We're proud to announce that Dr. Jennifer Dill, director of TREC at Portland State University, has been awarded the 2020 Research Professional of the Year award by the Association of Bicycle and Pedestrian Professionals (APBP). Given the need for ongoing quarantine, we had to get creative with her acceptance speech - Watch the video to see the award delivered to her by TREC staffers, handed off in a multimodal relay, before Dill accepts the award on a neighborhood greenway/bike boulevard.

Dill received the 2020 APBP Research Professional of the Year award for her contributions advancing the state of practice in bicycle and pedestrian research with a high degree of professional integrity. Dr. Dill addresses important research questions related to walking and bicycling, points out limitations, and suggests lines of future research. Her teaching and advice to students at Portland State University, her leadership through the Transportation Research Board and APBP, and her insightful thoughts related to equity inspire practitioners and researchers working in bicycle and pedestrian transportation.

Following the successful finish of Portland State's first-ever remote Spring Term, we're taking a moment to highlight the projects of students in transportation engineering and planning who worked through unusual pandemic conditions. See below for a recap of transportation student work that was wrapped up at the end of the 2019/2020 academic year. Last year's graduating masters of urban studies students focused on human-powered transportation, and this year's projects address a range of topics from improved active transportation infrastructure to equity and access.

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Masters of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) Workshop Projects

Every year, graduating Master of Urban and Regional Planning students participate in a workshop project where they develop planning projects for clients in the community.

Roses from Concrete

Walk and Roll Consulting team: Timothy Martinez, Shreya Jain, Matthew Cramer, Gwynn Mackellan, Sarah Bermudez, Walle Brown

Client: Rosewood Initiative

Final Document

Roses from Concrete is a walkability plan for Portland Metro’s Rosewood neighborhood, created by Walk & Roll Consulting (W&R). This plan seeks to address the challenges of being a pedestrian - emphasizing youth and older adults, in the historically disinvested Rosewood neighborhood. This is accomplished by providing tools for analyzing existing infrastructural deficiencies, research-based recommendations for contextualized capital improvements, and compiled perspectives from local residents and professionals, in order to catalyze improving the lives of people who live, walk, and roll within the Rosewood neighborhood.

Cascade 30

Apiary Planning team: Jeff Broderick, Timothy DuBois, Seth Healy, Henry Miller, Elisha Ransom, Justin Sherrill

Client: Oregon Department of Transportation

Final Document Part  | Final Document Part 2 | Final Document Part 3

The town of Hood River—hub of the scenic Columbia Gorge—is an important center in the Portland metropolitan region and is growing in popularity. However, Hood River has limited space to grow. The growth happening now and any future growth will need to happen on land already urbanized. New growth in Hood River will create a denser community with more residents and tourists needing a safe way to travel within the city. ODOT engaged Apiary Planning Group to create an active transportation network plan that would incorporate bicycle and pedestrian facilities into the existing facilities. The team created concepts for a reimagined Cascade Avenue to act as a gateway from The Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail State Trail into Hood River.

Clackamas Community College Shuttle Service and Access Plan

Conexion Studio team: Shiori Azumaya, Ryan McKinnon, Christina Winberry, Daisy Quinonez, Baxter Shandobil, Andre Lightsey-Walker

Client: Clackamas Community College

Final Document

Addressing transportation-related barriers is an essential part of Clackamas Community College's mission to make education more accessible. This plan provides a student-centered analysis of barriers that make it difficult for students with limited access to personal vehicles to access CCC’s Oregon City and Harmony campuses and identifies strategies to overcome them. The plan focuses on the CCC Xpress Shuttle, which sees over 26,500 trips per academic year, and on the compounded barriers facing students of color, low-income students, and students with disabilities.

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Civil & Environmental Engineering Capstone Projects

Capstone projects completed by students in the Civil & Environmental Engineering department are preliminary studies to take a first look at real-world transportation challenges in the Portland area.

Reimagining NW 13th: A Better Block PSU Project

Project Team: Aziz Alsalman, Musaed Alqattan, Mohamed Ajina, Brandon Chao, Sarah Crisp, Dylan Jennings

Final Poster

The objective of this project was to improve the pedestrian experience and safety along NW 13th Avenue between NW Davis Street and NW Hoyt Street. The group explored how ot provide enhanced pedestrian and micro mobility usability of the space, while recreating a balance in the amount of cars and people, reducing vehicular traffic and making NW 13th a shared, friendlier road. Among the changes they envisioned were the addition of curb extensions, corner plazas, and flexible rideshare zones as well as activity zones to replace curbside parking. 

PS1 Traffic Improvement

Project Team: Ali Abulhassan, Marwa Mohammed Ali, Erin Benton, Gabryel Galvez, Tucker Kaus, Tinh Vo

Final Poster

Located at the heart of Portland State University, Parking structure 1 (PS1) serves as a general parking lot for students, faculty, and visitors to the school. The Transportation and Parking Services Department at PSU has identified slow vehicle egress and pedestrian/vehicle conflicts as their two primary concerns with PS1. During peak hours, (2pm-4pm), cars are slow to egress with only two exits serving the entire structure. Pedestrians, a majority of which are associated with the university, use the sidewalks adjacent to PS1. This Capstone Group has designed an exit at the west side of the parking structure, which will allow all cars to exit directly onto SW Broadway St. to alleviate congestion while providing for pedestrian safety.

