Reducing Conflicts Between Bicycles and Turning Motor Vehicles
One of the most common locations for fatal motor vehicle–bicyclist crashes is at intersections. A newly published report offers guidance for improving intersection safety, especially in situations where a bike is traveling straight through an intersection and a car is turning across the cyclist's path.
The objective of the study was to develop guidelines and tools for transportation practitioners to reduce and manage conflicts between bicyclists and drivers turning at signalized intersections.
"Reducing Conflicts Between Turning Motor Vehicles and Bicycles: Decision Tool and Design Guidelines" was funded by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP), a program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The research was led by Toole Design in partnership with Portland State University (PSU), Safe Streets Research and Consulting (SS) and Oregon State University (OSU). The PSU team members were Chris Monsere, Sirisha Kothuri and Jason Anderson of the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science, and Nathan McNeil of the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC).
WHAT DID THE RESEARCHERS STUDY?
The research team conducted crash analysis, video-based...
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Several Portland State University (PSU) students worked on research projects that will be shared at the 2025 Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB). We're proud to have high-caliber students at PSU who are contributing to the discussion and technology transfer at the largest transportation conference in the world. See below for a quick look at each student, and check out the PSU program for more details!
Evan Howington
Session: Emerging Topics in Bicycling and Micromobility
Evan Howington is a master's student in urban and regional planning. He currently works as a Graduate Research Assistant (GRA) at TREC, supporting faculty advisors John MacArthur and Nathan McNeil.
Evan will be presenting research in a lectern session on January...
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The 104th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) will take place in Washington, DC. from January 5–9, 2025. Faculty and students from Portland State University (PSU) will be sharing their research and expertise across multiple sessions at the event, which typically attracts over 13,000 attendees each year, making it one of the largest gatherings of transportation professionals and researchers in the world. See below for a few highlights from sessions involving PSU faculty, and check out our student feature story to see what PSU students are doing at TRB. For a full list of sessions with PSU presenters, see the PSU at TRB 2025 Program.
Data Showcase: PORTAL and BikePed Portal
PORTAL and BikePed Portal will both be featured in a lectern session on January 8 at 3:45 PM- 5:30 PM: Visualization in Transportation Lightning Talks.
Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) maintains two large, public transportation data lakes: ...
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Winter term classes begin January 6 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 at PSU.
New Program: Urban Studies and Planning Bachelor + Master (B+M)
The Toulan School at Portland State University has recently added a new enrollment option called the Urban Studies and Planning Bachelor + Master (B+M) Program. The B+M allows junior- and senior-level students enrolled in the undergraduate Community Urban Studies and...
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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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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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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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