This article was authored by Katy Swordfisk and cross-posted from Portland State University.
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Authored by Tammy Lee, Transportation Data Manager, Portland State University
Traditionally, the month of May is Bike to Work Month. Last year this time, Oregon logged 179,177 trips for a total of 1,374,835 miles by 10,397 riders. And last year this time TREC was winning the PSU bike to work month department challenge. So what are we seeing in the data now?
For continuity from the last time we posted some bike volume observations, we’re again showing data from the Hawthorne Bridge and Tilikum Crossing (Figure 1) in Portland, Oregon. At the moment, daily volume across the Hawthorne Bridge remains relatively low. Typically we’d expect bike volumes across the Hawthorne would be higher in May, especially because if this were “normal” times we’d be competing in the Bike to Work Month challenge. Bike volumes across the Tilikum show higher volumes beginning in April, especially on the weekends since the March 23, stay-at-home order was issued.
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In the 2-30 days after a major earthquake, neighborhoods might look very different. Walking and rolling are more dependable ways for people to get around because they do not require fuel. This project examined how a resilient neighborhood-level transportation network could help neighborhoods recover after a major disaster. Hear more in this interview with Sabina Roan, a Master of Urban and Regional Planning graduate of PSU.
Does living in a transit-oriented development (TOD) actually change the way people travel? That's the fundamental question that 15 years of research in Portland, Oregon seeks...
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Each year, through our Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI) program, TREC offers a range of scholarships to assist students pursuing equitable, sustainable, and multimodal transportation. Four Portland State University students were awarded TREC scholarships for the 2020/2021 academic year: Darshan Chauhan of civil & environmental engineering, and Robert Hemphill, Philip Longenecker and Briana Orr of urban studies & planning.
Darshan Chauhan (see his NITC student spotlight here) is a graduate research assistant in civil engineering at Portland State University. He has served as the treasurer of STEP (Students in Transportation Engineering and Planning), PSU's transportation student group, and generously volunteers his time at a variety of transportation-related events via PSU's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC). He defended his masters thesis on network flow problems in fall 2019, and is now a PhD student in the civil engineering...
The rapid spread of COVID-19 has changed the way most of the world moves through daily life, with many businesses having to temporarily close and students of all levels forced to transition to online courses.
Even so, grocery stores, medical facilities, and takeout restaurants remain open, requiring workers to commute to and from work. In metro areas, that can often mean taking some form of transit, potentially exposing workers in these vital areas to the disease.
In a collaborative project between University of Tennessee at Knoxville and Portland State University, researchers Chris Cherry (UT), Candace Brakewood (UT) and John MacArthur (PSU) are studying the impacts of people’s travel decisions on transit, shared bikes and e-scooters, and it comes with backing from a National Science Foundation RAPID Award.
These awards are granted for research with "a severe...
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In 2018, Vision Zero was adopted as part of Portland’s Regional Transportation Plan for the first time. This content analysis explored how concerns about safety were expressed in the planning process—did they adhere to a Vision Zero perspective or did they express a conventional mobility paradigm? What were the top concerns? Furthermore, did different stakeholder groups subscribe to Vision Zero more than others? Kelly Rodgers, a PhD student in the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University, explores paradigm conflicts around implementing vision zero in Portland.
Watch the interview with Kelly.
Kelly Rodgers is a PhD student in Urban Studies who is studying the use and influence of health indicators in transportation decision-making. She has been twice awarded the Dwight D. Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship and twice named a NITC Student Scholar. Kelly is also the Executive Director of Streetsmart, a non-profit organization developing an evidence-based platform that helps civic leaders integrate health, climate, and equity concerns into transportation. Kelly is the vice-chair of the Institute of Transportation Engineers' Health and Transportation Standing Committee, a member of the Transportation Research Board's...
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Image by Luije/iStock
Authored by Aaron Golub Director and Associate Professor, Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University. Join Aaron and John MacArthur on May 22nd for a PSU Friday Transportation Seminar sharing early results from the research presented here.
With many transit agencies across the country1 eliminating cash handling at ticket counters and on-board vehicles for obvious health and virus transmission reasons, one may wonder: who will be negatively impacted by this?
Some riders can still use cash at ticket vending machines or at certain retail outlets, but for many, depending on where they live and which parts of the transit system they ride, this will be inconvenient. National data2 show clear disparities3 in access to alternatives to cash (credit and debit accounts) as well as the other tools needed to pay for things electronically (smartphones, cell data plans and internet at...
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Amid the explosion of active transportation literature over the last thirty years, practitioners struggle to effectively synthesize and use that research in their everyday practice. The interdisciplinary scope is vast: engineering, health and medicine, planning and design, psychology, public administration and policy, and many more. The search tools to find the sprawl of active transportation research on any one topic are inadequate, particularly for the average user. Meanwhile, there are still gaps in our knowledge about active...
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