Meet Becky Katz, Atlanta’s first-ever chief bicycle officer

For years, residents and advocates such as the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition have had to lean on city officials to make sure bicycles got a fair shake at City Hall. Now two-wheelers will have an advocate in city government to help rally for Atlanta to become a more bicycle-friendly city. 
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?On Monday, Mayor Kasim Reed announced that Becky Katz, an Adair Park resident who has spent the past four years as a project manager at the city’s leading greenspace advocacy group, has been hired as City Hall’s first-ever chief bicycle officer. Katz starts the job on October 14.
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? Once in office, Katz will be tasked with planning bike accessibility projects and asking the community for input, among a wide range of other activities. Those duties include overseeing the city’s still-in-the-works bike-share program, writing grants and making sure development plans jibe with Cycle Atlanta and the Connect Atlanta plan.
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?She’ll also work in tandem with the Georgia Department of Transportation and other agencies to improve Atlanta roads and help accomplish the city’s goal of boasting 120 miles of bike paths or lanes.
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? Katz comes to City Hall from Park Pride, a nonprofit aiming to improve metro Atlanta’s parks and greenspaces. While at Park Pride, the city says, Katz “strengthened the organization’s relationship with the biking community by incorporating cycling activities at Park Pride’s events.” Her job as visioning and grants project manager offered her the chance to work with neighborhoods to redesign community parks and gain experience in managing budgets, permitting, and planning. 
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?ABC says Katz helped coordinate the nonprofit’s monthly Bike Commuter Breakfasts and has been “instrumental in building tactical urbanism elements into Atlanta Streets Alive.”
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???? Katz is a graduate of Cornell University with a Bachelors in Environmental Engineering and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology with a Masters of Environmental Engineering. According to ABC, Katz “worked both in undergrad and graduate school with historically disenfranchised communities to help them design water systems and basic infrastructure.”
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? Department of Planning and Community Development Commissioner Tim Keane says he thinks Katz’s experience will help Atlanta “achieve national recognition as a bicycle friendly city.” Reed says hiring a chief bicycle officer should help build upon recent initiatives to make the city easier to navigate and safer for bicyclists.
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? “Ms. Katz is joining an administration that is energized and organized around the many opportunities before us to make Atlanta the most bikeable, walkable, livable city in the Southeast,” he says.
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? The new position is partially funded by a five-year $250,000 grant given to ABC by the Atlanta Falcons Youth Foundation. The rest of the operational costs will be covered by the city. Melissa Mullinax, a senior advisor to Reed, says the job will pay about from $75,000 to $85,000 a year. 
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