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 wrote.  

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Students on the final day of the workshop discuss projects they are working on in their home communities

Workshop attendees putting their heads together on the final day to help each other problem-solve their own design challenges is typically a favorite among participants, sometimes laughingly described as a "peer support group."

The image above shows students displaying projects in their hometowns via Google maps, indicating exactly where the problem areas are and what solutions have been considered. Advice and questions flowed freely, and many said that they came away from the workshop feeling excited to go back home and start putting their new knowledge into practice.

Here are a couple of quotes from workshop participants:

"The IBPI Bikeway Design Course gives tangible examples of policies and standards in action. The Neighborhood Greenways are a wonderful example of how walking and bicycling has been prioritized by policy, and then you physically ride a bike and see the diverters and traffic calming measures realizing this vision. I would highly recommend anyone attend this course to learn and experience the practical design implementation of a great cycling city."

 

"Participating in the IBPI Bikeway Design Workshop left me rejuvenated and excited to improve my own town! The magic of implementing safe, connected, and attractive bike infrastructure was revealed by the expert planners and passionate engineers leading the engaging and interactive course."