The Tightrope With Dan Smolen

A meaningful career: leading autonomous vehicle adoption In Urban America. “The community has to trust developers of the cars, users of the cars, and they also have to see that these cars are going to take them to the places that they have had difficulty getting to.” - Richard Ezike, Ph.D., Noted Subject-Matter Expert on Transportation Equity Dr. Richard Ezike’s earliest childhood dreams of doing meaningful work were about building beautiful buildings and cityscapes. But after earning advanced degrees in science and advocating for the environment and our urban centers, his career pivoted in a completely unexpected direction. Now, Dr. Ezike leads the charge for American Transportation Equity, to make the full range of mobility options—and, in particular, Autonomous Vehicles or AVs—as readily available for inner-city residents as they are for people in our more affluent suburbs. He believes that AVs will provide safer and more accessible mobility, and may greatly improve the lives of inner-city residents w