Greenway Improvement Study 

Project Team: Abdulla Abulhassan, Yousuf Binmahfoodh, Domingo Fernandez, KaSia Herr, Phillip Stout, Lynn Tran

Final Poster

The Portland Metro area has expanded dramatically in the past decade. Traffic congestion and air quality have suffered due to this population boom. Increasing the number of bicycles on the road is a part of the solution to this issue. This project aims to assist Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) planners increase the use of the Neighborhood Greenways network through low cost roadway treatments. The purpose of this project is to measure how extra design elements impact user comfort on the SE Salmon Street Neighborhood Greenway from the intersections of SE 7th Avenue up to SE 28th Avenue.

Montgomery St. Plaza

Project Team: Abdulla ‘AJ’ Al Rujaib, Patrick McCoy, Polina Polikakhina, Travis Pyles, Brent Saechao, Lucina Selva

Final Poster

The Portland State University Campus Planning Office is currently working with the City of Portland to permanently close SW Montgomery Street to vehicular traffic. PSU has renamed this project site to Montgomery Street Plaza (MSP) to highlight their efforts in the permanent transformation of the block into an open public space. The purpose for this project is threefold: 1) Increase the pedestrian connectivity within PSU’s campus, 2) Provide safer navigation on foot and by bike, and 3) Increase car-free spaces that promote community interactions. The project team analyzed four possible alternatives and proposed several design solutions to complete the plaza, facilitate the flow of pedestrian and bicycle traffic through the space, and manage stormwater in a sustainable way.

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Thesis and Dissertations

• Steven Howland (Urban Studies PhD) completed his dissertation titled “I Should Have Moved Somewhere Else': The Impacts of Gentrification on Transportation and Social Support for Black Working-Poor Families in Portland, Oregon” focused on qualitative data from in-depth interviews.

• Michael McQueen (CEE) completed his civil engineering master’s thesis “Comparing the Promise and Reality of E-Scooters” looking at the impacts of e-scooter pricing, travel time, attitudes towards modes, parking cost, and more on travel mode decisions to the PSU campus. Read our full story next month in the TREC newsletter.

• Wei Shi (Urban Studies PhD) completed her dissertation titled "The Impacts of the Bicycle Network on Bicycling Activity: A Longitudinal Multi-City Approach"

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Transportation Students Central to Research Projects

Non-thesis research where PSU students were centrally involved as graduate research assistants or other roles in 2019 - 2020:

• Gabby Abou-Zeid (CEE) worked with Kelly Clifton on a PBOT project looking at passenger and freight trip generation at multifamily housing.

• Minji Cho (Urban Studies PhD) worked with Jennifer Dill and Jenny Liu on research for Portland Metro on the economic impacts of active transportation investments.

• Matthew Cramer (MURP) worked with John MacArthur and Aaron Golub to research the impact automated fare payments may have on vulnerable community members as transit agencies modernize their fare payment systems.

• Minju Kim (Urban Studies PhD) worked with John MacArthur and Jennifer Dill looking at the sustainability and accessibility  impacts of shared e-scooter operations during the 2019-2020 Portland Pilot Program - specifically, scooter operations on VMT, including scooter deployment, rebalancing, and charging.

• Kyuri Kim (Urban Studies PhD) worked with Jennifer Dill, Hau Hagedorn and Tammy Lee in transportation data analysis and visualization (including BikePed Portal and OHSU Census data) and a review of existing research for a research roadmap for AASHTO's Council on Active Transportation.

• Michael McQueen (CEE) worked with John MacArthur and Kelly Clifton researching e-bikes, travel behavior and micromobility, and electric vehicle incentive programs.

• Jaime Orrego (CEE-PhD) is working on a joint NITC/ODOT project to make the state strategic planning model, VisionEval, more bicycle savvy.

• Ana Navia Pelaez (MURP) has been working with Jennifer Dill and Nathan McNeil on a review of existing research for a research roadmap for AASHTO's Council on Active Transportation.

• Max Nonnamaker (MURP) worked with Portland Metro and Jennifer Dill on background research for Metro's Regional Mobility Policy Update. 

• Nicholas Puczkowskyj (Urban Studies PhD) worked with Jennifer Dill and John MacArthur to examine the impacts of e-scooter operations on VMTs in Portland, OR. 

• Baxter Shandobil (MURP) worked with Kelly Clifton and John MacArthur on a PBOT project looking at benchmarking VMT.

• Nora Stoelting (MURP) joined TREC to work on education programming through integrating tactical urbanism projects into PSU classes and designing and running TREC's free summer camp for Oregon high school students.

• Huijun Tan (Urban Studies PhD) has been working with Nathan McNeil and John MacArthur on new ways of connecting traditionally underserved communities to comprehensive set of transportation options represented by new technologies

The Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University is home to the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), and other transportation programs. TREC produces research and tools for transportation decision makers, develops K-12 curriculum to expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engages students and professionals through education.

