relied on transit more during the pandemic, leading to smaller ridership declines for those transit systems, but also revealing socioeconomic disparities in who was able to work remotely. Systems serving downtown commuters have been hit hardest, especially those with the highest pre-pandemic farebox-recovery rates.
Transit California: What message do you want policymakers and transit agencies to take away from the findings of RIMI? What actions do you hope to see?
As a society, we expect a lot from public transit—we want it to address climate change, reduce congestion, serve as a transportation safety net, and more. I hope our research helps policymakers and transit agencies grasp the depth and complexity of the challenges facing public transportation systems and the urgency of taking action. This includes securing a more sustainable funding source for transit and tackling issues that are beyond agencies’ control, including prioritizing transit travel on city streets and building more walkable, high-density communities that are more easily served by transit.
Transit California: Do you have advice for policymakers and transit agency staff who want to work with UC ITS or get benefits from its research?
Reach out! We would love to work with you. Individuals can contact me and I’m happy to figure out how to loop them into our work. Partnerships with public agencies, policymakers, community groups, and other stakeholders are key for delivering research with impact, so we welcome the opportunity to grow our network.
Transit California: You previously served as the Policy Director for the National Center for Sustainable Transportation (NCST) under the US Department of Transportation. The NCST, housed at and led by UC Davis, was established in 2013 as a partnership with five other universities around the country to focus on the research area of “preserving the environment,” and it receives public funding from national, state, and local sources. During your time there, what did you learn about pursuing research topics, supporting your research team, and educating policymakers?
I joined NCST to create a stronger, more direct connection between academia and the policy community. This motivation stemmed from my time at the Local Government Commission (now CivicWell), a statewide nonprofit that partners with local elected leaders to build walkable, thriving, and resource-efficient communities. In that role, I knew the University of California housed the experts and research local leaders needed to drive change in their communities—but accessing it wasn’t always clear. At NCST, I gained a deeper understanding of the incredible work happening across the UC system as well as the challenges and opportunities to translating that research into real-world impact. In my current role, I remain focused on bridging the gap between research and policy.
Transit California: You earned your Masters of Science in Transportation Technology and Policy from UC Davis. How has your academic expertise informed your work with transit policy practitioners?
What makes the Transportation Technology and Policy program so unique is its emphasis on sustainable transportation, and its interdisciplinary approach, drawing from multiple academic fields. My coursework spanned traditional engineering, public policy, economics, community development, and environmental planning. The program helped me develop a more holistic understanding of transportation—recognizing that no single entity can create a multimodal, sustainable, and cost-effective system alone. Public transit operators, land use planners, transportation engineers, policymakers—we’re all in this together.