The Bike Bus Project: Research Explores Active Transportation to School
The Bike Bus movement is gaining momentum. All over the country, rain or shine, groups of children with adult supervision are hopping on bikes to ride to school together, and the new organization Bike Bus World, led by Coach Sam Balto, has received official nonprofit status.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced a $1.1 million federal grant from the Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) program was awarded to Metro. The funds will be used to boost walking school bus and bike bus programs in north Portland. Read more about the new award on BikePortland.
Benefits of the Bike Bus go beyond physical activity: It's an opportunity for kids and parents to socialize, have fun, start the day on a positive note, and save time on driving, parking, and waiting in school dropoff lines.
According to Portland State University (PSU) researchers, bike buses could be the missing puzzle piece required to complete a robust active...
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Over the past several years, in a series of research projects, researchers at Portland State University (PSU) have been developing a new approach to estimate active transportation volumes using machine learning.
This emerging method, which can predict how many people will be biking or walking on any given road, trail or segment of a transportation network at any time, offers promising applications for transportation agencies and state departments of transportation (DOTs). These organizations can use accurate bicycle and pedestrian volume information to track changes over time, prioritize projects, plan and design new infrastructure, conduct safety analyses and estimate public health impacts.
"These methods are still evolving, and it's still in the research phase. But I think the time is not far off when we will start using these methods as more mainstream," said Sirisha Kothuri of the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science, the lead researcher on this series of projects.
The method Kothuri and other researchers are developing is referred to as "data fusion" because it involves combining multiple data sources, including traditional permanent and short-term counting methods as well as newer crowdsourced data streams from entities like Strava and Streetlight.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Traditional permanent and short-term counting methods can directly provide counts, but are limited to certain...
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Portland State University (PSU) researchers have partnered with TriMet to evaluate the design of a new shared-use bus platform that incorporates a sidewalk-level bike lane. The project, FX2 Shared Bicycle & Pedestrian Platform Evaluation, assessed how well the new design is working for transit riders and other road users along Portland's Southeast Division Street.
The most common bus and bike lane design typically has a bike lane directly adjacent to the right side of the bus lane with no physical barrier. This presents several safety concerns. In this scenario, a bike behind a bus would have to wait behind or pass the bus by riding into traffic. As vulnerable road users, these conflicts pose a potentially serious risk to bicyclists.
The FX2-Division is a Frequent Express (FX) bus line that runs from downtown Portland to Gresham. The transit service began operations in September 2022. To accommodate passing bicyclists and transit riders accessing the new FX2 line, TriMet worked with the City of Portland and a broad group of stakeholders and partners to create a design that would allow bikes to stay separated from automobile traffic, with the bikeway passing through the platform area next to where people wait for the...
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Our annual summer Bikeway Design workshop, offered through the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), was held last August at Portland State University. Eighteen professionals attended, learning from local active transportation experts on topics including bicycle facility design, traffic engineering techniques that support active travel, and designing for suburban environments. Check out some photos from this year's workshop.
The week-long workshop also included field tours of bicycle infrastructure in Portland and its surrounding communities. The final day of the workshop, students convened in PSU's Engineering Building to confer together about design problems they were currently being challenged by at work, in their home communities.
One of this year's participants was Portlander Aaron Kuehn, the outgoing chair of BikeLoud PDX, a local bike advocacy nonprofit. Inspired by what he learned in the workshop, he wrote a three-part guest post on the popular BikePortland blog, titled "How to Design a Bikeway." The three posts offer an overview of the Bikeway Design workshop and invite readers to participate in imagining their own bikeway solutions.
"I think everyone has a role to play in designing great streets," Kuehn...
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In recent years, cities and counties all across the United States have invested in bicycle and pedestrian counters. Having reliable data on non-motorized traffic can help jurisdictions make informed decisions about infrastructure investments, measure the effectiveness of biking and walking initiatives, and improve safety.
But having a bike-ped count program is just the beginning.
Once counts have been collected, cities face new challenges. How can multiple agencies share data among themselves? How can data be standardized and compared? And what is the most effective way to communicate what the numbers mean?
Enter Bike-Ped Portal, the comprehensive non-motorized data management system for manual and automated non-vehicular multi-modal counts housed at Portland State University (PSU). This specialized data lake and management system is designed to make sharing data—within an agency, with partners at other agencies, and with the public—easily accessible. The newest feature we've added is a regional dashboard for the Portland, OR and Vancouver, WA metropolitan area.