MLK Boulevard in Portland, OR. Photo by Cait McCusker

Suburban Black Poverty in East Portland: The Role of Transportation in Making Ends Meet

Steven Howland, Portland State University

• Download the final report: "'I Should Have Moved Somewhere Else': The Impacts of Gentrification on Transportation and Social Support for Black Working-Poor Families in Portland, Oregon (PDF)"
• Download the Project Brief (PDF)

The historically Black district of Albina in Portland, Oregon, due to racist real estate practices, faced multiple displacement events between 1960 and 1990 with the construction of Interstate 5 through the heart of the neighborhood as well as wholesale destruction of hundreds of homes to make room for the Memorial Coliseum and various other urban renewal projects. Gentrification in Portland saw a mass displacement of Black households from Albina, largely to East Portland, a suburban area that was unincorporated county land prior to the 1990’s. As Black people were priced out of the Albina neighborhood, businesses and churches have also closed as a result of losing community members.

Supported by a fellowship from the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), Steven Howland of Portland State University focused his doctoral research on examining the impacts of gentrification on transportation and social support for black working-poor families in Portland, both those who were displaced to East Portland and those who were able to remain in Albina. Through 27 in-depth interviews with parents of young children (13 Albina residents and 14 residents of East Portland), he sought to understand how they used transportation to make ends meet and how those strategies differ between inner-city and suburban neighborhoods.

WHY DO QUALITATIVE RESEARCH?

Qualitative research plays an important role in equitable transportation policy. How does transportation directly affect people’s daily lives and decision-making?  Quantitative data are often used to make policy decisions, yet numbers only tell part of the story. Researchers can gain different knowledge from an in-depth interview than they might learn from a regional survey.

Jennifer Dill, professor in the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning and Howland's advisor, points out that qualitative research has the power to shine light on issues that transportation professionals may have not focused on enough.

"When you're trying to make change, it's always great to have a mix of the quantitative and qualitative. It's people's stories that help us understand and change minds," Dill said.

ALBINA: THE EROSION OF A PORTLAND COMMUNITY

"Ferrell’s. Right here it was on Broadway. An ice cream shop. Pietro’s was right next to that. There was like, you know, a couple black-owned businesses that’s gone now. All of them basically are gone now."

"I would go see family more often if I had the gas money to get all the way over like that. But I don’t be having the gas like that to get all the way over there."

"My son lives all the way out east Portland. So, I’m not going to drive out there. And I have two grandsons that live out that way too."

Overall, the cultural rootedness of Albina appeared to be eroding as more and more Black people and businesses left and were being replaced by high-end shops, restaurants, and white people.

Despite the significant cultural losses, the residents of Albina had easier transportation (including a higher rate of car ownership), better-resourced and easily accessed social support networks, and a higher density of nearby destinations to get around easier and accomplish more in a day. East Portlanders struggled far more. 

"It really felt like the people in Albina, even for those that were still paying market rent, they still seemed on average to be doing slightly better than those living in East Portland. Even with the higher rents they still had a lot of resources nearby that they could tap into," Howland said.

EAST PORTLAND: A NEIGHBORHOOD OUT OF REACH

"It's either food or gas, a lot of the time."

"Trying to find shortcuts. Go straight there. I just do my triangle: work, home and school."

East Portland residents had to go the furthest for all their activities. Clustering of destinations around the western edge of East Portland put groceries, school and other activities out of reach for most residents. The longer distances between destinations meant more time traveling. That extra time meant they could not get as much done in a day as those living in Albina. Support networks for people in East Portland featured a lot of friends and family that had also been displaced, but everything was so spread out that they were more socially isolated. They often had to turn to their network living in Albina for their more critical needs like childcare, but it took a lot more effort to utilize.

GETTING AROUND: RELIABILITY OF DRIVING VS SAFETY CONCERNS ON TRANSIT

"The buses don’t come when they say they’re going to come. You have to wait for the bus, and they aren’t going to stop. If you’re having to be at a place at a certain time you can’t depend on the bus to get you there on time."

"There was certain jobs that weren’t along a transit line. Maybe a mile or two miles off the line. I didn’t have a car to get there so I couldn’t take the job."

Howland interviewed participants on how they made choices on getting around, the effects those choices had on their lives, and how they adapted to maintain their mobility. Data doesn’t tell the whole story. The narrative behind the mobility experiences of low-income Black community members often gets washed out or misrepresented in the existing data. By understanding their lived experiences and challenges, policy makers and planners are better equipped to intervene.

Overall, the interviews revealed that Albina residents were more likely to drive than East Portlanders. Both populations shared a preference for driving over transit. East Portland in particular is transit-poor, so the lack of ability to get around without a car has upended many aspects of families' lives. 

"Last time we rode public transportation there’s this dude on there and he was just crazy. Tweaking out really bad. And he kept looking at my son and I’m like, you say something to him I’m going to jail today."

"My 18-year-old, he rode it all the time…But it’s a point where I pulled up a time I was driving home and I seen this fight going on, on the platform of the TriMet [MAX stop]. This grown man fighting kids. I pulled up and it was my son [one of the kids]. Some Caucasian guy fighting some black kids and the black kids get in trouble."

Distance and time were factors, of course, that led participants to prefer getting around by driving rather than using transit. Another finding, which Howland had not anticipated, was that safety concerns were also a major deterrent to riding transit.

This was spurred in part by the 2017 racially-motivated murders on the MAX train, which happened the same summer that Howland was conducting interviews. More often however, the concerns had to do with participants' encounters with people experiencing houselessness as well as people with untreated mental illnesses and addictions, which often spilled over into racists outbursts or threats of violence against them or their children.

