Portland State University transportation researchers will partner with the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) to evaluate a new project on 122nd Avenue in Portland, Oregon. 

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) established the "Safe Streets and Roads for All" program to provide $5-6 billion in funding to support regional, local, and Tribal initiatives to prevent roadway deaths and serious injuries. On Feb. 1, 2023, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced $800 million in grant awards for 510 communities through the first round of funding for the Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) grant program. 

See the full list of awarded projects here.

PBOT was awarded $20 million to make 122nd Avenue safer for all road users, and around $250,000 of that will go toward a research project to evaluate the effectiveness of the new safety treatments. The project will employ low-cost, high-benefit treatments on 5.5 miles of 122nd Avenue in Portland, Oregon, which is in the top 5% of the Portland metropolitan area’s most deadly and injurious streets. 

PBOT has identified five primary factors for these issues: 

• Open two-way left-turn lanes;
• Substandard street lighting;
• Long distances between pedestrian crossings;
• Speed;
• Wide intersections without protections for pedestrians or bicyclists. 

Interventions funded by the new grant will include filling gaps in street lighting; converting existing parking to four miles of protected bike lanes; making signal improvements for pedestrians and bicyclists; reducing vehicle lanes; and adding new features including:

• seven pedestrian crossings,
• raised center medians along 1.5 miles of two travel lanes,
• 11 raised medians for four travel lanes,
• street trees along the entire 5.5 mile corridor,
• nine bus stop curb extensions,
• six speed reader boards with automated enforcement, and
• one roundabout.

The evaluation team of researchers from PSU's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) will include faculty from both the Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) program as well as the College of Urban and Public Affairs (CUPA). 

Photo courtesy of Portland Bureau of Transportation

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.

Hau Hagedorn, associate director of the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University, is part of an interdisciplinary team of educators who will travel to Vietnam and Hawaii this year looking for new curriculum, research and study abroad opportunities.

After more than a decade of organization and effort, PSU is establishing a Pacific Islander & Asian American (PIAA) Studies Program, and now a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation is supporting the exploratory trip by Hagedorn and two co-leaders—Marie Lo, professor and chair of English, and Betty Izumi, professor of public health and interim associate dean for students and alumni affairs in OHSU-PSU's School of Public Health—who each bring different perspectives and academic backgrounds to the work. Read more about the project in a PSU news story by Cristina Rojas, Communications Manager of PSU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences: Grant Makes Exploratory Trips To Vietnam, Hawaii Possible For Piaa Studies.

"This grant provides an opportunity to explore the influence of colonialism on transportation and mobility. The unintended consequences of autocentric mobility, such as pollution and traffic fatalities, are even more pronounced in places like Vietnam," Hagedorn said.

The overall goal of the program is to develop a new undergraduate course that critically examines the links between imperialism and settler colonialism and the diaspora of Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders in Oregon.

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.

Each year, the Portland Chapter of WTS bestows scholarships to assist exceptional women in their educational pursuits in the field of transportation. The scholarships are competitive and based on the applicant’s specific goals, academic achievements, and transportation related activities. Two of the five scholarship winners this year are Portland State University transportation students in the Masters of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) program. Jamie Arnau and Dawn Walter were presented with their awards at the annual WTS Winter Gala on January 24, 2023.

Jamie Arnau: Helene M Overly Scholarship

Jamie Arnau is a second-year MURP student studying urban design. She is passionate about public space design, equity, and improving walking and transit experiences for all. She is currently a transportation planning intern at Nelson\Nygaard, working on active transportation, TDM, and transit planning projects. Before pursuing a career in urban planning, she worked in her hometown of Los Angeles as a digital marketer in the hospitality, entertainment, and non-profit sectors. Outside of work, she enjoys singing karaoke and daydreaming about train rides in France and Japan. She earned her Bachelor's in Global Studies from UCLA in 2013.

Connect with Jamie on LinkedIn

Dawn Walter: Leadership Legacy Scholarship

Dawn Walter is a first-year MURP student studying transportation planning. Dawn’s focus within the MURP program is pedestrian infrastructure, specifically how to improve it and connect it best with public transit to increase accessibility for all community members. When she is not passionately arguing for more curb cuts, she is attending shows, walking around museums, reading books, and imagining her next big trip. Before coming to Portland and enrolling at PSU, Dawn worked as the executive assistant to the general director of the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Missouri. She earned her Bachelors in Business Administration and Theatre from Illinois State University in 2017.

