Not far from Portland State University, down a little road tucked under three highway overpasses, sits the International School of Portland (ISP)—a leafy four-acre campus serving nearly 400 students from preschool to fifth grade. Despite its proximity to popular pedestrian areas, including the Downtown Waterfront, the International School of Portland is nestled amongst a few private blocks and can be difficult to access by foot or by bike. Naturally, most students arrive by car, which creates the familiar traffic jam at pickup and dropoff times.

To provide more transportation options and give the students more access to the school's surrounding neighborhood, Portland State University students are working to improve walking and biking access to the campus. Championed by ISP’s volunteer Green Team, Facilities Manager Steven Borcherding, and Head of School ​​Bodo Heiliger, the project is now about one-third of the way through the Better Block PSU Project Pathway. Progress so far looks promising: PSU students in the 2024 Spring term spent time engaging with ISP’s school community and investigating the features of the neighborhood. This fall, PSU students in the Active Transportation Planning and Design Studio course (for which enrollment is open now) will delve further into the nuts and bolts of potential designs.

By the time the project crosses the finish line, the goal is to have a complete engineering plan for viable and affordable biking and walking facilities. Having an existing plan should make it much easier for the school to work with the city to implement the changes.

GOALS FOR THE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF PORTLAND

The focus of the project is a small stretch of South Sheridan Street, under the Interstate 5 on-ramp and Interstate 405. The highway overpasses create a unique access obstacle, partly because of the lack of sidewalks on a road under multiple overpasses, but also because cars exiting the highway are entering the small road at close to highway speeds. There is also no accessibility for individuals in wheelchairs or with any mobility challenges.

The area is frequented by people who park there and walk to the South Waterfront along South Moody Avenue, where they can find multiple transit and micromobility options by the car-free Tilikum Bridge Crossing. Some of them are students and staff of downtown employers like nearby Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU). Connecting this stretch of Sheridan to the International School of Portland would also improve general access to the facilities on South Moody, and greater connectivity between the different parts of downtown.

"Ultimately, we see this as a great opportunity to beautify and create a safe access route for our entire neighborhood," said Heiliger. Based on a recommendation from a parent, he and Facilities Manager Borcherding are the ones who reached out to TREC with their project proposal for the Better Block PSU program.

Why turn to PSU students? 

There are many reasons. There is no cost to work with PSU transportation planning and engineering students in Better Block PSU, and the work the students produce can help community members navigate permitting processes and propose informed solutions to be implemented. Additionally, working with the students and engaging with neighborhood stakeholders is a form of community building, and in line with ISP's values of education to help students inquire, take action, and learn from real-world experiences.

WHAT WORK HAS BEEN DONE SO FAR?

Early in the Spring term of 2024, a group of students in the Bicycle and Pedestrian Planning course met with Heiliger and Borcherding to discuss the project. The team members were:

• Evan Howington, a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) student who also works as a graduate research assistant on other projects for TREC;
• Shotaro Kato, an exchange student from Japan and an undergraduate in Urban and Public Affairs;
• Steven Lowe, a senior-year undergraduate in Urban and Public Affairs;
• Tristan Stretch, a graduate student in the Graduate Certificate for Transportation program.

After getting a sense of what the International School of Portland was hoping for, the group examined the history of the area to understand how it came to be. The road and the little patch of land under the overpasses are specifically mentioned in highway planning documents going back as far as the 1980s, but these spaces have not been meaningfully utilized in the years since. Team member Tristan Stretch felt good about helping to rectify a long-ignored situation that directly involves young schoolchildren.

"They're kids. They deserve safety and a nice enjoyable space to learn and grow," said Stretch.

The team came up with three main deliverables over the course of the term:

• Existing Conditions Report – This report offers an overview of the site, including its planning history, land use, weather, and surrounding features. Students also conducted manual counts to identify how many bicycles, pedestrians and cars use the street during peak times of day.
• Public participation plan – This report includes a project impact analysis and sample outreach materials, as well as a comprehensive public participation strategy.
• Project Decisions and Performance Measures – This report defines the goals and objectives of the project, outlined below, along with design ideas. It also includes a decision matrix to evaluate the designs based on cost, time, accessibility, and how each design meets the needs of the school.