Highlights from the Findings:

• Albina Residents (62%) were more likely to drive than East Portlanders (36%)

• Nearly universal dislike of TriMet, and nearly everyone had safety concerns taking transit. No drivers expressed safety issues driving. 

• Drivers were more likely to use transit as an alternative, and transit riders were more likely to turn to getting rides as an alternative.

• Albina residents struggled less in their daily life maintenance, giving them more means to own a car. 

• East Portland residents gained marginally more benefit from car ownership, but struggled more to own. East Portland residents also had more difficulty getting rides. 

• Albina residents had positive associations with walking, whereas East Portland residents would walk, but with higher cost due to distances and multiple safety issues. 

• Very few people rode a bike, but it was more common for their kids - mostly limited to Albina. 

TAKEAWAYS FOR TRANSPORTATION PROFESSIONALS

Marginalized individuals have said that they feel more vulnerable to harassment when biking or riding transit, and research has shown there is racism even at the crosswalk - so it feels like the safest place is in a car. If encouraging car-free travel is a priority, planners, engineers and policymakers need to come up with solutions to make transit, biking, walking and rolling feel safer for the most marginalized.

While East Portland has had a lot of investments in road safety, it is the distance between destinations that has really hurt people's ability to survive. As East Portland continues to grow with more low-income people of color, more attention needs to go to the urban development of the area to make daily life easier.

"We have to recognize how our plans impact people. It's not just the space, not just the environment; it's the people themselves. They are impacted. We need to recognize that what we think should be done will have consequences, and we need to be able to plan for those consequences," Howland said.

Implementing anti-displacement housing policies to prevent the dissolution of a community is key, but with that is also being proactively aware of where people might end up if they do get displaced from a newly gentrified area. Community ties are vital for quality of life, particularly as people get older and the design concepts behind aging in place become more critical to apply to transportation projects.

"It's nuanced, but recognize that if you can start to identify an area where a lot of people are being displaced to, you need to start implementing plans there as soon as possible," Howland said.

Howland graduated from Portland State with his PhD in Spring 2020. This summer he received a job offer from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City to be an Assistant Economist. He will be working in their Community Development section doing research informed by community stakeholders.

This research was funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities.

RELATED RESEARCH

To learn more about this and other TREC research, sign up for our monthly research newsletter.

• Developing Data, Models, and Tools to Enhance Transportation Equity
• Life-Space Mobility and Aging in Place
• Racial Bias in Drivers' Yielding Behavior at Crosswalks
• Narratives of Marginalized Cyclists

The National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) is one of seven U.S. Department of Transportation national university transportation centers. NITC is a program of the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University. This PSU-led research partnership also includes the Oregon Institute of Technology, University of Arizona, University of Oregon, University of Texas at Arlington and University of Utah. We pursue our theme — improving mobility of people and goods to build strong communities — through research, education and technology transfer.

National Scan of Bike Share Equity Programs

John MacArthur, Nathan McNeil and Joseph Broach, Portland State University

• Download the ten technical briefs (PDF)
• Register for the September 16, 2020 webinar

Last year, Portland State University’s Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) released a 130 page evaluation comparing equity-oriented programs from over 70 U.S. bike share systems across the U.S. Bike share being a relative newcomer to the transportation system, the research team was not surprised to find that approaches to equity programs ranged widely. In the latest installment, funded by the Better Bike Share Partnership and the National Institute for Transportation and Communities, the research team synthesized these findings into a series of ten 2-page briefs highlighting best practices and lessons learned in bike share equity policies, data collection, metrics, marketing, and more.

• Learn more in a free webinar September 16, 2020: A National Scan of Bike Share Equity Programs: Best Practices and Lessons Learned

Lead researcher Nathan McNeil shares further, "We set out to document the current state of equity programming for bike share systems in the U.S., and in the process create a road map for cities and operators navigating questions of equity. We wanted to make this information quick and easily accessible for them in these briefs. Important decisions and conversations around equity are happening now, that could have impacts for years to come on bike share systems.”

Across the U.S. there is a nationwide call for centering equity in all industries, and bike share is no exception. As some cities and companies are seeing significant drops in ridership during the global pandemic, it calls into question - can they afford investments in equity programming?

“One of the core questions we need to be asking is whether bike share is meant to serve the community or the companies? Is this a public good and worthy of municipal investment?” asks McNeil. “Bike share systems offer a flexible mobility option for people who stand to gain the most from more options. One of the potential benefits of a bike share system that centers equity along with some form of municipal support is that it can probably be more resilient in riding out the broader economic ups and downs rather than being at the mercy of venture capitalism.” 

Laying the foundation for a bike share program starts with articulating a specific equity policy to establish goals, build in accountability, and provide an opportunity to assess. Asking questions like, “Who currently is excluded from the benefits of bike share?” and “What past injustices and current circumstances necessitate current action?” will shape how operators, agency staff, and partners make decisions as well as who is at the table making those decisions for the community.

The two-page briefs are intended as a resource for bike share professionals and community partners. They highlight key findings and offer simple, effective guidance on how to get the most effective and meaningful results from equity programming.

The Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University is home to the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), and other transportation programs. TREC produces research and tools for transportation decision makers, develops K-12 curriculum to expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engages students and professionals through education.