Connect with Dawn on LinkedIn

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.

Photos courtesy of WTS Portland

Christian Galiza is a senior in civil engineering. He is the Vice President of Communications for Portland State University's Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) student chapter, Students in Transportation Engineering & Planning (ITE-STEP), and also works as a structural engineering intern for Eclipse Engineering. He is the recipient of an ITE Regional Travel Scholarship to attend the 2022 ITE Western District Annual Meeting in Palm Springs, CA. He is also a 2022/23 National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) scholar. Christian enjoys transportation because it's fascinating to think about the relationship between building sustainable infrastructure and transportation planning and its impact on how people move every day.

Connect with Christian on LinkedIn.

Tell us about yourself?

I am originally from the beautiful island of Oahu, Hawaii, and I have been working through the B.S. Civil Engineering program at Portland State University. My transportation interests include Complete Streets, safety, and issues involving transportation equity. In January 2023, I’m excited to embark on an engineering internship with the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) in their Traffic Operations section.

What (or who) has influenced your career path in transportation?

I used to serve in the military, so I’ve channeled through the massive global defense network that the military built to transport thousands of service members, contractors, and civilians daily to meet the country’s strategic defense objectives. Once I realized the importance of the transportation of troops and goods in the scope of the defense industry, I became interested in transportation priorities that concern the rest of the country. From this, I then became interested in exploring transportation solutions in the Portland area and beyond. My interest in transportation was also accelerated through my involvement in our ITE student chapter. I started attending events and conferences, where I started building my network with industry professionals and other students.

You've served as the VP of Communications for ITE-STEP for two years - What are you most proud of that the student group has accomplished during your time?

I’m fortunate to have served in a leadership capacity for STEP with a dedicated group of planning and engineering students who knew much more about transportation than I did when I first became involved. We wanted to share this interest collectively with other students by hosting events and giving students the chance to learn face-to-face from transportation professionals. We were recognized by ITE both locally and nationally with the Student Chapter Momentum Awards, but most importantly, we’ve developed a growing niche of students with a growing interest in transportation.

After graduation, what future work do you envision doing in transportation?

I’m very interested in working on developing transportation solutions in the Portland area, as the city has become an example for the rest of the country. In the distant future, I hope to improve transit development and travel times for people in Hawaii and other parts of the country.

Photo by Colton Jones on Unsplash

This is an installment in a series of monthly Student Spotlights we're shining on students and alumni that are involved with National Institute for Transportation & Communities (NITC) universities. NITC is a university transportation consortium funded by the U.S. DOT, and is a Portland State-led partnership with the University of Oregon, Oregon Institute of Technology, University of Utah, University of Arizona, and University of Texas at Arlington.

A new transportation comic, "Moving From Cars To People (PDF)," offers a succinct and fun introduction to a complicated topic: namely, how the built environment in the United States came to be designed for cars and what we can do about it.

Want a physical copy? Here are a few ways to get one:

• Request a free copy from our limited print run (first come, first served)
• Order a copy for just the cost of printing & shipping;
• Print one yourself at any local printer, with our high-res print-ready file (PDF);
• Attend the TRB NITC Reception on Jan 10, 2023 and win one as a prize!

The twenty-page comic includes a dialogue, taking place in various urban settings, between characters Kelly and Kristi who are based on National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) researchers Kelly Clifton of the University of British Columbia and Kristina Currans of the University of Arizona. The two have a long history of collaboration around the data, methods, and processes used to plan for multimodal transportation impacts of new development. This short graphic synopsis is an engaging, approachable way for anyone – no matter their level of expertise in this topic – to learn about their findings.

Illustrated by PSU Master of Fine Arts student Joaquin Golez, the comic was authored by Clifton and Currans and developed in conjunction with Susan Kirtley, director of the Comic Studies Program at Portland State University (PSU), and Portland, OR-based illustrator Ryan Alexander-Tanner, who has worked on academic comics before and drew on his experience to help guide the collaborative process. For more insight on that process, read a June 2022 interview with Clifton, Kirtley, and Alexander-Tanner. A Spanish-language version was created with the assistance of Urban Studies PhD student Gabriel Quiñones-Zambrana. (Download: Moviéndonos Del Automóvil A Las Personas (PDF).) Physical copies of the Spanish version will be available soon.

WHY IS THIS USEFUL?

