Learn more about Jaime Orrego-Oñate: Follow him on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn
Jaime Orrego-Oñate, a civil engineering PhD candidate at Portland State University (PSU), has been awarded a $15,000 Oregon Sylff Fellowship for International Research. As a Chilean national completing a Ph.D. in transportation engineering at PSU, Jaime is poised to promote the expansion of American research abroad into countries that lack research resources. His research focuses on understanding the role of the urban form in active transportation decisions. With his work, he hopes to address an information gap between pedestrians’ motivations to walk and how urban planners can encourage this behavior. This is of particular importance in the context of Jaime's home region, Latin America, where walking has been decreasing due to the rise of use of private automobiles.
"I want to spearhead positive change by convincing societies like mine that they can improve urban development," Orrego-Oñate said.
The Sylff program aims to identify and nurture leaders who will overcome differences in nationality, language, ethnicity, religion, and political systems to tackle global issues, and whose high integrity and drive to address issues unique to their respective countries can make a real difference. Fellowship stipends are...
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The new article Evidence from Urban Roads without Bicycle Lanes on the Impact of Bicycle Traffic on Passenger Car Travel Speeds published in Transportation Research Record, the Journal of the Transportation Research Board, demonstrates that bicycles do not significantly reduce passenger car travel speeds on low speed, low volume urban roads without bicycle lanes. Authored by Jaclyn Schaefer, Miguel Figliozzi, and Avinash Unnikrishnan of Portland State University, the research shows that differences in vehicle speeds with and without cyclists were generally on the order of 1 mph or less – negligible from a practical perspective.
A concern raised by...
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Authored by Mike McQueen and John MacArthur, Portland State University
- Read the 2020 research paper in Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment with updated model & findings.
- Use the online Electric Vehicle Incentive Cost and Impact Tool
Electric bikes (e-bikes) are quickly becoming common in U.S. cities and suburbs, but we still have a ways to go compared to our neighbors across the Atlantic. In recent years, e-bike sales have steadily increased with unprecedented growth in Europe, especially in the Netherlands. Can the U.S. catch up? E-bikes offer a cheaper alternative to car travel and also provide physical activity. Riders with limited physical ability find that e-bikes...
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Kate Wihtol is a 2019 graduate of the Master of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) program at PSU. As of 2020 she is an associate planner at the Oregon Department of Transportation. Kate worked with fellow MURP students of the Living Streets project team to develop a pathway toward inclusive, equitable, and accessible pedestrian streets for the Portland Bureau of Transportation. In this video she talks about their work to identify best practices and recommendations tailored to Portland’s urban context: a city built for cars, but aspiring and progressing toward a more walkable, bikeable, and transit-friendly future.
- Watch a video interview with Kelly Clifton, published Thursday, June 11 from KATU: PSU and UO researchers study how coronavirus pandemic is impacting consumers
This article was authored by Katy Swordfisk and cross-posted from Portland State University.
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Authored by Tammy Lee, Transportation Data Manager, Portland State University
Traditionally, the month of May is Bike to Work Month. Last year this time, Oregon logged 179,177 trips for a total of 1,374,835 miles by 10,397 riders. And last year this time TREC was winning the PSU bike to work month department challenge. So what are we seeing in the data now?
For continuity from the last time we posted some bike volume observations, we’re again showing data from the Hawthorne Bridge and Tilikum Crossing (Figure 1) in Portland, Oregon. At the moment, daily volume across the Hawthorne Bridge remains relatively low. Typically we’d expect bike volumes across the Hawthorne would be higher in May, especially because if this were “normal” times we’d be competing in the Bike to Work Month challenge. Bike volumes across the Tilikum show higher volumes beginning in April, especially on the weekends since the March 23, stay-at-home order was issued.
...
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In the 2-30 days after a major earthquake, neighborhoods might look very different. Walking and rolling are more dependable ways for people to get around because they do not require fuel. This project examined how a resilient neighborhood-level transportation network could help neighborhoods recover after a major disaster. Hear more in this interview with Sabina Roan, a Master of Urban and Regional Planning graduate of PSU.
- Download the Final Report (PDF)
- Download the Project Brief (PDF)
- Read the Multiyear Summary Report: Transit-Oriented Development in Portland: Multiyear Summary Report of Portland State University Surveys (PDF)
- Watch the June 2020 Webinar: Findings From 15 Years Of Travel Surveys At Portland Area Transit-oriented Developments (TODs)
Does living in a transit-oriented development (TOD) actually change the way people travel? That's the fundamental question that 15 years of research in Portland, Oregon seeks...
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Each year, through our Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI) program, TREC offers a range of scholarships to assist students pursuing equitable, sustainable, and multimodal transportation. Four Portland State University students were awarded TREC scholarships for the 2020/2021 academic year: Darshan Chauhan of civil & environmental engineering, and Robert Hemphill, Philip Longenecker and Briana Orr of urban studies & planning.
Darshan Chauhan (Walter H. Kramer Fellowship)
Darshan Chauhan (see his NITC student spotlight here) is a graduate research assistant in civil engineering at Portland State University. He has served as the treasurer of STEP (Students in Transportation Engineering and Planning), PSU's transportation student group, and generously volunteers his time at a variety of transportation-related events via PSU's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC). He defended his masters thesis on network flow problems in fall 2019, and is now a PhD student in the civil engineering...
The rapid spread of COVID-19 has changed the way most of the world moves through daily life, with many businesses having to temporarily close and students of all levels forced to transition to online courses.
Even so, grocery stores, medical facilities, and takeout restaurants remain open, requiring workers to commute to and from work. In metro areas, that can often mean taking some form of transit, potentially exposing workers in these vital areas to the disease.
In a collaborative project between University of Tennessee at Knoxville and Portland State University, researchers Chris Cherry (UT), Candace Brakewood (UT) and John MacArthur (PSU) are studying the impacts of people’s travel decisions on transit, shared bikes and e-scooters, and it comes with backing from a National Science Foundation RAPID Award.
These awards are granted for research with "a severe...
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