Learn more about Jaime Orrego-Oñate: Follow him on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn

Jaime Orrego-Oñate, a civil engineering PhD candidate at Portland State University (PSU), has been awarded a $15,000 Oregon Sylff Fellowship for International Research. As a Chilean national completing a Ph.D. in transportation engineering at PSU, Jaime is poised to promote the expansion of American research abroad into countries that lack research resources. His research focuses on understanding the role of the urban form in active transportation decisions. With his work, he hopes to address an information gap between pedestrians’ motivations to walk and how urban planners can encourage this behavior. This is of particular importance in the context of Jaime's home region, Latin America, where walking has been decreasing due to the rise of use of private automobiles.

"I want to spearhead positive change by convincing societies like mine that they can improve urban development," Orrego-Oñate said.

The Sylff program aims to identify and nurture leaders who will overcome differences in nationality, language, ethnicity, religion, and political systems to tackle global issues, and whose high integrity and drive to address issues unique to their respective countries can make a real difference. Fellowship stipends are awarded to full-time doctoral students for one academic year of graduate work involving research and scholarly endeavors in programs and projects with an international dimension.

As a doctoral student in active transportation planning at PSU, Jaime works with Dr. Kelly Clifton as part of the SUPER Lab team, an interdisciplinary group that conducts research on the links between human behavior, technology, and the built, social, and natural environment. As part of his doctoral research, he intends to propose a new contextual characterization of the built environment. There is consensus that environmental factors, such as the built environment, influence mode choice. However, there is still contradictory evidence about how much. Jaime's doctoral work in this area can add much-needed clarity to that discussion by providing a deep analysis of contextual conditions that would make the association between the built environment and walking easier to interpret.

Working with SUPER lab, Jaime has contributed to the expansion of pedestrian modeling tools beyond the Portland region by helping to develop guidelines for context-sensitive pedestrian modeling. He also presented a poster at the 2020 TRB annual meeting, "Nonlinearities In The Relationship Between The Built Environment And Metropolitan Structure With Automobile And Walking Modal Share."

In his time at Portland State, Jaime has taken an active role in both research and policy deliberation. He first began taking note of the lack of scientific evidence in policymaking during his undergraduate years in Santiago, Chile, when a new transit system was implemented in the city – and soon thereafter, failed completely. Prior to the transit system failure, the faculty at his university had warned the government that the proposed system had poor foundations. To gain a firsthand perspective on policymaking in the United States, he joined the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) Central City in Motion Working Group, a team charged with ensuring the successful implementation of Central City in Motion projects. The group aims to review transportation projects in central Portland and ultimately reduce automobile dependency. Learning about policy implementation in the field will assist him, he believes, in taking an active role in policy reform.

Jaime's instructors describe him as "a passionate leader in the transportation engineering field" and someone who shows a lot of commitment: spending time explaining and helping students as a teaching assistant, and devoting time to interdisciplinary methods and data analysis as a research assistant. He is also a passionate advocate for pedestrians and cyclists.

"I specifically aim to focus on cities outside of the United States and North America, thus expanding the influence and scope of available transportation research. As a Chilean citizen, I want to direct my research towards Latin America and bring my region to the global stage while also using the practical application of my research to affect positive change," Orrego-Oñate said.

The Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University is home to the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), and other transportation programs. TREC produces research and tools for transportation decision makers, develops K-12 curriculum to expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engages students and professionals through education.

Photo by Pav_1007 on iStock

Evidence from Urban Roads without Bicycle Lanes on the Impact of Bicycle Traffic on Passenger Car Travel Speeds

Jaclyn Schaefer, Miguel Figliozzi, and Avinash Unnikrishnan; Portland State University

The new article Evidence from Urban Roads without Bicycle Lanes on the Impact of Bicycle Traffic on Passenger Car Travel Speeds published in Transportation Research Record, the Journal of the Transportation Research Board, demonstrates that bicycles do not significantly reduce passenger car travel speeds on low speed, low volume urban roads without bicycle lanes. Authored by Jaclyn Schaefer, Miguel Figliozzi, and Avinash Unnikrishnan of Portland State University, the research shows that differences in vehicle speeds with and without cyclists were generally on the order of 1 mph or less – negligible from a practical perspective.

A concern raised by some motorists is that, on urban roads without bicycle lanes, cyclists will slow down motorized vehicles and therefore create congestion. Researchers evaluated speeds on six roads in Portland at different times of day, including peak traffic hours. They did a detailed comparative analysis of the travel speeds of passenger cars on lower volume urban roads without bicycle lanes, and found that a 1 mph differential in speed caused by the presence of a cyclist would not cause congestion.

The study also found that cyclists riding on a downhill road, and therefore traveling faster, were less likely to be overtaken by motorists. In a Forbes article on the research, "Cyclists Don’t Cause Congestion: ‘Must Get In Front’ Maneuvers By Motorists Pointless, Finds Study," Figliozzi agreed that this has possible implications for e-bike riders, who can often travel at faster average speeds than cyclists on standard bicycles.

"[Those on] e-bikes are not as affected by uphills, and have better travel performance regarding speed and acceleration. In a low volume and low-speed street, motorists are less likely to overtake e-bikes because the speed differential is smaller or maybe zero," Figliozzi told Forbes.