Why communicate research results in a graphic format? First, to reach a broader audience. It's in everyone's interest for non-transportation-professionals to have a working knowledge of the conversation that's happening around sustainable transportation options. When important policy questions show up on a ballot – for example, whether businesses should be required to provide a certain amount of parking spaces, or whether the state should subsidize public transit – people who aren't in the transportation industry might not be fully aware of the tradeoffs involved in these questions. 

So it's a good idea to have the whole subject distilled into an easy format. It's also a good thing for people who are in the know already, because why not make things fun and approachable? Next week, 10,000 transportation professionals will flock to Washington, D.C. to attend the annual Transportation Research Board (TRB) meeting and learn about what their colleagues have been doing for the past year. Attendees will do their best to absorb mountains of information relating to areas of the transportation field that overlap with their own particular focus area. They'll probably come away with a new list of books and articles to read. 

If there's a colorful, bite-sized morsel at the top of the to-be-read stack that doesn't take much mental focus to absorb, then so much the better for everyone. Because there's a lot of material covered in this body of research, and the comic gets right to the heart of it: How does all this affect real people?

CREATING THE COMIC

MFA student Joaquin Golez, who did his undergraduate work at Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA), has worked mainly in illustration before this.

"Doing a comic was new for me. Ryan [Alexander-Tanner] was like my art director. He's a really accomplished cartoonist, and he knows comics really well. Everyone else was from totally different wheelhouses. He's also a teacher, so he kind of was teaching me comics. For me it was super different, because I'm more used to a really detailed single image: I have one illustration, and I'm trying to pack a lot of nuance and metaphor into it. And for comics it's so much more about speed and clarity," Golez said.

Golez worked with Clifton, Currans, and Alexander-Tanner to brainstorm how to convert the research concepts into a story with visual elements. In an iterative process, he often created several sketches based on prompts from the team which were then chosen for further development.

"It was very data-heavy in the beginning, because it's research, you know. So there was that process of trying to figure out, well, what would this look like if it was a character saying it? This was part of why this opportunity was so amazing, because I've always wanted to try comics. So it was this really cool chance to work with somebody like Ryan who has so much experience doing it," Golez said.

Urban Studies PhD student Gabriel Quiñones-Zambrana, who translated the comic into Spanish, has done a fair amount of translating throughout his academic and professional career. He also collects comics. Growing up in Puerto Rico, he said, where most conversation takes place in Spanish but most education material is written in English, translating back and forth between the two languages is second nature. However, there were still some interesting challenges in translating this comic.

"We had to trim some of the Spanish sentences, because Joaquin couldn't fit them into the bubbles," Quiñones-Zambrana said, referring to how Spanish sometimes has more words and syllables than an equivalent phrase in English, and the speech-bubbles were already pre-drawn. Another challenge was deciding when to use regional variations of certain terms. There was a lot of back-and-forth between Gabriel and the researchers when trying to decipher what exactly they meant by a "slushy," or to decide if Spanish speakers from Mexico and Central America might use a different word for a small store (called a "minimart" in PR). By translating the comic into Spanish, researchers hope that these concepts might reach even more people – especially people who are directly impacted by the land use and development patterns discussed in the research.

To help other students and faculty at PSU learn to translate their research into comics, Clifton and the Comics Studies team hosted a "Research Into Comics Workshop" last October. Attendees learned the basics of using comics as a means to communicate research, and practiced creative exercises. 

RESEARCH BACKGROUND

NITC researchers have approached context-sensitive travel modeling from several angles. For example, Reid Ewing of the University of Utah developed some key enhancements to the classic four-step travel demand model, as well as examining trip and parking generation at transit-oriented developments. See below for a non-exhaustive list of NITC projects in this area.

Kelly Clifton and Kristina Currans first worked together at Portland State University when Clifton was Currans' advisor for her 2016 doctoral dissertation examining data and methodological issues in assessing multimodal transportation impacts for urban development. Both separately and in collaboration with other NITC researchers, Clifton (now a professor at the University of British Columbia) and Currans (a professor at the University of Arizona) have conducted over a decade of research into contextual trip generation: a body of work that reevaluates our whole system of travel demand forecasting. The goal is to improve travel demand forecasting so that it more accurately reflects the travel behavior of people walking, biking and riding transit. You can read a summary of some of Clifton's work in context-sensitive trip generation here. 

