Moving From Cars To People: A Comic About Transportation and Land Use
A new transportation comic, "Moving From Cars To People (PDF)," offers a succinct and fun introduction to a complicated topic: namely, how the built environment in the United States came to be designed for cars and what we can do about it.
Want a physical copy? Here are a few ways to get one:
- Order a copy for just the cost of printing & shipping;
- Print one yourself at any local printer, with our high-res print-ready file (PDF);
- Attend the TRB NITC Reception...
The 102nd annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) will be held January 8–12, 2023 in Washington, D.C., and ten of Portland State University's core transportation faculty and researchers will be sharing their expertise at the largest transportation conference in the world. The TRB annual meeting attracts thousands of transportation professionals from around the globe to address transportation policy, practice, and plans for the future.
The spotlight theme for the 2023 meeting is Rejuvenation Out of Disruption: Envisioning a Transportation System for a Dynamic Future.
VIEW THE ONLINE GUIDE TO PSU AT TRB 2023
A Few Session Highlights to Watch For:
Monday, Jan 9, 10:15 AM - 12:00 PM, Analyzing the Impacts of Intersection Treatments and Traffic Characteristics on Bicyclist Safety: Development of Data-Driven Guidance on the Application of Bike Boxes, Mixing Zones, and Bicycle Signals – Senior Research Associate Sirisha Kothuri of PSU's Maseeh College of Engineering will present in a lectern session alongside Brendan Russo of Northern Arizona University, Edward Smaglik of...
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Christian Galiza is a senior in civil engineering. He is the Vice President of Communications for Portland State University's Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) student chapter, Students in Transportation Engineering & Planning (ITE-STEP), and also works as a structural engineering intern for Eclipse Engineering. He is the recipient of an ITE Regional Travel Scholarship to attend the 2022 ITE Western District Annual Meeting in Palm Springs, CA. He is also a 2022/23 National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) scholar. Christian enjoys transportation because it's fascinating to think about the relationship between building sustainable infrastructure and transportation planning and its impact on how people move every day.
Connect with Christian on LinkedIn.
Tell us about yourself?
I am originally from the beautiful island of Oahu, Hawaii, and I have been working through the B.S. Civil Engineering program at Portland State University. My transportation interests include Complete Streets, safety, and issues involving transportation equity. In January 2023, I’m excited to embark on an engineering internship with the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) in their Traffic Operations section...
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Portland State University graduate Mike McQueen, who earned his masters in civil engineering in 2020 and now works at ICF as a transportation data specialist and engineer, has published an article in the November 2022 issue of Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice.
The article, "Assessing the perception of E-scooters as a practical and equitable first-mile/last-mile solution," is a revised version of McQueen's masters thesis, "Comparing the Promise and Reality of E-Scooters: a Critical Assessment of Equity Improvements and Mode-Shift," which is available for download on PDX Scholar. The article updates the statistical model used to a mixed multinomial (MMNL) regression model, which allows for better control of random variations in taste among respondents, and makes findings about the influence of travel time and cost on mode choice more robust. McQueen presented this research during a poster session at the TRB Conference on Advancing Transportation Equity (CATE) conference in September 2021.
Read more"This research shows that e-scooter systems in their current form are not organically leading to substantial mode shift from automobile travel at a regional scale, nor are they leading to increased...
New mobility technologies, such as shared mobility services and autonomous vehicles (AVs), continue to evolve. How do travelers decide whether to adopt new transportation modes or continue to use conventional modes? "Transportation Mode Choice Behavior in the Era of Autonomous Vehicles: The Application of Discrete Choice Modeling and Machine Learning" is a 2022 dissertation by Sangwan Lee of Portland State University which uses machine learning to examine this question.
Lee, who earned his PhD from the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning in 2022 working with faculty advisor Liming Wang, is now a research associate working in employment research at LX Spatial Information Research Institute, Korea Land and Geospatial Informatix Corporation in Jeonju, South Korea. He is currently working on several research topics, including autonomous logistics.
"I'm excited about the next chapter of my work in employment research because I am joining research projects about autonomous vehicles," Lee said.
Lee's dissertation consists of three papers. The first examines future market shares of each available mode of transportation in the era of AVs, factors influencing mode choice behaviors, and their marginal effects using a mixed...
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We are proud to acknowledge Portland State University engineering masters student Cameron Bennett, who has been awarded a Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship for the second year in a row. Bennett, who won his first Eisenhower Fellowship last year, will receive another presented by the U.S. Department of Transportation at this year's annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB). He is also being honored as the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) Masters Student of the Year.