This research was first presented by Jaclyn Schaefer at the annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board, and you can view that poster visualization of the research here. Jaclyn is a recent Eisenhower Fellow and NITC Scholar, and is currently wrapping up her studies as a master's student at Portland State University.

“The hope is that our study dissuades policymakers from tossing out shared roadways as a viable option because of the perception that bicyclists will impede the mobility and speed of drivers,” Schaefer shared.  “While the preference is to separate modes through separated, protected bike lanes - that’s not always possible in every urban setting. ‘Bike boulevards’, or ‘neighborhood greenways’ as we call them here in Portland, are great alternatives on low-volume, low-speed roads to build out a safe, well-connected bicycle network.”

The research team builds on a long legacy of Portland State University research on the case for bike boulevards, as recapped recently by PSU Urban Studies Professor and TREC Director Jennifer Dill.

Due to limitations regarding homogeneity among some site characteristics, this study is currently being expanded to include a large number of sites displaying a more diverse range of functional classifications, roadway markings, speed limits, roadway grades, and traffic volumes and compositions. Additionally, the new study will explore how oncoming traffic speed and volume may affect opportunities for overtaking bicycles, and the potential connection to passenger car speeds on roads without bicycle lanes.

The Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University is home to the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), and other transportation programs. TREC produces research and tools for transportation decision makers, develops K-12 curriculum to expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engages students and professionals through education.

Authored by Mike McQueen and John MacArthur, Portland State University

• Read the 2020 research paper in Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment with updated model & findings.
• Use the online Electric Vehicle Incentive Cost and Impact Tool

Electric bikes (e-bikes) are quickly becoming common in U.S. cities and suburbs, but we still have a ways to go compared to our neighbors across the Atlantic.  In recent years, e-bike sales have steadily increased with unprecedented growth in Europe, especially in the Netherlands. Can the U.S. catch up? E-bikes offer a cheaper alternative to car travel and also provide physical activity. Riders with limited physical ability find that e-bikes extend their overall mobility. Beyond the practical, e-bikes are also just fun to ride. In fact, e-bikes encourage users to cycle farther and more often than conventional bicycles. More importantly to local and regional U.S. governments, e-bikes could be a useful tool to address our current climate crisis by reducing transportation greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Related research: MacArthur and McQueen are also working with the National Science Foundation to collect e-bike user data via onboard technology. To learn more or participate in that study, visit the Mobility By E-Bike Project.

E-bike incentive programs in the U.S. remain relatively small in scale. Currently, California and Oregon offer statewide incentive programs that provide rebates towards the purchase of battery electric vehicles (BEV), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV), and fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV). These programs are intended to reduce state GHG emissions from the transportation system. Could incentivizing e-bikes also be a cost-effective way for regions to reach their greenhouse gas emission reduction goals?

Today the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University launches a new Electric Vehicle Incentive Cost and Impact Tool. This online tool enables policymakers, public stakeholders, and advocates to quickly visualize the potential outcomes of an electric vehicle incentive program made up of several vehicle types. The tool estimates the cost efficiency of a proposed program in terms of the cost per kg CO2 avoided by each mode over the course of one year. It also takes the proposed budget into consideration to calculate the potential number of incentives to be made available and the amount of total CO2 that would be avoided due to internal combustion engine automobile (ICE) VMT displacement.

To show you how it works, we tried out the tool with Oregon as a case study. Currently, the state sets aside about $12M per year for its Oregon Clean Vehicle Rebate Program, with rebates usually offered at $2,500 each for BEV and PHEV vehicles with battery capacity of 10 kWh or more and $1,500 for vehicles with batteries with less than 10 kWh. How do BEVs, PHEVs, and e-bikes compare in terms of incentive program cost efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions avoided?

USING THE EV INCENTIVE COST AND IMPACT TOOL: AN OREGON CASE STUDY

Creating your EV Incentive Program

First, let’s get the tool set up with information for the state of Oregon. We’ve designed the tool with all of the data you need, and you simply choose the presets for your scenario. It’s also easy to use your own data by just entering it directly into the tool. Apply presets with information for the electricity generation emissions profile from the US EPA eGRID, average car travel information from the NHTS, and national ICE fuel efficiency information from the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

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Next, apply some information about the vehicles you’re looking to incentivize. Again, we’ll just use presets that we’ve created: 

• The E-Bike preset is an average of the fuel economies of several e-bike models studied in a recent paper by Efficiency Vermont. It may be unreasonable to expect most people to completely replace all of their automobile VMT with an e-bike. To account for this, we specify that the average user will only replace 15% of their VMT with their incentivized e-bike. 

• The BEV preset is a weighted average of fuel economies provided by the US EPA of the current BEV fleet in Oregon. 

• Similarly, the PHEV preset is a weighted average of fuel economies provided by the US EPA of the current PHEV fleet in Oregon. Fleet information was obtained from the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) based on historical rebate distribution within the state.

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Lastly, we can set our incentive amounts and total budget. We can also choose how to distribute our budget among the vehicles we’re incentivizing. Let’s set the BEV and PHEV incentive to $2,500 and the total budget to $12M, similar to Oregon’s current program. We’ll try out an e-bike incentive of $350, and for this example we’ll split the budget evenly among each vehicle type.