This research was funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities, with additional support from Portland State University Comics Studies, South Tabor Neighborhood Association, and the University of Arizona.

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

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Communicating Research through Comics: Transportation and Land Development

Kelly Clifton, Portland State University/University of British Columbia; Kristina Currans, University of Arizona

• Moving From Cars To People – View the comic on the web
• Moving From Cars To People – Download a print-ready version
• Moviéndonos Del Automóvil A Las Personas – Get the Spanish version

MORE NITC RESEARCH AROUND CONTEXT-SENSITIVE TRIP GENERATION:

• Key Enhancements to the WFRC/MAG Four-Step Travel Demand Model (Reid Ewing, 2019)
• Incorporate Emerging Travel Modes in the Regional Strategic Planning Model (RSPM) Tool (Liming Wang, 2018)
• Transferability & Forecasting of the Pedestrian Index Environment (PIE) for Modeling Applications (Kelly Clifton, 2018)
• Multimodal Trip Generation, Vehicle Ownership and Use: Characterizing The Travel Patterns of Residents of Multifamily Housing (Kelly Clifton, 2017)
• Improving Trip Generation Methods for Livable Communities (Kelly Clifton, 2016)
• Development of a Pedestrian Demand Estimation Tool (Kelly Clifton, 2016)
• Better Representation of the Pedestrian Environment in Travel Demand Models (Kelly Clifton, 2013)
• Contextual Influences on Trip Generation (Kelly Clifton, 2011)

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.

In a big step forward for nonmotorized planning, a dashboard with bike data from the Washington, D.C. metro area is coming to BikePed Portal. Previously, a planner looking to see the latest biking numbers for the nation's capital would have to look at info from several jurisdictions, including Arlington County, the City of Alexandria, the District Department of Transportation, Fairfax County, Montgomery County, and the National Park Service, which manages counters on several trails and natural areas in the greater metro area.

Now, with funding from a National Park Service (NPS) Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU), a unique program that facilitates partnerships between federal and non-federal entities and research institutions, Virginia Tech and the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center (HSRC) are teaming up with data specialists at Portland State University (PSU) to create a new dashboard that will allow users to see all the D.C. bike data together in one place.

Housed at PSU's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC), BikePed Portal is a centralized repository that contains biking and walking count data from places all over the United States. It aims to be a one-stop shop for transportation professionals looking for clean, quality-checked, ready-to-use nonmotorized data.

DEVELOPING A DASHBOARD FOR THE DC AREA

The Washington D.C. metro area's dashboard is currently being developed at PSU, co-led by TREC's associate director, Hau Hagedorn, and transportation data program manager Tammy Lee, and should be available for use sometime in the coming year. 

Some of D.C.'s data is, in fact, already in BikePed Portal (as the image at the top shows). For a user to see all of it, however, they have to switch between different views. BikePed Portal hosts data from Maryland, Virginia, and D.C., but when a user views D.C., they are not able to see the data from Maryland and Virginia that are in the same metro area. This type of jurisdictional sprawl is common when it comes to nonmotorized data.

"It's really a lot of people that come together at the table to sort of organize, especially in such a very dense location. So we're working with all these stakeholders to put all their data in one centralized repository. Instead of having to say, you know, 'Hey, share your data with us,' or 'Can we share our data with you?' Instead, it's all in one central location where everybody has access to each other's data," Lee said.

Krista Nordback, senior research associate at UNC HSRC, is managing the project on the HRSC's end and says it is one of the "most exciting" she's worked on. She was instrumental in creating BikePed Portal while working as a research associate at PSU, back in 2014 when it was first launched with funding from the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC). So she was already aware of BikePed Portal as a growing resource for nationwide bike counts, when the NPS broached the subject of creating a dashboard for DC. Rather than reinvent the wheel, Nordback suggested bringing PSU into the project. 

Arlington County’s bike education and encouragement program, BikeArlington, had originally created its own dashboard showing data from Arlington counters. They hoped to turn it into something more comprehensive, and combining their resources with BikePed Portal seemed like the way to go.

"The point is, there are a lot of counters. They're all owned by different people. They're managed by different people. Sometimes they collaborate. We're trying to help get them better data, and part of that's maintenance. Part of it's quality checking and basic validation. So we're starting to get there. As a user, instead of having to go to three different places in BikePed Portal, I want to have one view where I can see all of it," Nordback said.