"Working with the PSU students and the university has been great; everyone is very flexible and curious to find solutions. This tiny little underpass by ISP creates a great deal of congestion, so this is a chance to bring our community together around a vision and expand safe access not only to our school but to the South Waterfront," Heiliger said.

If this project results in an easy walking connection from ISP to South Moody, that would open up brand-new transit options for parents who currently drive in from all over the metro area.

"We didn't record anyone that took public transit to school, only cyclists and pedestrians that were walking to school from a car, or from home. We made a map of the zip codes that people are driving from; some people come from as far as Vancouver, Washington. They drive that far just for the International School of Portland. Yet they are so close to so much transit," said Lowe.

WHAT'S NEXT?

There are three phases of the Better Block PSU project pathway each year.

Phase 1—Spring term 2024: Students in a Bicycle and Pedestrian Planning course work with the project champions to develop community engagement plans, activity and behavior monitoring, data collection plans, and performance measures.

Howington, Kato, Lowe and Stretch have completed this phase. This Fall, the South Sheridan Street project will move on to phase two.

Phase 2—Fall term 2024: Students in the Active Transportation Planning and Design Studio develop design alternatives and cost estimates.

This Fall, the Active Transportation Planning and Design Studio course may include some members of the group who worked on the project in the Spring term, continuing to develop what they started, while other students may be new to the project. 

Phase 3—Spring term 2025: A year after it first began, the project will be ready to move on to the final phase: the engineering capstone. In this phase, student(s) in the civil engineering program will develop an engineering plan that includes design alternatives, a traffic control plan, and other materials that can assist with the city permitting process.

"The Better Block PSU process is really cool because it starts broad and democratic, and then you get to the point where you can get the shovel out and actually do it," Howington said.

For the South Sheridan street redesign, it is anticipated that an engineering capstone student will take on this element of the project in early 2025.

MORE ABOUT BETTER BLOCK PSU 

Better Block PSU is a partnership between volunteer-led group Better Block PDX and Portland State University. Projects are submitted by community members, and can range from short-term demonstration projects—like the Montgomery Street Pop-Up Plaza on the PSU campus—to long-lasting changes like Better Naito, a student design which was first implemented in 2015 on a temporary basis and later made permanent. 

A more recent success story is the Steel Bridge Skatepark, which was designed by PSU students in 2023 and funded by the City of Portland in 2024. Construction of the park is ongoing. 

Read about other Better Block PSU projects here.

Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) is home to the U.S. DOT funded National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), PORTAL, BikePed Portal and other transportation grants and programs. We produce impactful research and tools for transportation decision makers, expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engage students and professionals through education and participation in research. To get updates about what's going on at TREC, sign up for our monthly newsletter or follow us on social media.

Since 2011, Portland State University and the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation have offered a unique opportunity to students: a two-week study abroad course that introduces participants to cities with stellar bike cultures. In past years, classes have explored the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark. This year’s class of eight students, led by Hau Hagedorn and Drusilla van Hengel, spent two weeks this summer traversing Denmark by public transportation, foot, and (of course) bike. Check out some photos from the trip.

Students came from all over the country—from Portland to Connecticut—to attend the course. What they all had in common was a desire to learn from a city that is renowned to have some of the best bike infrastructure in the world. The students wanted to bring their newfound knowledge back to their respective towns to make the world a safer, happier place for their loved ones and communities.

Ern Tan—the founder of Civic Cincinnati, a grassroots urbanism advocacy group in Ohio—said before the trip that she was looking forward to seeing the promise of a more bikeable future for Cincinnati reflected in the streets of Copenhagen. “How did city planning policies come to be?” she asked. “How was Copenhagen’s history and cultural environment set up to make urbanism so successful? And how can we take those lessons to Cincinnati?”

Jonathan Fleming—a PSU student studying Special Education—also hoped to learn from Copenhagen’s bike infrastructure for his family, especially his four-year-old daughter. “I want to work toward a future in which it would be comfortable and safe for her, and for all of the city’s most vulnerable, to walk and bike and move around the city, and to do so with the freedom they deserve,” he said prior to the trip. “I hope to gain a solid understanding of how Copenhagen got it all to work so well, and I want to bring this knowledge back to my local community to better advocate for safer streets for all.”