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Once you’re all done creating your incentive program scenario, you can export a report for quick reference when discussing options with other stakeholders.

Review the Results: What did we find in Oregon?

First off, we get some information about incentive cost efficiency. It turns out that the e-bike incentive is more cost efficient, in terms of cost per kg CO2 saved, than both the BEV and PHEV incentives.

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Next, we can look at the total number of incentives our program is able to provide. Because the e-bike incentive is much lower in price, the program is able to impact almost 10 times as many people’s lives with a new e-vehicle compared to the BEV or PHEV incentives given our $12M budget.

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Lastly, let’s look at the GHG impacts of our program over the course of 1 year. The program is able to reduce the amount of CO2 emissions of one year by about 25M kg thanks to the incentive program we designed. Given how we’ve structured this incentive program, e-bikes make up the largest portion of this CO2 savings, about 40% of the entire impact.

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“What-if” Scenarios for E-bike Incentive Amounts

Let’s do a quick set of “what-if” scenarios to see how changing the e-bike incentive from $350 impacts the results.

What if the e-bike incentive was $150?

What we found for a $150 e-bike incentive (versus $350):

• The cost per kg of CO2 saved has decreased, from $0.40 to $0.17.
• The number of e-bike incentives we can offer has more than doubled, from 11,314 to 26,400.
• Similarly, the amount of CO2 avoided due to e-bikes has also more than doubled, from 10.2M kg to 23.9M kg. This accounts for 61% of the total CO2 savings in this case.

What if the e-bike incentive was $500?

What we found for a $500 e-bike incentive (versus $350):

• The cost per kg CO2 saved has gone up from our initial case study, from $0.40 to $0.55 per kg CO2 saved. However, this is on par with the cost efficiency of the PHEV incentive.
• The number of e-bike incentives that can be offered has decreased, from 11,314 to 7,920. However, we’re still able to offer more incentives than the BEV and PHEV incentives combined.
• Lastly, the total CO2 saved has also declined, from 10.2M kg to 7.2M kg, although it is still on par with the BEV and PHEV categories.

Final Thoughts

This case study has shown that e-bikes could be a strong player as part of a CO2 avoidance e-vehicle incentive program. In some cases, e-bikes could perform better than electric vehicles in terms of cost efficiency, number of incentives provided, and total CO2 saved.

The Electric Vehicle Incentive Cost and Impact Tool is available online, and is able to generate a downloadable report for sharing purposes.

Contact John MacArthur (macarthur[at]pdx.edu) with any questions or comments about the tool, and let us know how you used it!

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

John MacArthur

Sustainable Transportation Program Manager

John MacArthur is the Principal Investigator for TREC's electric bicycle research initiatives. His research also includes low-/no-emission vehicle infrastructure in Portland metro, as well as a climate change impact assessment for surface transportation in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Before joining the TREC staff, John was the Context Sensitive and Sustainable Solutions Program Manager for the Oregon Department of Transportation’s OTIA III State Bridge Delivery Program.

Mike McQueen

Graduate Research Assistant

Mike McQueen is a second year master's student working with John MacArthur of TREC and Dr. Kelly Clifton of the MCECS Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Currently, Mike is researching e-bike travel behavior and micromobility as an Eisenhower Fellow. In the past, he has studied e-bike purchase incentive programs, the potential positive environmental impact of e-bikes in Portland, BIKETOWN, and the demographics of zero car households.

The Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University is home to the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), and other transportation programs. TREC produces research and tools for transportation decision makers, develops K-12 curriculum to expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engages students and professionals through education.

Kate Wihtol is a 2019 graduate of the Master of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) program at PSU. As of 2020 she is an associate planner at the Oregon Department of Transportation. Kate worked with fellow MURP students of the Living Streets project team to develop a pathway toward inclusive, equitable, and accessible pedestrian streets for the Portland Bureau of Transportation. In this video she talks about their work to identify best practices and recommendations tailored to Portland’s urban context: a city built for cars, but aspiring and progressing toward a more walkable, bikeable, and transit-friendly future.

Watch the interview with Kate.

Photo by cybrain, iStock

NSF SCC RAPID: Consumer Responses to Household Provisioning During COVID-19 Crisis and Recovery

Kelly Clifton, Portland State University; Rebecca Lewis, University of Oregon

• Watch a video interview with Kelly Clifton, published Thursday, June 11 from KATU: PSU and UO researchers study how coronavirus pandemic is impacting consumers

This article was authored by Katy Swordfisk and cross-posted from Portland State University.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed people’s relationships with the outside world. Researchers from Portland State University and the University of Oregon have received a grant from the National Science Foundation to study how shopping strategies have changed as consumers quickly become more reliant on e-commerce to access basic resources. The $168,914 grant comes from the NSF’s RAPID program, designed to study phenomena that require more immediate understanding.

“People have changed their relationship with their local stores and how they engage and shop,” said Kelly Clifton, principal investigator and PSU professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “To the extent they can, people have started to explore online options.”

But access to online shopping necessitated by the pandemic is inequitable. Many vulnerable communities are more transit-dependent or have limited access to online technology.

To better understand these different relationships, the collaborative study will reach across disciplines. 