As the dashboard is being developed, Virginia Tech students are gaining valuable experience – experiential learning for university students is a top priority of the NPS CESU programs – by testing, maintaining, and quality-checking the bike-ped counters in the area.

DATA VALIDATION AT VIRGINIA TECH

Virginia Tech Professors Ralph Buehler and Steve Hankey are managing several classes of students working on the project in various capacities. In Fall 2021, a graduate planning studio course kicked it off by analyzing 19 NPS counters on four trail systems (Anacostia River Trail, Capital Crescent Trail, C&O Canal, and the Mount Vernon Trail) to identify discrepancies in the data. Their final report provided recommendations for where new counters should be located.

Currently, masters student Shazalal Tushar is conducting physical maintenance on the counters that need attention, and has also set up video cameras at several counter sites. Two undergraduate students, Monica Perez and Maggie Gibbon, are working on validating the counters' data by comparing it with the video feed. The team will then develop correction equations to account for the discrepancies. Soon, a PhD student at Virginia Tech will join the team to conduct research for a dissertation focused around this project. 

Cleaning up data from the NPS counters is only part of the story, though. The next part was getting buy-in from the regional partners.

"The National Park Service has trails running through and connecting different parts of the region, and they have placed counters on their trails. So part of the project is to get us to work with their data and validate their counters. And then the hope was that other jurisdictions would sort of start opting in, and also add their own counters to become part of that network. So it's sort of a Federal effort on the local level," Buehler said.

If the effort seems piecemeal, that's because it is. While data on the motorized side has been dialed in for decades – cars are counted via standardized methods, and agencies have less difficulty accessing information about where people are driving – the world of nonmotorized data is evolving rapidly, and unevenly. Part of the challenge lies in the fact that every large metropolitan area has more than one jurisdiction involved. Steven Hankey sees similarities and differences in how each city addresses this difficulty.

"Every place has a different project champion stepping up. And then that entity ends up driving what [data management] looks like for the area. For example, in Minnesota, it ended up being MNDOT, the state agency. And so that became more of a statewide program. This project is part of DC's story, and in many ways I think it's fair to say that the story is still unfolding," Hankey said.

In order to support better bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, policymakers and planners need accurate data on how many people are biking and walking. BikePed Portal provides a centralized, standard database for public agencies, researchers, educators, and other curious members of the public. The website allows users to explore annual, monthly, daily, and hourly pedestrian and bicycle volumes at over 600 locations across the country (and growing). 

In addition to hosting data to make it centrally available, the BikePed Portal team at PSU develops applications to help planners and other professionals get the most out of their data, such as an AADNT (average annual daily nonmotorized traffic) count tool, and basic automated quality checks. Currently under development is an annotation function, which will allow users to flag data that's been impacted by events such as marathons that increase bike/ped traffic, weather like big snow snow storms that could decrease bike/ped traffic, known counter malfunctions or vandalism incidents, and trail closures.

SEE RELATED RESEARCH

• Biking and Walking Quality Counts: Using “BikePed Portal” Counts to Develop Data Quality Checks
• BikePed Portal Phase II
• Exploring Data Fusion Techniques to Estimate Network-Wide Bicycle Volumes

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.

The winter term at Portland State University starts January 9, and registration opens December 19 for non-degree students. (Students who are already enrolled in a PSU degree program can register online now.) Lifelong learning is a guiding principle of PSU, and anyone interested can take transportation courses through the non-degree application process or as a post-baccalaureate student. Taking a course can be a good way to see if one of our graduate degree programs is right for you. Check out the course offerings below to see what's available this coming term.

See PSU’s COVID-19 Student Resources for the latest info on campus health and safety for students and staff. The course delivery methods for each course are listed below (e.g. in-person, hybrid, or attend anywhere).

Civil and Environmental Engineering

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

588 Public Transportation Systems

Instructor: Miguel Figliozzi

Delivery: In-Person, Tues/Thurs 12:00 PM – 1:50 PM

Prerequisites: CE 351

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

563 Transportation Optimization

Instructor: Miguel Figliozzi

Delivery: In-Person, Tues/Thurs 2:00 PM – 3:50 PM

Prerequisites: Graduate standing

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.

Urban Studies and Planning

510 Urban Informatics

Instructor: Liming Wang

Delivery: Attend Anywhere, Mon 1:00 PM - 3:30 PM

In this project-based class, students have an opportunity to develop applications that combine technical skills and domain knowledge and use information processing, analysis, and presentation to support problems solving in cities. It will introduce students to basic coding, data processing and analysis, visualization and mapping. 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.