Over the course of the two weeks, students attended lectures from a variety of transportation professionals around the country, including consultants, engineers, and architects. They rode bikes around Copenhagen and outside the city, too, visiting Thomas Dambo trolls like Green George and Suttetrolden Sanka. They even took a ferry ride to Sweden for the day and heard from the Swedish Transportation Administration.

For one of the course assignments, students had to choose a city in the United States and analyze their bike plan. They then had to compare the plan of their chosen city with that of Copenhagen. Ern chose to analyze the bike plan of her hometown—Edmond, Oklahoma—and Jonathan chose Daly City, California because he used to live there and never felt safe biking there. Their findings represent the range of biking infrastructure available in the US. 

Ern found that Edmond’s bike plan lacked short-term timelines or, in some cases, any timeline at all. However, she found that Edmond does have an actionable plan to expand its bikeshare system and biking trails in the next few years. She believed that, with public support, the bike plan could thrive.

Jonathan found that Daly City’s plan had parts that were actionable and parts that were ambitious, but not parts that were both actionable and ambitious. Some goals outlined in the didn’t seem to be doing enough to prioritize bikes. The city mostly just wrote of adding Class III bike lanes, which are lanes on the road that can be shared with drivers. Jonathan thought that the city could be doing more with the existing infrastructure to implement separated bike lanes or multi-use paths.

Comparatively, when Ern and Jonathan looked at Copenhagen’s bike plan, they both found that it was empathetic, framing cycling as something that will truly benefit the citizens of the city and that it should therefore be something worth prioritizing. Daly City’s bike plan was just meant to make cycling a viable transportation option, with no mention of the benefits it could bring to the citizens. Edmond’s bike plan similarly highlights the planners’ vision without really considering the public. In other words, Copenhagen understands its citizens and determines its goals based on that. Jonathan mentioned that Daly City conducted a community needs assessment, but both chosen US cities lack Copenhagen’s level of vision.

Copenhagen certainly isn’t perfect. Students observed issues with traffic and wayfinding, annoyances that they were all too familiar with in the States. Overall, though, the trip taught the students of the progress that can occur when biking is properly prioritized at a government level. Ern said that she will remember the importance of green space because she saw how much it was prioritized in Copenhagen. Jonathan reflected on the lecture that Neils Hoe from HOE360 Consulting gave about the city prioritizing the right of way for pedestrians first, then bicycles, then cars. These are lessons that they will take back with them to the States to advocate for in their communities.

The two-week study abroad class is available for five credits as part of the civil engineering and urban studies & planning course catalogs. Check out some photo albums from previous years on Flickr. Interested in studying abroad in 2025? Sign up here to be notified about future study abroad opportunities.

Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) is a multidisciplinary research center. We are home to the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), headquarters of the data programs PORTAL and BikePed Portal, and a member of PacTrans, the Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium. We produce impactful research and tools for transportation decision makers, expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engage students and professionals through education and participation in research. To get updates about what's going on at TREC, sign up for our monthly newsletter or follow us on social media.

Fall classes begin September 30 at Portland State, and there are some exciting transportation courses available this term. Not a current PSU student? You can still take a course: Anyone interested can register for classes through the non-degree application process, as a post-baccalaureate student, or for free if you're a senior citizen. Taking a course can be a good way to see if one of our graduate degree programs is right for you. 

Check out the listings below to see what's on offer this fall.

Urban Studies and Planning (USP)

USP 511 Active Transportation Studio

Instructor: Derek Abe

Delivery: In person, Wednesday, 9:00 AM - 11:50 AM

A practical approach to bicycle and pedestrian planning and design through a project-based course that focuses on all aspects of the planning process. Students research and develop solutions for a current project opportunity in the Portland region and present recommendations in report and presentation form. Also offered for undergraduate-level credit as USP 411 and may be taken only once for credit. Prerequisite: Second year graduate student, completion of USP 565, or permission of the instructor.

