The 102nd annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) will be held January 8–12, 2023 in Washington, D.C., and ten of Portland State University's core transportation faculty and researchers will be sharing their expertise at the largest transportation conference in the world. The TRB annual meeting attracts thousands of transportation professionals from around the globe to address transportation policy, practice, and plans for the future.

The spotlight theme for the 2023 meeting is Rejuvenation Out of Disruption: Envisioning a Transportation System for a Dynamic Future.

VIEW THE ONLINE GUIDE TO PSU AT TRB 2023

A Few Session Highlights to Watch For:

Monday, Jan 9, 10:15 AM - 12:00 PM, Analyzing the Impacts of Intersection Treatments and Traffic Characteristics on Bicyclist Safety: Development of Data-Driven Guidance on the Application of Bike Boxes, Mixing Zones, and Bicycle Signals – Senior Research Associate Sirisha Kothuri of PSU's Maseeh College of Engineering will present in a lectern session alongside Brendan Russo of Northern Arizona University, Edward Smaglik of Northern Arizona University, and David Hurwitz of Oregon State University.

Kothuri’s primary research interests are in the areas of multimodal traffic operations, bicycle and pedestrian counting, and safety. See more transportation research projects she has worked on at PSU.

Monday, Jan 9, 3:45 PM - 5:30 PM, Driver and Bicyclist Comprehension of Blue Light Detection Confirmation Systems – PSU's Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and civil engineering professor Chris Monsere will present with Sirisha Kothuri in a poster session alongside Douglas Cobb of Burgess & Niple and David Hurwitz and Hisham Jashami of Oregon State University.

Monsere's primary research interests are in design and operation of multimodal transportation facilities including user behavior, comprehension, preferences, and the overall safety effectiveness of transportation improvements. See related research projects.

Tuesday, 10:15 AM - 12:00 PM, Evaluation of Red Colored Pavement Markings for Transit Lanes – Urban Studies & Planning Professor Jennifer Dill, director of TREC and the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), will present in a lectern session along with Chris Monsere and TREC Research Associate Nathan McNeil, who conducts research on impacts of active transportation and transit equity.

PSU researchers are working with the City of Portland and TriMet to improve mobility and transit access under the Enhanced Transit Corridors Plan and Rose Lanes Project. Learn more by watching a May 2022 presentation on this project.

Wednesday, 8:00 AM - 9:45 AM, ​Explore Regional Variation in the Effects of Built Environment on Driving With High Resolution U.S. Nation-Wide Data – Liming Wang, associate professor in the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning, will present in a lectern session on reproducible research in traffic flow theory.

Wang's research takes a data-driven approach to address challenging issues in planning, in particular those intersecting land use and transportation. See more of his transportation research projects.

Wednesday, 8:00 AM - 9:45 AM, Evaluating the Potential of Crowdsourced Data to Estimate Network-Wide Bicycle Volumes – Sirisha Kothuri and Nathan McNeil will present in a lectern session with TREC research associate Joe Broach, who is an instructor in the School of Urban Studies and Planning and a Senior Researcher and Modeler at Metro (MPO), along with Md Mintu Miah, University of California, Berkeley; Kate Hyun and Stephen Mattingly, University of Texas, Arlington; Krista Nordback, UNC Highway Safety Research Center; and Frank Proulx, Frank Proulx Consulting.

Supported by a pooled fund grant administered by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), Sirisha Kothuri led this research project aimed at fusing traditional and emerging data sources together, to derive bicycle volumes for an entire transportation network. Read more about the project or watch the video overview: Data Fusion Techniques to Estimate Network-Wide Bicycle Volumes.

2023 Eisenhower Fellow

[[{"fid":"6160","view_mode":"default","fields":{"format":"default"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"default"}},"attributes":{"height":"214","width":"180","style":"float: left; margin-right: 15px;","class":"media-element file-default","data-delta":"1"}}]]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. 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). Read more about Cameron.

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). This year, 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.

NITC Reception at TRB 2023

The National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) invites partners and members of our research consortium of six NITC universities (Portland State University, University of Oregon, Oregon Institute of Technology, University of Utah, University of Arizona and University of Texas at Arlington) to a reception at the Crown & Crow on Tuesday, January 10 for a night of networking, fun, and transportation bingo. RSVP to the NITC reception!