544 Urban Transportation Planning

Instructors: Ryan Farncomb and Katie Drennan

Delivery: In-Person, Mon 6:40 PM – 9:00 PM

Prerequisites: USP 535 or equivalent coursework in descriptive and inferential statistics and data presentation

Introduces fundamental concepts and methods used in multi-modal urban transportation planning, including problem identification, alternatives analysis, evaluation and decision making, plan implementation, and program management. Exposes students to processes and analytical methods from multiple disciplines, such as law, politics, engineering, sociology, economics, finance, management and marketing. Emphasis on analysis of moderately complex technical information and its interpretation for communication with decision makers.

583 Transportation Finance

Instructor: Aaron Golub

Delivery: In-Person, Tues 2:00 PM – 4:30 PM

Much of the current funding for roads, transit, and freight comes from fuel taxes; but increasing fuel efficiency of vehicles and the use of alternative energy sources raise questions about the long-term viability of this revenue source. This course will existing transportation finance and examine some of the proposals for alternative financing mechanisms.

Friday Transportation Seminars

Friday Transportation Seminars at PSU are scheduled sporadically throughout the winter, spring and summer terms, and are always open to the public. You can check for 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 to move people and goods safely.

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.

Portland State University graduate Mike McQueen, who earned his masters in civil engineering in 2020 and now works at ICF as a transportation data specialist and engineer, has published an article in the November 2022 issue of Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice.

The article, "Assessing the perception of E-scooters as a practical and equitable first-mile/last-mile solution," is a revised version of McQueen's masters thesis, "Comparing the Promise and Reality of E-Scooters: a Critical Assessment of Equity Improvements and Mode-Shift," which is available for download on PDX Scholar. The article updates the statistical model used to a mixed multinomial (MMNL) regression model, which allows for better control of random variations in taste among respondents, and makes findings about the influence of travel time and cost on mode choice more robust. McQueen presented this research during a poster session at the TRB Conference on Advancing Transportation Equity (CATE) conference in September 2021.

"This research shows that e-scooter systems in their current form are not organically leading to substantial mode shift from automobile travel at a regional scale, nor are they leading to increased gender or racial transportation equity," McQueen said.

E-scooters have disrupted and altered the urban mobility landscape. During their introductory period, they have been commonly touted as part of a larger micromobility solution that erases equity barriers and solves the first-mile/last-mile problem. However, few studies in the nascent e-scooter literature have considered these claims. In this study, McQueen designed and administered a stated choice experiment to 1,968 students at Portland State University. Results indicated that e-scooters were lackluster in bringing racial and gender equity in transportation. A few highlights from the findings:

• There was no place in the study area where combining an e-scooter and light rail to travel to the downtown university campus was more utilitarian than biking or private car at current travel times and prices.
• Black students were 15% less likely than white students to choose e-scooter and light rail instead of car in the stated choice experiment.
• Female students were 59% less likely than male students to choose e-scooter and light rail instead of car in the stated choice experiment.
• Transit travel time was the strongest direct elasticity to changing the e-scooter and light rail choice probability.
• Parking cost was the strongest car mode cross elasticity to changing the e-scooter and light rail choice probability.

"It is important to not leave our transit system behind when incorporating micromobility into a region – in fact, the variable with the largest impact on e-scooter + light rail mode choice preference was the travel time for the light rail portion of the trip. Decreasing travel time led to a significant increase in preference," McQueen said.

He suggests that E-scooter services that incentivize a more targeted use case for replacing automobile travel, such as connecting a suburban area to a light rail station, could be more influential in reducing urban automobile travel to downtown, especially if travel times and prices are competitive. One way to achieve this use case could be price incentives or discounts to encourage this multimodal behavior in specific areas near stations.

During his time at PSU, McQueen worked with TREC Sustainable Transportation Program Manager John MacArthur on a number of micromobility and e-bike studies, including the development of an electric vehicle cost and impact tool and the expansion of e-bike incentive programs. He received various scholarships and awards including two Eisenhower Fellowships, and his work on bike share and first mile/last mile travel behavior led to a YPT national Streetlight graduate fellowship. Now at ICF, Mike is working to make cities more equitable, sustainable and multimodal through data-driven policy and design.

