PSU Transportation Seminar: Shifting Gears: Toward a New Way of Thinking About Transportation

Friday, April 26, 2024, 11:30am to 12:30pm PDT

Friday Transportation Seminars at Portland State University have been a tradition since 2000. We've opened up PSU Transportation Seminars to other days of the week, but the format is the same: Feel free to bring your lunch! If you can't join us in person, you can always watch online via Zoom.

THE TOPIC 

The transportation system in the U.S. has been shaped by a core set of ideas that are embedded in professional practice. These ideas – freedom, speed, mobility, vehicles, capacity, hierarchy, separation, control, and technology – have produced a system in which most people are dependent on driving, with all the negative consequences that entails. Shifting to a system that offers people choices about their daily travel requires a shift in thinking on the part of the transportation profession. In this talk, I take a critical look at the way of thinking that, for the last century, has shaped our transportation system and consider the ways in which that thinking is – and is not – shifting.

KEY LEARNING OUTCOMES

  • Participants will recognize limitations of the existing US transportation system.
  • Participants will learn key concepts shaping the transportation system.
  • Participants will gain strategies for reducing automobile dependence.

SPEAKER

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Visiting Scholar Presentation: Discourse and Sustainable Urban Mobility

Thursday, May 2, 2024, 2:30pm to 4:30pm PDT

Join us in person Thursday, May 2 for a seminar with visiting scholar Robin Hickman of University College London. 

Note: The location has changed to Urban Center 710.

THE TOPIC 

The transport systems, the shape of the built environment and the use of street spaces in contemporary cities and urban areas are a manifestation of what is regarded as ‘normal’ in different contexts. This reflects what counts as ‘true’ for transport and travel behaviours in particular contexts.

In many cities, it is normalised to consume ever increasing levels of individual mobility, with travel hugely dominated by car, yet for this to be highly problematic in environmental and social terms. Elsewhere, there may be more progressive approaches taken by institutions, or perhaps more critical debate and contestation by the public and other actors. The current order, in transport planning, in terms of the procedures available, the projects developed, and the travel behaviours that result, is simply the sorting of priorities.

This presentation seeks to develop an approach that utilises discourse analysis within transport planning, to help understand the different possibilities that might be on offer for transport strategies and also the reaction to new projects by the public. There are two key stages (Hickman, forthcoming 2024):

  • first, using discourse analysis, there is assessment of concepts such as...
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Webinar: Building Capacity in Gateway Communities through the GNAR Academy

Wednesday, June 12, 2024, 10:00am to 11:00am PDT
 

OVERVIEW

Small towns and cities near national parks, public lands, and other natural amenities across the West are experiencing rapid growth and increased tourism. As we have documented via our prior NITC-funded research, this has created a range of big city challenges for these “gateway communities,” particularly in the form of interconnected transportation, land use, and housing issues. Seeking to help gateway communities better prepare for and respond to their transportation and planning challenges, the Gateway and Natural Amenity Region (GNAR) Initiative team translated the findings from our research on planning and development challenges in gateway communities into an online learning program.

This program, the "GNAR Academy Fundamentals: Foundations for Planning and Collaboration in Gateway Communities and Regions" includes seven modules, each of which highlights key skills for addressing transportation and planning issues in gateway communities. This Fundamentals course will be an entry point for the rest of the GNAR Academy, which is currently in development.

In this webinar, we will introduce the GNAR Academy and Fundamentals course, explain how the course was developed, and share how we anticipate the course will result in improved transportation, planning, and development decisions in gateway communities and regions...

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