"USP 511 is gearing up for the Fall term with two really exciting community projects," said course instructor Derek Abe.

Both projects are part of the Better Block PSU program. One group of students in the course will redesign a portion of South Sheridan street to improve pedestrian and bicycling access to the International School of Portland. Read about that project, and what has been done so far. Another group will take advantage of the reduced traffic volume on West Burnside during the Burnside Bridge replacement to reimagine the West Burnside corridor between 3rd and Park avenues.

These interactive, real-world community planning project build on the work performed during the Spring 2024 term in USP 565, and are offered in partnership with Better Block PDX, TREC, and other local agency and community partners.

USP 510 Urban Data Science

Instructor: Liming Wang

Delivery: in person, Thursday, 10:00 AM - 12:50 PM

If you are curious about what the data science fuss is all about and what it may bring for the urban studies/urban planning field, this may be the course for you. Or if you're interested in learning programming, but don't know where to start, this course is a perfect first step. Or if you're using Excel as your primary data tool but have got frustrated enough to wonder whether there's a better way, you will find the answer in this class (short answer: YES).

The course introduces urban informatics, an interdisciplinary approach to understanding, managing, and designing the city using systematic theories and methods based on new information technologies. Urban informatics builds on the science and technologies of information processing, information systems, computer science, and statistics to support the quest to develop applications to cities. There are no prerequisites, but it requires some tolerance for experimentation, self-directed trial and error, and an interest in learning to write computer code.

USP 556 Urban Transportation: Problems and Policies

Instructor: Aaron Golub

Delivery: Hybrid, Thursday, 4:00 PM - 6:30 PM

An introduction to urban transportation policy from a historical and political perspective. Historical developments in transportation policy are traced from the early streetcar days up through the present. Federal, state, and local transportation policies are examined for their impact on urban spatial and economic development. An overview of current issues in transportation policy and planning includes transportation demand management strategies, transit- oriented design, road pricing, and alternative transportation modes. The intersection of environmental and transportation policy is also examined, as is the decision-making structure at the local, regional, and state level.

USP 578 Impact Assessment

Instructor: Jenny Liu

Delivery: In person, Thursday, 1:00 PM - 3:50 PM

Empirical techniques employed in measuring the impacts associated with land use change. Topics: goals achievement matrix approaches to impact assessment, trade-offs between community and regional welfare, distance and time in urban analysis, estimating the social profitability of land development, cost-benefit analysis applied to freeway location, techniques for valuation of non-priced resources, measuring municipal revenue and expenditure impacts, gravity models and transport demand estimation, economic base analysis for employment and population impact assessment, estimating air and noise pollution associated with land development. Recommended prerequisite: USP 515.

Civil and Environmental Engineering (CE)

Non-degree or non-PSU students should contact the Civil Engineering Academic Program Manager at ceedept@pdx.edu in order to register for a CE course, as the system requires an approval to process the registration.

CE 610 Sensing and Monitoring of Structures: Fundamentals

Instructor: Thomas Schumacher

Delivery: In person, Monday and Wednesday, 9:00 AM - 10:50 AM

This course explores the fundamentals of sensing and data analysis for civil and environmental engineering systems. Students will learn about various sensor technologies, data acquisition methods, and signal processing techniques. Topics include: Sensors, data acquisition, sampling, discrete signals, digital signal processing, time domain analysis, frequency domain analysis, and data visualization and interpretation. The course emphasizes a practical approach, using real-world data, allowing students to develop the fundamentals of sensing and monitoring for environmental monitoring, non-destructive testing and structural health monitoring, as well as experimental testing. This course is a prerequisite for CE 5/610: Sensing and Monitoring of Structures: Applications, which is offered in Winter 2025/27/29.

CE 563 Transportation Optimization

Instructor: Miguel Figliozzi

Delivery: In person, Tuesday and Thursday, 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM

Introduces students to mathematical modeling techniques including linear and non-linear programming, duality, Lagrangian, quadratic and geometric models, integer programming, basic network models and their application to transportation and logistics systems/problems. The focus is on model formulation, complexity analysis, and the utilization of software to obtain solutions and analyze system properties. The concepts taught in this course focus on civil engineering systems/ applications with an emphasis on transportation and logistics problems.

