Welcome to PandaPod, Ridepanda’s video podcast where we explore how people get to work and move through cities, from transportation demand management and reducing parking, to biking, sustainability, and the future of urban mobility. In each episode, we go straight to an expert to hear about their experience, get their perspective, and learn from their advice.
In Episode 4, we speak with Ernie Francestine, Transportation Demand Management Coordinator for the City of Pittsburgh’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure (DOMI). Ernie shares how Pittsburgh is making it easier for residents to choose ways of getting around that are safe, practical, affordable, and enjoyable.
From secure bike parking and the growing impact of POGOH bike share to employer partnerships, parking policy, and the everyday details that shape a trip, Ernie offers a grounded look at mobility work in a historic, hilly city. Watch the conversation below to hear why he sees transportation demand management as a powerful tool for improving quality of life.
Ernie Francestine is a Transportation Demand Management Coordinator with the City of Pittsburgh’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure (DOMI). He has spent nearly a decade working at the intersection of sustainability, program management, transportation planning, and policy. In his current role, he helps shape strategies that make it easier for Pittsburgh residents to get around without driving alone; from working with employers and transportation management associations to expanding bike parking and supporting long-term mobility planning.
Pittsburgh is an old city with hills, rivers, bridges, compact neighborhoods, and layers of transportation history. DOMI was established in 2017 to bring greater focus to the engineering, planning, and policy work required to help that system evolve. For Ernie, joining a newer department in an older city meant getting to see the full arc of public-sector mobility work: the big ideas, the community conversations, the implementation work, and eventually, the new normal.
That last part matters. Change can be difficult at the outset, especially when a project rethinks a familiar street or corridor. But Ernie has watched ideas that once prompted intense discussion become an accepted part of daily life once people experience safer, more comfortable trips. The point is not change for its own sake. It is giving residents more ways to move through their city safely and reliably.
When people talk about active transportation, they often jump straight to bike lanes. Ernie makes the case for paying attention to what happens at the other end of the trip. Where will someone leave their bike? Is the parking covered, secure, and close to the destination? Can an employee comfortably bring a heavier e-bike up a set of steps?
These are not minor details. They are the small, practical decisions that determine whether a person sees biking as a viable way to get to work, run an errand, or meet a friend. Pittsburgh’s bike parking program responds to resident requests and has expanded bike parking across the city. Ernie also points to a simple but thoughtful example at the City-County Building: a bike runnel that helps riders move an e-bike up the stairs to covered parking. It is a modest intervention with an outsized effect on ease of use.
His broader point is shared responsibility. Cities can make safe, convenient public bike parking more available, while employers and property owners can provide the secure, on-site amenities that make biking work day after day. For organizations trying to encourage active commuting, the end-of-trip experience deserves as much attention as the trip itself.
One of the biggest shifts Ernie has seen in Pittsburgh is the rise of bike share. POGOH, the city’s bike-share system, has helped make bicycling more accessible across Pittsburgh, especially as e-bikes have become part of the fleet. In a city known for its hills, an e-bike can turn a trip that feels out of reach into a realistic option for commuting, groceries, appointments, or simply getting around.
Ernie describes the Oakland neighborhood, home to Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, as a clear example of what sustained demand can look like. He has seen bike-share use grow as students, staff, and residents gain a more flexible option for getting around. Both universities also support multimodal commuting through campus-focused collaboration and programming.
Bike share is not only a service; it is a gateway. It lets people try an e-bike or bicycle without needing to make an upfront purchase, helps normalize biking as transportation, and builds the rider demand that makes a stronger case for continued investment in safer, connected infrastructure.
Ask Ernie where a city new to transportation demand management should begin, and his answer is direct: start with major employers. Employers influence where people work, how they access a site, which benefits they hear about, and what transportation choices feel financially possible.
The most effective programs make the alternative to driving tangible. That can mean transit or bike-share memberships, vanpools and shuttles, secure bike parking, showers and changing rooms, or direct financial rewards for choosing active transportation. These supports work particularly well during life transitions, like when someone starts a new job, moves to a new home, or reconsiders a familiar commute. Those are the moments when habits are most open to change.
Ernie also stresses the importance of bringing HR into the conversation. Transportation benefits should not be buried in a facilities plan. When employees learn about options as part of onboarding and benefits communication, the program has a better chance of meeting them at the exact moment they are deciding how to get to work.
Parking can sound like an administrative detail. In reality, it shapes what gets built, what costs get passed along, and which travel choices are easiest. Ernie sees parking and curbside decisions as central to the mobility ecosystem because they create either a default path for driving or room to invest in better alternatives.
Building parking is expensive. Rather than treating that cost as inevitable, cities, developers, and employers can ask a more useful question: what investments could make a place safer, more connected, and more appealing without adding another parking space? Depending on the context, that can include traffic calming, right-of-way improvements, safer connections, or employee mobility benefits.
The work is complex because urban streets rarely have a single owner or a single stakeholder. City, county, and state roads can intersect with different funding sources, timelines, and priorities. But that complexity is precisely why coordinated planning matters. A bike lane that ends abruptly is not just an infrastructure gap; it is a reminder that the systems governing a street have to connect, too.
For Ernie, it is seeing measurable change take shape. The long process of refining and advancing mobility work can be challenging, but watching the iterations add up to something real is deeply rewarding.
Ernie returns to the value of work that lasts beyond any one person’s role. He is motivated by planning and policy efforts that can shape Pittsburgh long after the immediate project is finished. Work that provides a durable foundation for how people move through the city.
Ernie recommends the Parking Reform Network for practical information, case studies, and parking-policy best practices, as well as Strong Towns for its perspective on transportation funding and the long-term consequences of infrastructure decisions. On his reading list: Why Public Space Matters and Life After Cars. He also highlights bike buses and Safe Routes to School as programs worth watching. Building for children and other vulnerable road users, he argues, is how cities create genuinely great public spaces.
The opportunity is micromobility that is increasingly practical and attainable. As e-bikes, scooters, employer support, subscriptions, and bike share give more people access to alternatives to driving, the case for safer infrastructure grows alongside ridership. More people using the system creates stronger momentum to improve it.
Rather than naming one individual, Ernie gives a collective hat tip to the organizations making shared and active transportation accessible and affordable. Bike-share providers such as POGOH, and others working to lower the barrier to biking, help create the everyday demand that makes policy and infrastructure progress possible.
Ernie Francestine’s perspective is a useful reminder that TDM is not simply about persuading people to use a different mode. It is about building a city where the better choice is also the practical one: where a bike has a secure place to go, where an employer helps employees understand their options, where shared mobility is available, and where street design supports the people using it.
Pittsburgh’s mobility work reflects the many layers behind that goal, from neighborhood-scale bike parking to employer partnerships and the coordination required across a complex public right-of-way. The common thread is quality of life. When people have safer, more affordable, and more enjoyable ways to move, the whole city benefits.
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