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 National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) is proud to introduce our newest Dissertation Fellow, Nicholas Puczkowskyj of Portland State University, who was awarded $15,000 for his doctoral research project: Expanding Transmobilities: An Art-Informed Methodology For Genderdiverse Travel Behavior.

"My dissertation focuses on understanding how genderdiverse individuals' gender identity influences their travel behavior and travel decisions. I use an art-based methodology by operationalizing collage and mental maps to delicately capture these data. I believe this work will support mobility justice research and the greater social justice movement by further solidifying the field of transmobilities. Additionally, this research seeks to push the boundaries of transportation research by illustrating the power of art as a modality for travel behavior research," Puczkowskyj said.

There is a significant gendered travel behavior research gap in the transportation literature. A plethora of transportation literature identifying and contrasting cisgender disparities exists, but more inclusive approaches to genderdiverse identities remain scarce. The burgeoning field of transmobilities investigates transgender mobility and evolved from the nexus of mobility justice and gender studies by studying transgender experiences on public transit.

Nick's dissertation expands transmobilities to include all modes of transportation and experiences involving genderdiverse identities. Using subjective wellbeing as a unit of measure, an art-informed methodology gathers firsthand experiences and narratives of genderdiverse participants in an effort to understand how their gender expression influences their travel behavior decisions. During an interview, 25 participants use collage materials to create art and mental maps reflecting on their experiences making trips through Portland, Oregon. This research hypothesizes gender identity and gender presentation significantly influences a genderdiverse person’s subjective wellbeing and travel decisions.

Nick Puczkowskyj is a graduate research and teaching assistant at Portland State University's College of Urban and Public Affairs. He has also worked as a teaching assistant and research assistant at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Nick's research specializes in transportation equity, focusing on mobility justice, transgender mobility, queer mobility, gender disparities, and marginalized communities. He earned his master's degree in community and regional planning from the University of New Orleans. Learn more about Nick in a July 2022 Student Spotlight article, or learn more about NITC dissertation fellowships.

Header Photo by Lacey Friedly

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.

This article is about the 2022 impacts of our IBPI Comprehensive Bikeway Design workshop. See other IBPI trainings, including the faculty workshop "Integrating Bike-Ped Topics Into University Transportation Courses," at our bike/ped training home page.

If you're biking through Cincinnati, Ohio in the next couple of years and find yourself pedaling on a Portland-style neighborhood greenway or two-way protected bike lane, it might be because two engineers from the City of Cincinnati's Department of Transportation & Engineering—Joe Conway and Brian Goubeaux—attended our Comprehensive Bikeway Design Workshop in the summer of 2022 and brought some inspiration home.

The City of Cincinnati is in the process of updating its Bicycle Transportation Plan, adopted in 2010 and due for a refresh. Goubeaux, a senior engineer for the City, said that design strategies and practices he learned during the summer workshop will likely find their way into the plan.

"We've been looking at implementing a neighborhood greenway. We've always had neighborhood greenways as a tool in the toolbox; it's always been listed on paper, but nothing has ever fully been implemented. So now as we're updating our bike plan, over the next six months or so, we're looking to include that as a priority for implementation in future years," Goubeaux said. 

Fellow Cincinnati engineer Joe Conway agrees. "The bike infrastructure solutions we explored during the workshop will certainly be seriously considered as investments to the infrastructure in our city going forward," Conway said. Other ideas that may be a good fit for Cincinnati's bike plan and upcoming infrastructure projects include bicycle signal detection feedback and strategies for converting a one-way bike lane to a two-way bike facility on the same side of a street. 

Offered through the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI) since 2009, the Comprehensive Bikeway Design workshop has taught nearly 300 professionals from 30 U.S. states. Ohio isn't the first state (and won't be the last) to import bikeway design ideas. Another 2022 attendee, transportation engineer Akmal Durrani of the Washington State Department of Transportation, also expects to put some of the designs covered in the course to use.

"We are completing a street design project now, with some modifications to our roadway design to include a path for bike users. Definitely in the near future we will be implementing some things from the workshop," Durrani said.

Senior Transportation Planner Emily Benoit hopes to put some of the design principles she learned this summer into practice for the City of Vancouver, Washington.

"The most valuable thing I learned is that it’s really possible to build great multimodal roads even in the extremely suburban context. The suburban environment is going to be seeing drastic changes in the near future, so some of the things I’ll be looking to address in my own work are around slower shared roads, education on commuting by bike, and collaborative design processes to make the 'safest' design choices for bike users," Benoit said.

