Portland State University

The video begins at 2:12.

Abstract: A new way of measuring Level of Service for bicycles, pedestrians, and transit is planned for the next Highway Capacity Manual. Are these the right tools to help us plan and build the system we want? If not, what answers do these tools give us and how should we use them? This presentation will review the approaches to multi-modal Level of Service at the national and local levels and discuss efforts to validate the HCM methods. It will also cover the effect of our LOS policies on climate change and explore ways that we might tweak our analysis to get a more accurate picture of the transportation system for all users.

Bio: Seleta Reynolds plans, funds, and implements bicycle and pedestrian projects as a consultant for the Seattle office of Fehr & Peers. Seleta contributed to the national Safe Routes to School toolbox and has served as a guest lecturer on transportation planning for San Jose State University, Portland State University, and UC Berkeley. She serves on the Transportation Research Board Pedestrian Committee and as the President of the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals. One of her favorite side projects was a collaboration with artists Steve Lambert and Packard Jennings to imagine the future of transportation for the Art on Market Street project in San Francisco. Prior to joining Fehr & Peers in 2001, she was the bicycle and...

Watch video

By Jennifer Dill, TREC director.

I recently completed a national poll of people living in urban areas in conjunction with the National Association of Realtors® on Community and Transportation Preferences. The overall results are posted here. The survey included 3,000 adults living in the 50 largest urban areas in the U.S. (That includes suburban areas, as well as denser urban cores.) Here are some highlights related to bicycling.

1.    Less than one in five people have biked in the past month.

Overall, 72% of the adults surveyed said they were physically able and know how to ride a bike. Of those, 25% had ridden in the past month. (The survey was conducted in mid-May, so weather was reasonable.) That means only about 18% of adults in these urban areas biked recently. Most of the people who had biked, rode only for exercise (60%, or 15% of those who are able to bike), while the others (40%, or 10% of those who are able to bike) made at least some bike trips for transportation, such as to work, school, shopping, etc.
Note: From here on I will be focusing only on those people who are physically able and know how to ride a bike.

2.    There are gender and generational gaps.

This isn’t a big surprise, but women were less likely to bike than men,...

Watch video

View slides

The overall goal of this research was to quantify the safety performance of alternative traffic control strategies to mitigate right-turning-vehicle/bicycle collisions, often called "right-hook" crashes, at signalized intersections in Oregon.

A two stage experiment was developed in the OSU high-fidelity driving simulator to investigate the causal factors of right-hook crashes at signalized intersections with a striped bike lane and no right-turn lane, and to then identify and evaluate alternative design treatments that could mitigate the occurrence of right-hook crashes.

Experiment 1 investigated motorist and environmental related causal factors of right-hook crashes, using three different motorist performance measures:

1. visual attention,
2. situational awareness (SA) and
3. crash avoidance behavior.

Data was collected from 51 participants (30 male and 21 female) turning right 820 times in 21 different experimental scenarios. It was determined that the worst case right-hook scenario occurred when a bicycle was approaching the intersection at a higher speed (16 mph) and positioned in the blind zone of the motorist. In crash and near crash situations (measured by time-to-collision) the most common cause was a...