Connect with Cameron on LinkedIn.
During his master's program, Cameron has served two terms as President of the Institute of Transportation Engineers student chapter at Portland State, ITE-STEP (Students in Transportation Engineering and Planning). In 2022, the student group won the ITE Student Chapter Momentum Award. He has also received a National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) scholarship and a 2021 Walter H....
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The National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) is proud to introduce our newest Dissertation Fellow, Nicholas Puczkowskyj of Portland State University, who was awarded $15,000 for his doctoral research project: Expanding Transmobilities: An Art-Informed Methodology For Genderdiverse Travel Behavior.
"My dissertation focuses on understanding how genderdiverse individuals' gender identity influences their travel behavior and travel decisions. I use an art-based methodology by operationalizing collage and mental maps to delicately capture these data. I believe this work will support mobility justice research and the greater social justice movement by further solidifying the field of transmobilities. Additionally, this research seeks to push the boundaries of transportation research by illustrating the power of art as a modality for travel behavior research," Puczkowskyj said.
There is a significant gendered travel behavior research gap in the transportation literature. A plethora of transportation literature identifying and contrasting cisgender disparities exists, but more inclusive approaches to genderdiverse identities remain scarce. The burgeoning field of transmobilities investigates transgender mobility and evolved from the nexus of mobility justice and gender studies by studying transgender experiences on public transit.
Nick's dissertation expands...
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In a big step forward for nonmotorized planning, a dashboard with bike data from the Washington, D.C. metro area is coming to BikePed Portal. Previously, a planner looking to see the latest biking numbers for the nation's capital would have to look at info from several jurisdictions, including Arlington County, the City of Alexandria, the District Department of Transportation, Fairfax County, Montgomery County, and the National Park Service, which manages counters on several trails and natural areas in the greater metro area.
Now, with funding from a National Park Service (NPS) Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU), a unique program that facilitates partnerships between federal and non-federal entities and research institutions, Virginia Tech and the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center (HSRC) are teaming up with data specialists at Portland State University (PSU) to create a new dashboard that will allow users to see all the D.C. bike data together in one place.
Housed at PSU's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC), BikePed Portal...
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The winter term at Portland State University starts January 9, and registration opens December 19 for non-degree students. (Students who are already enrolled in a PSU degree program can register online now.) Lifelong learning is a guiding principle of PSU, and anyone interested can take transportation courses through the non-degree application process or as a post-baccalaureate student. Taking a course can be a good way to see if one of our graduate degree programs is right for you. Check out the course offerings below to see what's available this coming term.
See PSU’s COVID-19 Student Resources for the latest info on campus health and safety for students and staff. The course delivery methods for each course are listed below (e.g. in-person, hybrid, or attend anywhere).
Civil and Environmental Engineering
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If you're biking through Cincinnati, Ohio in the next couple of years and find yourself pedaling on a Portland-style neighborhood greenway or two-way protected bike lane, it might be because two engineers from the City of Cincinnati's Department of Transportation & Engineering—Joe Conway and Brian Goubeaux—attended our Comprehensive Bikeway Design Workshop in the summer of 2022 and brought some inspiration home.
The City of Cincinnati is in the process of updating its Bicycle Transportation Plan, adopted in 2010 and due for a refresh. Goubeaux, a senior engineer for the City, said that design strategies and practices he learned during the summer workshop will likely find their way into the plan.
Read more"We've been looking at implementing a neighborhood greenway. We've always had neighborhood greenways as a tool in the toolbox; it's always been listed on paper, but nothing has ever fully been implemented. So now as we're updating our bike plan, over the next six months or so, we're looking to include that as a priority for...
Navigating an unfamiliar place is uniquely challenging for people with disabilities. People with blindness, deafblindness, visual impairment or low vision, as well as those who use wheelchairs, can travel more independently in urban areas with the aid of effective wayfinding technology. A new report from the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) explores how to leverage low-cost methods to enable people to more easily move through public, urban indoor and outdoor spaces.
The study, led by Martin Swobodzinski and Amy Parker of Portland State University, used focus groups, two case studies, and an in-person structured wayfinding experience on the PSU campus to find the most helpful ways of getting around. Tactile maps were found to be a very useful resource, with an accessible mobile app also showing promise as an orientation and mobility aid.
The researcher will share more details about this project in a free webinar on December 15: Individual Wayfinding in the Context of Visual Impairment, Blindness, and Deafblindness.
WHY IS THIS RESEARCH IMPORTANT?
Environments and...
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