“While the smart cities and new mobility space is rich with projects that focus on personal transportation and mobility, research in the e-commerce and delivery landscape is more limited. Our study will provide rich data on perceptions and use of technology to meet basic needs during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Rebecca Lewis, co-PI and associate professor of Planning, Public Policy and Management at the University of Oregon. 

“We will rely on our collective expertise in travel behavior, land use, and e-commerce to examine what contributes to use of technology to meet basic needs. We hope that our project will provide tangible recommendations for policy-makers about barriers and opportunities for relying on technology for household provisioning,” Lewis said.

Clifton said they are especially interested in resilience planning.

“Should we have another pandemic or earthquake or situation that impacts us, how can we think of food provision in a more robust way?” Clifton said. “How can we make sure everyone gets what they need?”

The survey will be conducted in Washington, Michigan and Florida over the next year. The first survey of 1,000 households will be conducted in June with two more surveys spread out over the next eight to 12 months. 

Clifton said the survey will emphasize reaching out to those populations that may not have a record of purchasing online, but they are also interested in hard to reach populations including the elderly, low-income or non-English speaking households.

“The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic appears to be accelerating trends that were already underway prior to the outbreak, such as the increasing adoption of e-commerce for household provisioning,” said Amanda Howell, project manager at UO's Urbanism Next center. “This NSF RAPID grant will enable us to collect critical data about the rate of technological adoption and general trends in household provisioning, as well as the barriers to access that many people face in order to identify potential interventions.”

The Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University is home to the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), and other transportation programs. TREC produces research and tools for transportation decision makers, develops K-12 curriculum to expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engages students and professionals through education.

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.

Figure 1. Daily bike volumes across Hawthorne Bridge and Tilikum Crossing. EB = eastbound; WB = westbound. The solid orange line (March 12) represents the closing of schools; the dotted orange line (March 23) represents the “stay-at-home” announcement.

Perhaps the difference in bike volume trends between the two bridges can be attributed to the type of facility and location. Hawthorne Bridge is a main thoroughfare into downtown Portland, and the Tilikum is located by OHSU and excludes vehicular access. Personally, it’s more pleasant to ride across the Tilikum, but it’s out of the way for me if I’m biking to work. If most people probably aren’t biking to work, are they biking for fitness?

Based on a brief analysis by PSU’s Dr. Jay Gopalakrishnan, one way to look at the data is to compare weekday versus weekend bike volumes. Using data from the Tilikum, we took the average 15-minute volume Monday through Friday for weekdays, and Saturday and Sunday for weekends, and compared it to pre- and post-stay-at-home. For pre-stay-at-home, we had a few years worth of data to calculate the average 15-minute bicycle volume (days with no data were excluded).

Figure 2 below shows pre-stay-at-home on the top panels, and post-stay-at-home on the bottom panels with the left panels representing average 15-minute weekday volume, and the right panels representing the average 15-minute weekend volume. What we saw:

• Pre-stay-at-home weekday there is a distinct bimodal distribution of the westbound morning commute and the eastbound evening commute.
• Pre-stay-at-home weekend there is a single afternoon bump.
• Post-stay-at-home weekday average volumes look more like the weekend.
• Post-stay at home weekends are showing higher average volumes than before.

Figure 2. Average 15-minute bicycle volumes across Tilikum Crossing pre- (before March 23) and post-stay-at-home (March 23 through May 18).

Data from Tilikum suggests that people are shifting from biking for commuting to biking for recreation and fitness. How does this compare to other places? Seattle is showing similar trends across the Folsom Bridge, and a recent survey from Cascade Bicycle Club indicated that a majority of their respondents are biking at the same rate if not more since COVID-19 crisis began.

We have also noticed a similar trend in other parts of the country. Below we have included a comparison of weekday versus weekend average 15 minute bike volume for pre- and post-stay-at-home announcements for locations in Arlington, Virginia (Figure 3); and Boulder, Colorado (Figure 4). Both locations are in areas used by commuters. And in both locations there is the bimodal morning/evening peak weekday commute pre-stay-at-home that shifts to unimodal weekend pattern. 

Figure 3. Key Bridge, Arlington, VA. Pre-stay-at-home before March 23; post-stay-at-home includes March 23 through May 18.

The Key Bridge (VA), linking Arlington to DC, shows more than double the weekend bike volume post-stay-at-home; however, the Folsom St (CO) location does not show an increase in average bike volume which may be because the detector is located near an entrance to the University of Colorado, Boulder, where in-person classes were cancelled on March 11, 2020.

Figure 4. Location of Folsom St. south of Arapahoe Ave, Boulder, CO. Pre-stay-at home before March 19; post-stay-at-home includes March 19 through May 18.

To reiterate from our previous post, it’s a waiting game for more time-based data in order to get a clearer picture of how COVID-19 related social and economic policies affect bicycle travel in the U.S.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tammy Lee, Ph.D.
Transportation Data Program Administrator

Tammy is working on a variety of projects for TREC, including documentation, data synthesis, analysis, and visualization supporting ongoing work with PORTAL and Bike-Ped Portal. Prior to joining TREC, she worked as a data scientist for a political digital media consulting firm.

The Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University is home to the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), and other transportation programs. TREC produces research and tools for transportation decision makers, develops K-12 curriculum to expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engages students and professionals through education. For resources and tools for remote teaching during the quarantine period, check out our TREC and COVID-19 resource page.