CE 558 Public Transportation Systems

Instructor: Miguel Figliozzi

Delivery: In person, Tuesday and Thursday, 10:00 AM - 11:50 AM

Performance characteristics of public transportation systems, with emphasis on urban systems. Planning, design, and operational issues related to public transportation systems. Emerging technologies. Prerequisite: CE 351

Friday Transportation Seminars

Fridays, 11:30 AM – 12:45 PM

Friday Transportation Seminars at PSU are offered as a for-credit class in person (CE 514/USP 514). However, these seminars are also open to the public, and can be watched online from anywhere. You can always find upcoming seminars on the TREC website.

Graduate Certificate in Transportation

The two disciplines, planning and engineering, also collaborate to offer a Graduate Certificate in Transportation for established professionals looking for a deeper understanding of transportation disciplines. Increasingly, transportation professionals need multi-disciplinary knowledge and skills to anticipate social, environmental, and technological trends and incorporate them into intelligently-integrated transportation systems. The Graduate Certificate in Transportation will offer you advanced education at the intersection of urban planning and civil engineering for those seeking to build upon their knowledge and credentials.

Regional Traffic and Transportation Course

Thursday evenings, 6:40 - 8:40 PM

Formerly known as the Portland Traffic and Transportation class, Metro is partnering with Portland State University to offer this ten-week course themed on transportation with an emphasis on land use, mobility, social justice and racial equity, hosted in person at Metro Regional Center. Learn more and register for the course.

Photo courtesy of Portland State University

Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) is home to the U.S. DOT funded National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), PORTAL, BikePed Portal and other transportation grants and programs. We produce impactful research and tools for transportation decision makers, expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engage students and professionals through education and participation in research. To get updates about what's going on at TREC, sign up for our monthly newsletter or follow us on social media.

Drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are increasingly being used to deliver medical supplies and other goods. In the U.S., where e-commerce grew by 30% rate in 2020, drone deliveries are expected to become a 7 billion US dollar market by 2027.

Two recent publications by Miguel Figliozzi of Portland State University (PSU) explore different aspects of optimizing and improving upon the use of UAVs for e-commerce deliveries.

Figliozzi is a professor of civil and environmental engineering and a member of the Transportation Research Board on Urban Freight committee, and his main research areas are transportation systems modeling, statistical analysis, and optimization. He has published a number of papers analyzing drone delivery and other areas of freight transportation.

WHAT DO TECHNOLOGICAL IMPROVEMENTS MEAN FOR DELIVERY DRONES?

Though many studies have proposed several different types of models for drones, there is a lack of understanding of the current and future limits of drone technologies for deliveries.

"Analyzing the Impact of Technological Improvements on the Performance of Delivery Drones," published in Transportation Research Procedia, fills this gap by analyzing future capabilities of drones that can perform vertical takeoff and landing.

The results show that substantial range and payload gains could be expected in the near future as a result of improvements in battery technology and drone design.

The analysis also indicates that hybrid designs are likely to have a higher impact in rural areas, where major gains in range and payload are expected. 

WHAT IS THE OPTIMAL FLEET SIZE FOR COURIER DRONES?

The second paper, "Modeling optimal drone fleet size considering stochastic demand," was co-authored by Yuval Hadas of Israel's Bar Ilan University and published in the EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistic. It offers a robust modeling approach to provide optimal drone fleet sizing guidelines.

The last mile delivery is particularly challenging when dealing with an unpredictable number of deliveries that have narrow time windows. Companies or drone operators face tradeoffs in terms of fleet size, type of drone, revenue, operating costs, energy consumption, and lost sales. Fleet size and aircraft type both have significant impacts on delivery costs, as does payload. The modeling solution developed in this paper can help delivery service providers manage the trade offs related to fleet size and drone type. 

Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) is home to the U.S. DOT funded National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), PORTAL, BikePed Portal and other transportation grants and programs. We produce impactful research and tools for transportation decision makers, expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engage students and professionals through education and participation in research. To get updates about what's going on at TREC, sign up for our monthly newsletter or follow us on social media.