Goubeaux, who came away from the workshop "energized and excited," believes that the on-the-ground learning method is key to successful bikeway training.

"This format of doing part in the classroom,  part in the field – where you get to feel and see and ride and experience what you are talking about – I think that is indispensable. You can learn about roadway sections and traffic counts and all that stuff on a presentation or a video, but without actually seeing and experiencing it, I think it's that missing link to actually getting it. I think that experiential piece is absolutely necessary."

Several agencies have sent multiple representatives over the years, to try their wheels in Portland and learn from our instructors. Kendra Nelson of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission,who attended this year, found out about the workshop from colleagues who had attended in previous years.

Nelson, who is currently working on a bicycle and pedestrian plan as well as a signal retiming effort, said that the IBPI workshop "was the perfect segue into the work that we do in our team." She expects to use insights provided by IBPI instructor Peter Koonce, who manages the City of Portland Bureau of Transportation's Signals, Street Lighting, & ITS Division, to advocate for restructuring signal timing around the bike rather than thinking strictly in terms of level-of-service (LOS).

"I think that anybody who's doing any kind of transportation planning, whether you're a bicycle planner, a pedestrian or transit planner, or just doing a lot of planning for single occupancy vehicles: You should be taking this course. I think that it's a necessary perspective shift, and given the state of climate change and inequality, it's just something that we should be looking at more to provide a range of diverse options for folks," Nelson said.

IBPI is a program of the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University. The week-long IBPI workshop draws professionals from all over the globe. Check out our album of photos from the 2022 workshop here. A second IBPI workshop, Integrating Bike-Ped Topics into University Transportation Courses, is aimed at helping university faculty make their transportation curriculum more inclusive of active transportation modes.

Both workshops are taught by experts from local agencies and Portland State University, a national leader in active transportation. Research by PSU transportation faculty has informed NACTO’s Urban Bikeway Design Guide, FHWA’s Bikeway Selection Guide, the FTA’s Manual on Bicycle and Pedestrian Connections to Transit, the FHWA’s Strategic Agenda for Pedestrian and Bicycle Transportation and many other design guidebooks.

If you'd like to be notified when workshop registration opens for 2023, add your email address here and we'll email you as soon as dates are confirmed.

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.

Navigating an unfamiliar place is uniquely challenging for people with disabilities. People with blindness, deafblindness, visual impairment or low vision, as well as those who use wheelchairs, can travel more independently in urban areas with the aid of effective wayfinding technology. A new report from the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) explores how to leverage low-cost methods to enable people to more easily move through public, urban indoor and outdoor spaces.

The study, led by Martin Swobodzinski and Amy Parker of Portland State University, used focus groups, two case studies, and an in-person structured wayfinding experience on the PSU campus to find the most helpful ways of getting around. Tactile maps were found to be a very useful resource, with an accessible mobile app also showing promise as an orientation and mobility aid.

The researcher will share more details about this project in a free webinar on December 15: Individual Wayfinding in the Context of Visual Impairment, Blindness, and Deafblindness.

WHY IS THIS RESEARCH IMPORTANT?

Environments and wayfinding tools that support safe, confident mobility have been linked with improved employment outcomes, more access to higher education, and better quality of life. The results from this study improve our understanding of how people with visual impairment and blindness find their way through the world. Researchers are hopeful that the insights from the study will support the development of standards and innovation in mobile wayfinding as it relates to the integration of indoor and outdoor wayfinding, and routing for visually impaired, blind, and deafblind pedestrian travelers.

Despite the proliferation of wayfinding apps that are meant to benefit travelers, the effectiveness of such tools remains limited. This study gave voice to the experience of diverse travelers who use wayfinding technologies to accomplish important life tasks. In addition to the findings discussed below, researchers hope the analysis of the remaining data will drive forward a better understanding of the information needs of visually impaired, blind, and deafblind pedestrian travelers.

RESEARCH METHODS

The project sought answers to three questions:

• What are the preference structures, information needs, and expectations of individuals with visual-impairment, blindness, and deafblindness towards wayfinding in public indoor/outdoor spaces?
• How can low-cost wayfinding technology (e.g., digital maps, spatial data, personal telecommunication devices, and low-energy beacons) be leveraged best to allow for the seamless wayfinding of pedestrian travelers with functional disabilities in public urban indoor/outdoor spaces?
• Which wayfinding technologies, data products, and technology platforms afford a sustainable, scalable deployment in a large academic institution?