Connect with Mike on LinkedIn.

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.

We are proud to acknowledge Portland State University engineering masters student Cameron Bennett, who has been awarded a Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship for the second year in a row. Bennett, who won his first Eisenhower Fellowship last year, will receive another presented by the U.S. Department of Transportation at this year's annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB). He is also being honored as the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) Masters Student of the Year.

Connect with Cameron on LinkedIn.

During his master's program, Cameron has served two terms as President of the Institute of Transportation Engineers student chapter at Portland State, ITE-STEP (Students in Transportation Engineering and Planning). In 2022, the student group won the ITE Student Chapter Momentum Award. He has also received a National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) scholarship and a 2021 Walter H. Kramer Fellowship.

"I am very grateful to the Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship Program for providing a second year of support while I work towards a Masters degree. The funding has made it possible for my fiancée and myself to live in Portland as full time students, and has provided flexibility on graduate research assistantship project work through tuition support," Cameron said.

In the coming year, Cameron will be working with the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) on evaluating newly-installed Advisory Bike Lanes (ABLs). He will be helping with data evaluation as the Bureau assesses the treatment as part of the FHWA Request to Experiment process, and determines whether ABLs should become part of Portland's standard toolkit for urban bikeway development.

Cameron's primary research focus is on facilitating the use of active transportation, and promoting mode shift away from single-occupancy vehicles. Working with TREC's Sustainable Transportation Program Manager, John MacArthur, he helped to develop an online tool to track e-bike incentive programs in North America. He presented a poster on this work at last year's TRB annual meeting: How E-Bike Incentive Programs Are Used to Expand the Market (PDF). 

At this year's TRB annual meeting, Cameron will be presenting a poster on e-bike incentive programs in Poster Session 3096, Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship Program Poster (Session 2), on Tuesday, January 10. His presentation will include an update of the policy scan, an overview of the white paper content, and a short preview of the findings from a recent stated preference survey aimed at identifying the "tipping point" where an incentive successfully induces someone to buy an ebike. 

The Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship Program advances the transportation workforce by helping to attract the nation's brightest minds to the field of transportation, encouraging future transportation professionals to seek advanced degrees, and helping to retain top talent in the U.S. transportation industry.

See other past PSU recipients of various transportation scholarships on our scholars page.

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.

New mobility technologies, such as shared mobility services and autonomous vehicles (AVs), continue to evolve. How do travelers decide whether to adopt new transportation modes or continue to use conventional modes? "Transportation Mode Choice Behavior in the Era of Autonomous Vehicles: The Application of Discrete Choice Modeling and Machine Learning" is a 2022 dissertation by Sangwan Lee of Portland State University which uses machine learning to examine this question.

Lee, who earned his PhD from the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning in 2022 working with faculty advisor Liming Wang, is now a research associate working in employment research at LX Spatial Information Research Institute, Korea Land and Geospatial Informatix Corporation in Jeonju, South Korea. He is currently working on several research topics, including autonomous logistics.

"I'm excited about the next chapter of my work in employment research because I am joining research projects about autonomous vehicles," Lee said.

Lee's dissertation consists of three papers. The first examines future market shares of each available mode of transportation in the era of AVs, factors influencing mode choice behaviors, and their marginal effects using a mixed logit model (MXL). The second uses interpretable machine learning (ML) to investigate the optimal algorithm (i.e., stochastic gradient boosting decision tree model) in greater depth, including feature importance and non-linear marginal effects. Focusing on methodology, the final paper assesses the limitations of ML when applied to transportation mode choice modeling and suggests future research directions for methodological improvements by comparing ML to discrete choice modeling (DCM).

This research contributes to three major elements of the current understanding of transportation mode choice behavior in the era of AVs and choice modeling as follows:

• First, consumers in the AV era could choose from a variety of transportation modes likely to coexist, including private AVs, shared mobility services, and conventional transportation modes. This dissertation thus makes a significant contribution by examining more comprehensive transportation mode choice behaviors and expanding demand-side discussions.
• Second, since current transportation planning efforts have relied on estimates and expectations, this dissertation contributes to the decision-making process by offering crucial underlying knowledge not currently available.
• Third, this dissertation assesses the limitations of ML for transportation mode choice modeling and suggests potential future avenues for methodological improvement.

Learn more about Sangwan Lee's background and works by visiting his ORCID profile.

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

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.