When Kyu Ri Kim was seven years old, she was struck by a car while walking in her neighborhood where there was no separate walkway for pedestrians in Seoul, South Korea.

Kim, who is now an adjunct research associate at Portland State University (PSU), received nerve damage in her legs and had to use a wheelchair for several days after the incident. This experience launched her interest in pedestrian safety, which eventually led to her 2024 doctoral dissertation research project: "The Central Role of Perceived Safety in Connecting Crash Risk Factors and Walking Behavior."

"That was the real starting point, my personal experience. And I'm curious whether other people really do understand the real risk around them. What are the crash risk factors around them and how are they different from individual perceived risk?" Kim said.

Her dissertation, supported by funding from the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), illuminates the relationship between pedestrian crash risk factors and perceived safety, as well as the relationship between safety attitudes and walking behavior. How the interplay between these factors influences people's behavior needs to be better understood in order to improve pedestrian safety and the walking environment.

“There are so many papers explaining the reasons for crashes, especially pedestrian crashes. But I wanted to explore what's going on in people's minds. I mean what they think, how they feel, and what they actually recognize around them about their risk while they're walking. Those perceptions and attitudes definitely affect their daily behavior," Kim said.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

Kim's dissertation used data from three primary sources: 

1. An original survey of 551 residents in 10 neighborhoods in Oregon conducted in 2023;
2. Pedestrian crash data that occurred in Oregon for 2018–2022;
3. Pedestrian count data collected at 65 sites in 2022. 

These were complemented with built environment data. Over a five year period, 729 pedestrian crashes occurred in the census block groups surrounding the 65 sites.

One result shows that pedestrian volume measured as pedestrian count data has better predictive power to explain pedestrian crashes than pedestrian volume measured as population density. Even with only two days of count data available, the counts were still more accurate than population density in terms of predicting crashes. This result supports the need to collect pedestrian volume data in various places to develop road safety plans and policies.

Kim also tested whether crash risk factors predict actual pedestrian crashes in the study areas. In addition to pedestrian volume, crash risk factors in macro-level areas—including mixed-use land areas, commercial land areas, and public transit stops—were found to be significant in predicting pedestrian crashes.

KEY FINDINGS

Overall, pedestrians' attitudes were mainly determined by their subjective experiences in a given environment, rather than their actual crash risk.

For example, after controlling for other risk factors (including speed and traffic volumes), pedestrians felt more threatened in areas with more intersections and mixed land use. 

However, intersection density is not significantly related to the number or severity of pedestrian crashes. This may be because vehicle speeds decrease as the density of intersections increases. This implies that when pedestrians encounter intersections more frequently, they perceive more threat, even though the environment is not significantly riskier.

"People's perceptions of those risks around them may affect their attitudes, and finally affect their mode choice," Kim said.

In terms of travel behavior, positive safety attitudes and nearby sidewalks increase walking frequency. On the other hand, large commercial areas, faster vehicle speeds, and more vehicles in their households significantly reduce people's walking frequency. 

One likely reason for the negative relationships with having commercial areas nearby is that most survey respondents were walking primarily for exercise, to walk their pets, or for entertainment rather than to visit specific destinations such as work, school, or restaurants.

"I initially thought commercial areas or parks would encourage people to walk more. But actually, they need safe sidewalks in their neighborhoods. This may suggest that pedestrian facilities or infrastructure for connectivity and accessibility may be more helpful in encouraging people to walk rather than interesting and fun destinations themselves," Kim said.

After receiving her PhD in Urban Studies and Planning from PSU in 2024, Kim started work as an adjunct research associate for TREC, working on multiple projects related to active transportation and the safety of vulnerable road users.

Photo by zenstock/iStock

Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) is home to the U.S. DOT funded National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), PORTAL, BikePed Portal and other transportation grants and programs. We produce impactful research and tools for transportation decision makers, expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engage students and professionals through education and participation in research. To get updates about what's going on at TREC, sign up for our monthly newsletter or follow us on social media.

