Bikeway design workshop drew professionals from around the country

Aug 03, 2015

Comprehensive Bikeway Design 1.0, a popular summer workshop offered by the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), wrapped up to a successful conclusion last week.

Hau Hagedorn, director of the IBPI, has seen the annual workshop grow into a one-of-a-kind training opportunity for bicycle and pedestrian professionals.

“The course is comprehensive. It isn't just about bikeway design. It's about everything a city can do to become more bike-friendly, including policies that support cycling and land uses that encourage active transportation,” Hagedorn said.

With 10 participants from six states, this year’s workshop helped further the IBPI’s goal of expanding America’s bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure to encourage healthier, more sustainable forms of transportation. The participants came from a diversity of disciplines including community and bicycle planning, academic research and political leadership, and traveled from as far away as Pennsylvania to visit Portland’s bicycle culture.

“I think it reaffirms that this is a unique opportunity, for people to come and see what has been done in Portland. This didn't happen overnight. It gives a good idea of what can be done in other places,” Hagedorn said.

The five-day instructional course began on Sunday, July 26, with a tour of...

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Seven quick things I learned about bicycling nationally

Jul 28, 2015

By Jennifer Dill, TREC director.

I recently completed a national poll of people living in urban areas in conjunction with the National Association of Realtors® on Community and Transportation Preferences. The overall results are posted here. The survey included 3,000 adults living in the 50 largest urban areas in the U.S. (That includes suburban areas, as well as denser urban cores.) Here are some highlights related to bicycling.

1.    Less than one in five people have biked in the past month.

Overall, 72% of the adults surveyed said they were physically able and know how to ride a bike. Of those, 25% had ridden in the past month. (The survey was conducted in mid-May, so weather was reasonable.) That means only about 18% of adults in these urban areas biked recently. Most of the people who had biked, rode only for exercise (60%, or 15% of those who are able to bike), while the others (40%, or 10% of those who are able to bike) made at least some bike trips for transportation, such as to work, school, shopping, etc.
Note: From here on I will be focusing only on those people who are physically able and know how to ride a bike.

2.    There are gender and generational gaps.

This isn’t a big surprise, but women were less likely to bike than men,...

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Webinar, part II: Four Types of Cyclists: A National Look

Jun 23, 2015

Strong and Fearless | Enthused and Confident | Interested but Concerned | No Way No How

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

Originally developed by Roger Geller for the city of Portland, the “Four Types of Cyclists” typology (Strong and Fearless; Enthused and Confident; Interested but Concerned; No Way No How) has been adopted widely to help guide efforts to increase bicycling for transportation. This webinar will present findings from a new, national survey conducted in collaboration with the National Association of Realtors.  In Portland, 60 % of the population falls into the "interested but concerned" category, and they represent a promising segment of the population in terms of increasing the bicycle mode share. In this webinar, we will address the following questions:

  • Does the Four Types of Cyclists typology apply nationally? 
  • What are the characteristics of each type of cyclist? 
  • How does the existing environment, including bicycle infrastructure, affect the share of people in each category/type? 
  • What programs or infrastructure might increase bicycling for transportation among the...
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Decades after its highway became a park, Portland tests another boost to public space

May 27, 2015
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bicycling
walking
naito parkway
transportation engineering

With pilot project, city will turn Naito Parkway into public space for all

May 27, 2015
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bicycling
walking
transportation engineering
naito parkway

Naito Parkway plan announced to give more walking space during Rose Festival

May 27, 2015
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bicycling
walking
data
transportation engineering

Portland takes a car lane and makes it a mile-long pop-up park

May 27, 2015

Portland State students redesign busy Portland street for active transportation

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bicycling
walking
transportation engineering
active transportation

Biking and Walking Get About As Much Research Funding As Chicken Trucks

May 13, 2015
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trec
portland state university
bicycling
walking
transportation research funding

The Cycling Gender Gap: What can we learn from girls?

Apr 13, 2015

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In the U.S., women are far less likely to bicycle for transportation than men. Explanations include, among others, safety concerns (traffic and crime), complex travel patterns related to household responsibilities, time constraints, lack of facilities that feel safe, and attitudes. This talk will explore how this gender gap emerges in childhood, using data from the Family Activity Study. The study collected data from 300 Portland families (parents and children) over two years, allowing us to see how things change over time.

Jennifer Dill is a Portland State University professor and the director of TREC. She teaches courses in transportation policy, pedestrian and bicycle planning, and research methods. Her research interests focus on the interactions of transportation planning, travel behavior, health, the environment and land use. In general, she is interested in answering these questions: How do people make their travel and location decisions? How do those decisions impact the environment? How do our planning decisions impact people's travel and location decisions? Prior to entering academia, she worked as an environmental and transportation planner.

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NITC dissertation analyzes how cyclists handle sharing space with pedestrians and cars

Mar 11, 2015

To be published later this spring is some of the first bicycle-focused research into shared space, a controversial urban design approach pioneered in the Netherlands in the 1990s.

Allison Duncan, a PhD candidate in urban studies & planning at Portland State University, earned a NITC dissertation fellowship in 2014 and used the research grant to study shared space intersections in the United Kingdom.

Shared space designs have recently been adopted at a handful of sites in the UK and others scattered across Europe, Australia and New Zealand. They are characterized by a lack of physical guidelines such as curbs, road surface markings and traffic signs to define who has the right-of-way.

The idea is for pedestrians, cars and bicycles to mingle in a common zone and use eye contact and natural communication to make sure no one gets hurt.

“Cyclists and pedestrians are supposed to be able to treat it more like a plaza and just cross where they want to, and drivers are supposed to yield,” Duncan said.

As a street design scheme, shared space isn’t exactly new. It’s more or less the way all streets were designed until the advent of cars, and is still the norm in many Asian countries where cars share the roads with a crowd of two- and three-wheeled...

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