DATA QUALITY
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Last month at Portland State University (PSU), two students showcased their work on transportation topics in a Summer Research Symposium held by the Virtual Alternative Research Experience for Undergraduates (altREU) Site on Computational Modeling. The altREU program, led by PSU Engineering & Computer Science professor Christof Teuscher, is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and offers undergraduates experience in designing, programming, and using computers to benefit society.
While students in the altREU program worked on subjects ranging from crime analysis to predicting stock market trends, two participants chose to focus their efforts on multimodal transportation. Linden Faye and Allie Hopper dedicated their time in the ten-week program to autonomous vehicles (AVs) and nonmotorized data, respectively. Learn more about their projects below, and join us in congratulating these two students on their excellent work!
Linden Faye, Hofstra University
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As plans move forward for an earthquake-ready replacement of Portland's Burnside Bridge, several Portland neighborhood associations and the Better Block PSU program are taking the opportunity to reimagine a segment of West Burnside street.
With bridge closure and construction anticipated to begin as early as 2026 and last for several years, the temporary period of reduced traffic on Burnside will offer a unique chance for the neighborhood to test out some designs and placemaking strategies aimed at making the area more people-friendly.
"Currently, West Burnside street acts as a barrier separating the northwest and southwest portions of the Central City from each other, and discouraging movement between them," said Xavier Stickler, chair of the Downtown Neighborhood Association's Land Use and Transportation Committee. He, along with Sean Sweat of the Pearl District Neighborhood Association and Mary-Rain O'Meara of the Old Town Community Association Board, applied to the Better Block PSU program to request the assistance of Portland State University students with connecting those neighborhoods and making Burnside more pedestrian...
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Transportation networks are a vital lifeline essential to the functionality of modern society. A newly published research report offers a new methodology for assessing transportation network vulnerability and resilience, with a particular focus on incorporating social vulnerability into the analysis.
Why? Vulnerable populations—such as people with low income, minorities, or seniors—could suffer higher levels of adverse impacts from disruptions. Road closures and other transportation network interruptions due to earthquakes, floods or other disasters may disproportionately affect these groups of people.
The research project, "Integrate Socioeconomic Vulnerability for Resilient Transportation Infrastructure Planning," by Liming Wang, John MacArthur, and Yu Xiao of Portland State University (PSU), addresses a critical gap by integrating socioeconomic vulnerability indicators into the evaluation of transportation infrastructure vulnerabilities.
The report demonstrates this novel methodology using the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area as a case study.
WHAT DOES THE METHODOLOGY OFFER?
The new methodology proposed by the research team combines spatial analysis, network modeling, and social vulnerability indices to identify critical links in the transportation system. It assesses the impact of potential disruptions on accessibility to...
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Not far from Portland State University, down a little road tucked under three highway overpasses, sits the International School of Portland (ISP)—a leafy four-acre campus serving nearly 400 students from preschool to fifth grade. Despite its proximity to popular pedestrian areas, including the Downtown Waterfront, the International School of Portland is nestled amongst a few private blocks and can be difficult to access by foot or by bike. Naturally, most students arrive by car, which creates the familiar traffic jam at pickup and dropoff times.
To provide more transportation options and give the students more access to the school's surrounding neighborhood, Portland State University students are working to improve walking and biking access to the campus. Championed by ISP’s volunteer Green Team, Facilities Manager...
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Since 2011, Portland State University and the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation have offered a unique opportunity to students: a two-week study abroad course that introduces participants to cities with stellar bike cultures. In past years, classes have explored the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark. This year’s class of eight students, led by Hau Hagedorn and Drusilla van Hengel, spent two weeks this summer traversing Denmark by public transportation, foot, and (of course) bike. Check out some photos from the trip.
Students came from all over the country—from Portland to Connecticut—to attend the course. What they all had in common was a desire to learn from a city that is renowned to have some of the best bike infrastructure in the world. The students wanted to bring their newfound knowledge back to their respective towns to make the world a safer, happier place for their loved ones and communities.
Ern Tan—the founder of Civic Cincinnati, a grassroots urbanism advocacy group in Ohio—said before the trip that she was looking forward to seeing the promise of a more bikeable future for Cincinnati reflected in...
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Fall classes begin September 30 at Portland State, and there are some exciting transportation courses available this term. Not a current PSU student? You can still take a course: Anyone interested can register for classes through the non-degree application process, as a post-baccalaureate student, or for free if you're a senior citizen. Taking a course can be a good way to see if one of our graduate degree programs is right for you.
Check out the listings below to see what's on offer this fall.