This year, residents of 37 new apartment buildings in the Portland area are receiving surveys in the mail. The reason? Portland State University researchers are requesting information about how they travel.

Knowing how residents of these high-density affordable and mixed-income housing developments get around town is key to guiding future development in the metropolitan area.

Metro—the regional government of the Portland, Oregon area—strategically invests in transit-oriented development, or TOD, to help more people live in neighborhoods served by high-quality transit. In a partnership going back nearly twenty years, PSU has supported the Metro TOD program by collecting data on residents' travel habits. This latest round of surveys will add to a knowledge base that has been useful for both Metro and PSU, for several reasons.

WHY COLLECT TRAVEL DATA FROM TOD RESIDENTS? 

Using this information, Metro can refine its TOD funding program model to ensure that future developments achieve intended outcomes. 

Patrick McLaughlin, senior development project manager for housing and transit-oriented development at Metro, joined the TOD project in April 2016. Part of his job is to assign gap funding to affordable housing projects that may require subsidies. To evaluate whether Metro's TOD Program should support a particular development, he said, we "plug it into our model to see how much ridership we anticipate this project generating, compared to a less dense project that you would expect the market to build on its own."

One of the aims of transit-oriented development is to create opportunities for housing with greater access to transit, particularly in places where existing communities are at risk of gentrification and displacement.

"We invest in projects we think are going to give us more transit ridership. So what this work does is allow us to go back and see if we were right, and if not, we can use this data to help us recalibrate the model," McLaughlin said.

Since its establishment in 1998, Metro's TOD program has invested over $40 million dollars to construct roughly 6,800 housing units adjacent to Portland’s transit system. The program plays an important role in supporting development that aligns with Metro’s 2040 Regional Growth Concept, which aims to preserve the region's quality of life by protecting natural areas while promoting economic growth.

Led by researchers Jennifer Dill and Nathan McNeil, the data collection also benefits PSU: The university maintains a vast clearinghouse of transportation data, and the TOD surveys are a valuable source of insights on how the built environment affects travel behavior.

CONSISTENCY AND PROGRESS OVER DECADES

One of the most useful aspects of this research is how long-term it is, which allows Metro to observe changes and trends over time.

"We have maintained a consistent survey instrument over all these years, so it allows us to compare across years and put each new batch of surveys into the context of the ones that have come before," McNeil said.

The current round of surveys represents the largest number of residents that have been surveyed to date.

HOW DO TOD RESIDENTS TRAVEL?

So what have the researchers learned from all these surveys?

In short, living in a TOD does indeed change people's travel behavior, making them less likely to drive and more likely to use transit and other modes. In 2019, Dill and McNeil leveraged funding from the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) to go back and revisit residents of the same buildings they had surveyed fifteen years earlier, gathering information on how their travel habits had changed. The second wave of surveys revealed three changes from the baseline that are consistent with the objectives of TODs:

1. The number of people commuting to work by driving alone went down.
2. The number of people walking or biking to work at least one day a week rose.
3. The number of people living in low-car households (fewer cars than adults) increased.

In the past, many TOD housing units were studio or one-bedroom apartments, a trend which seems to be changing. In the current group of buildings, there are more affordable housing units and more multi-bedroom units— which means more families. A recent NITC project corroborates this: Most people moving into transit station areas these days are established households, including many with children.

This ongoing research can help planners understand the factors influencing travel behavior at TODs, including neighborhood features.

RELATED PROJECTS

• Metro Transit-Oriented Developments (TODs) Surveys (2025, in progress)
• Revisiting TODs (2019)
• Transit Oriented Developments Survey (2014)
• Transit Oriented Developments Survey (2010)
• Travel Choices at Transit Oriented Developments: Survey Results from Portland’s Eastside (2007)
• Estimating the Impacts of TODs on Travel and Transit Use (2006)

Photo courtesy of Metro

Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) is home to the U.S. DOT funded National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), PORTAL, BikePed Portal and other transportation grants and programs. We produce impactful research and tools for transportation decision makers, expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engage students and professionals through education and participation in research. To get updates about what's going on at TREC, sign up for our monthly newsletter or follow us on social media.

The Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium (PacTrans) is the Regional University Transportation Center (UTC) for Federal Region 10, housed at University of Washington (UW).

In June of 2023, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), or Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), awarded PacTrans its fourth competitive grant of $15 million over 5 years. With that award, Portland State University (PSU) joined PacTrans. The center is a mobility-focused University Transportation Center with a theme of, “developing human-centered and transformative multimodal mobility solutions for an equitable Pacific Northwest.” 

Each year, PacTrans provides PSU with $150,000 to fund “small research projects.” Those projects are selected through a competitive, peer-review process. The Year 2 Request for Proposals (PDF) describes the process for PSU researchers to submit proposals for these funds. PSU plans to award no more than three projects. Therefore, individual project requests should range from $30,000 to $70,000.

Abstracts are due August 8, with full proposals due August 29, 2024.

Learn more, download the RFP and submit your proposal here: PSU PacTrans Projects.

Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) is home to the U.S. DOT funded National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), PORTAL, BikePed Portal and other transportation grants and programs. We produce impactful research and tools for transportation decision makers, expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engage students and professionals through education and participation in research. To get updates about what's going on at TREC, sign up for our monthly newsletter or follow us on social media.

Knowing how many people use walking and bicycling infrastructure is crucial for transportation planning. Active transportation projects can help cities and states achieve multiple climate- and public-health-related targets, and a new project launching in 2024 can help further those goals: California is getting a statewide active transportation count database.

With help from Portland State University (PSU) researcher Sirisha Kothuri, the Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (SafeTREC) at the University of California, Berkeley is leading an effort to create a centralized data repository for the state.

Kothuri, a senior research associate in civil and environmental engineering at PSU, has led multiple research projects aimed at improving the accuracy and scope of nonmotorized data collection efforts. She has experience with using data fusion techniques to estimate bicycle volumes, leveraging crowdsourced data to derive pedestrian counts, and working with this data to make walking and bicycling safer and more comfortable. Her expertise in this area, as well as PSU's experience centralizing transportation data via the university's PORTAL and BikePed Portal, will be valuable for SafeTREC researchers as they work to combine and consolidate California's active transportation data. 

WHY CREATE A CENTRALIZED DATA REPOSITORY?

As Caltrans, or the California Department of Transportation, moves to prioritize active transportation modes, access to pedestrian and bicyclist counts has become increasingly important. Volume data can be used by planners to evaluate demand for nonmotorized infrastructure, and by engineers to improve safety.

Agencies throughout the state already count pedestrians and bicyclists, but these data are often stored on agency servers or in proprietary data systems. The Active Transportation Database, originally developed by the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), currently serves as a clearinghouse of counts for communities within SCAG’s region. Caltrans is seeking to build upon this existing resource by expanding the scope to the entire state and adding improved functionality. 

WHAT WILL THIS PROJECT DO?

Led by SafeTREC Director Julia Griswold, the research team will conduct engagement with agency stakeholders to understand how the database enhancements can meet their needs. They'll also collect existing data from throughout the state to populate the clearinghouse; review existing methodologies for count data collection and processing; and develop guidance for best practices. Once the database has been created, the team will train transportation professionals around the state on how to use it effectively.

The project's goals are:

• Improve active transportation data collection by setting statewide methodologies for counting and storing volumes of active transportation users.
• Establish a statewide active transportation count data clearinghouse through an open-source database, and make all validated data available to the general public.
• Ensure long-term viability of the database, including processes to safeguard the collected data and conduct routine maintenance and upgrades as available tools and technology advance over time.
• Streamline the ongoing and future data collection efforts across California.

The researchers also plan to enhance the database's functionalities, including improved data analysis capabilities. This project stands to improve access to data and powerful decision-making tools for California's transportation professionals and organizations. By doing so, the researchers will help provide Californians with access to better biking and walking options.

Photo by Alina Vasylieva/iStock

Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) is home to the U.S. DOT funded National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), PORTAL, BikePed Portal and other transportation grants and programs. We produce impactful research and tools for transportation decision makers, expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engage students and professionals through education and participation in research. To get updates about what's going on at TREC, sign up for our monthly newsletter or follow us on social media.