RICARDO MORALES: INFRASTRUCTURE FOR THE MOST VULNERABLE
When Ricardo Morales left San Juan, Puerto Rico, to settle in Massachusetts, he packed his life into nine cardboard boxes. A construction job awaited him with Consigli, the same company he had worked with on a project at the Armed Forces Reserve Center. There was, however, something he wasn't prepared for: facing prejudices that questioned his professional abilities because of where he came from.
“When something didn’t go right, the first assumption was, and still is, that it’s because I’m from Puerto Rico. I prefer to be told, ‘You don’t know because maybe you didn’t have the experience, you have to learn. You weren’t prepared.’ That’s what I can fix. But telling me it’s because I’m from Puerto Rico is something you can’t fix,” he explains.
Before moving, his life had been spent primarily in San Juan, the Caribbean city where centuries of history coexist with contemporary urban life. He grew up with his parents, playing with his two sisters, in addition to occasional visits to the university classroom where he accompanied his mother, a teacher.
As he grew up, the Adventist Church gave him his first opportunities to take on responsibilities. Youth programs included community service and activities that required organizing with others. His enthusiasm for participating led him to become a youth director.
“Now I’m not afraid to speak in public, and I owe that to the church.”
This willingness to get involved coexisted with a curiosity to understand how things worked that he saw on the island, La Isla, and to understand how the environment influences people and how they, in turn, transform it.
He envisioned applying what he had learned at the Polytechnic University in Puerto Rico. Pittsfield wasn't in his plans. The arrival of the Urban Train fueled his questions about other mobility options.
However, the opportunity to work in Massachusetts opened a path for him to develop those interests.
“I never thought I would be working in the United States. I’m incredibly happy that my wife supported me in that. It was a big change for her, leaving what she had, leaving her job, leaving her family too. But it was an opportunity for us to start over,” he recalls.
His first project in Massachusetts was the Williams College library. Ricardo still speaks enthusiastically about his technical solutions, the exposed concrete, and the lessons learned during construction.
“I learned a lot. It was my first exposure to the Massachusetts processes. That library is very nice. It’s a beautiful building. A work of art.”
His career in construction, however, hadn't extinguished his interest in urban planning. He wanted to be involved in the decisions that shaped the place where he lived. In 2018, after seven years in the Berkshires, he joined the Berkshire Leadership Program (BLP) to learn more about the region.
There he met Pittsfield's then city planner, who encouraged him to apply for a vacancy in the city.
“I wasn’t looking,” he recalls.
Before submitting his candidacy, he had a doubt: "How am I going to do this job of being the city engineer without having an engineering license?"
Upon reviewing the job posting, he discovered that a license was not a requirement for that position. Ricardo explains that the work focused on project and process management, an area where he could contribute his experience from the private sector.
“And I said: ah!, well let’s move forward! ”
In 2020, he took over as Public Works Commissioner , and the COVID-19 pandemic greeted him with an unexpected urgency: to help the city understand the evolution of the virus. As part of that response, he created a public dashboard that allowed for daily tracking of pandemic data.
That work was part of the leadership for which he received, in October 2023, the Latino Excellence Award, awarded by the Massachusetts Black and Latino Legislative Caucus.
Today, it makes decisions about the streets, the water, and the infrastructure that sustains the daily lives of thousands of people. Those questions about how to transform the environment have become concrete responsibilities: what gets repaired, how it's designed, and who benefits from each intervention.
For Morales, a street reveals how a city treats its inhabitants. Its width, its intersections, and the space it reserves for walking or cycling can make a person's life easier or endanger it. That's why, when he talks about paving, he ends up talking about vulnerability; when he explains a treatment plant, he's talking about those who live downstream.
“The outcome should not be that someone paid with their death, with their life,” he says, recalling Shaloon Milord, a 28-year-old mother who was run over and killed while crossing West Street with her daughter Lucia in 2023.
That concern guides his work.
“As commissioner, my vision and objective is to establish a guide so that everything we do in the city improves our infrastructure for the most vulnerable.”
When talking about past urban decisions, he turns his gaze towards what's on the other side of the window of the Wander cafe.
“We’re right where we stand,” says Morales. Outside, in the area around Big Y, Center Street, and West Street, he evokes a part of Pittsfield where homes, businesses, and industrial activities once coexisted. He describes a densely populated and diverse area, with different uses concentrated in the same space.
As he explains, in the 1970s it was considered that the area offered few opportunities, and it was decided to open up space for "car storage." The demolitions made way for parking lots and undid much of the coexistence of housing, work, and commerce.
“That was a mistake,” he says.
He also points to the infrastructure of College Way and Government Drive, built with the expectation of connecting to a future freeway that never materialized. In his view, the cancellation of that road prevented even greater destruction, but the interventions carried out left an urban scar that still separates downtown from the West Side and hinders pedestrian mobility.
“These are things that are difficult to deconstruct,” he says about the consequences of having organized cities around the car".
Among his first tasks as commissioner was his involvement in the modernization of the wastewater treatment plant, a project completed in 2022 that he estimates cost $74 million. The treated water flows into the Housatonic River and continues to other communities. He maintains that the city's responsibility extends to those who use the water downstream.
Also, the replacement of some 8,000 light fixtures with LED technology, a change that reduced the electricity consumption of the lighting by about 45%.
On the streets of Pittsfield, he sums up his approach in the three Es: education, engineering, and enforcement . “It doesn’t work in Spanish,” he admits with a smile.
Education allows us to understand how to share space; engineering determines how it is organized; and enforment helps to ensure that it is used properly.
The recent debate about electric bicycles riding on sidewalks, even where dedicated lanes exist, illustrates how these three components are interconnected. Morales acknowledges the importance of educating and enforcing the rules, but insists on also examining the design of the pathways. The available space influences coexistence and the risks faced by each user.
“We don’t have to live in an environment where everything is dictated by how we’re going to get from point A to point B in a car.”
Car dependency, he explains, weighs especially heavily on those who lack the resources to buy one. Among them are immigrants who need to walk or cycle to get to work and meet their daily needs.
Ricardo envisions, where today there are parking lots and roads that hinder connections, homes, shops and small productive spaces, united by streets that can be crossed safely.
“How can we re-establish that connection we lost in the seventies?” he asks.
For now, a $2 million grant from the federal Reconnecting Communities program will allow them to explore alternatives and work with residents. Approximately $500,000 will be dedicated to community engagement. These are funds for planning.
The possibility of funding the initial steps came with a concern. Upon reviewing the documentation, Morales found conditions related to cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
“That’s what we didn’t want,” he recalls.
The city sought information and discovered that other states were also challenging those requirements. A court ruling against the immigration conditions imposed on transportation funds allowed Pittsfield's project to move forward without accepting the contested requirements.
The challenge now is to transform the studies and conversations with residents into a proposal that addresses their needs. Rebuilding that lost connection between the city center and its neighborhoods will take time , and Morales knows that the resources for planning are just the beginning.
"At least now we can make the decisions to affect the future of the city and shape the world we want to live in."