College campuses are notoriously complex to navigate, particularly for travelers with visual impairments. One of the key barriers for culturally and linguistically diverse people in accessing higher education is seeing themselves as full members of a college campus community. As a public university situated in the heart of downtown Portland, the PSU campus was an ideal setting for this experiment as it affords realistic wayfinding scenarios and mobility challenges in a public urban environment. In addition, PSU’s commitment to community service, equity, and inclusivity align with the project's goals of promoting community participation and access.

The researchers began with a review of the existing literature on the topic: Wayfinding tools for people with visual impairments in real-world settings: A literature review of recent studies.

TWO CASE STUDIES

The team conducted an initial pilot case study with a single participant, an adult who is deafblind. Complete findings from that case study were published in Frontiers in Education: Seamless wayfinding by a deafblind adult on an urban college campus: A case study on wayfinding performance, information preferences, and technology requirements. The participant completed three routes on the PSU campus using either a mobile app, verbal directions, or a tactile map. For this participant, confidence and wayfinding performance were lowest for the mobile app, while the tactile map afforded the highest wayfinding performance, confidence and satisfaction, and the fastest completion time.

A second case study involved a traveler with combined vision and hearing loss, who also had professional experience as an O&M specialist serving those with visual impairments across multiple states. This participant’s occupational and personal experiences were helpful to the research team in further refining their testing protocol. The original goal of the project had been to compare three methods of wayfinding assistance: tactile maps, verbal directions, and "GoodMaps," an accessible navigation app for iPhone and Android. In accordance with the insights from this participant, the researchers eliminated verbal directions from the next phase of the experiment.

WAYFINDING EXPERIMENT

In a larger experiment, participants were invited to partake in a series of wayfinding tasks, navigating three short routes on campus with both indoor and outdoor elements. Accompanied by an experimenter with professional experience in Orientation and Mobility, participants were asked to travel two different routes while using one of two possible wayfinding supports: a tactile map for one route, and the GoodMaps mobile app for the other.

A total of 28 people participated in the main data collection phase of the study and completed the experiment: 21 adolescents (between the ages of 14 and 18) and seven adults. Participants included people of color, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and people with varying levels of visual impairments. The immediate next step for the research team is consolidating individual-level data for each of the 28 participants, and coding and assessing their observed wayfinding behavior and performance. While data analysis is still in progress for the 28 participants, early findings from the two case studies indicate that the tactile map afforded the most effective wayfinding support.

FOCUS GROUPS

The research team conducted two focus groups, one with eight blind or visually impaired adults who did not have any hearing loss, and another with nine deafblind participants who use Tactile American Sign Language or close-range visual American Sign Language. Collective themes from the two focus groups included both the hope and promise of wayfinding apps for offering greater environmental literacy during real-world travel, and the limitations of using such apps.

Both groups expressed the need for apps to be designed in collaboration with travelers with visual impairments, because of the apps’ unique limitations in dynamic travel conditions. A specific theme that emerged amongst visually impaired travelers was that they have to use multiple apps to complete a single route, because each app is useful for a subset of wayfinding tasks.

Further description of the findings from the focus group with deafblind participants is provided in the open-access Frontiers in Education article: The use of wayfinding apps by deafblind travelers in an urban environment: Insights from focus groups.

COLLABORATION ACROSS DISCIPLINES

This study is a product of several innovative partnerships. The lead researcher on the project, Martin Swobodzinski, is an associate professor of geography at PSU specializing in human wayfinding, spatial knowledge acquisition, accessibility, and human-computer interaction. In 2017 he and Amy Parker of PSU's Special Education Department began this work by collaborating on a NITC Small Starts project: Electronic Wayfinding for Visually Impaired Travelers: Limitations and Opportunities. The current project expands upon that research.

Parker is the coordinator of PSU's Orientation and Mobility Program, a program for preparing orientation and mobility (O&M) specialists which launched in 2017. The program has spearheaded several initiatives including interactive O&M workshops in partnership with TriMet and a new conference in Portland, the Mobility Matters Summit, held for its fifth year in 2022.  

The collaborative research team included Swobodzinski, Parker, and graduate students in Geography and Special Education, as well as Elizabeth Schaller and Denise Snow of the American Printing House for the Blind. GoodMaps, the mobile wayfinding app used in the study, was created by the American Printing House for the Blind. GoodMaps engaged with developers at Intel to refine the accuracy of spatial information.

In May 2021, the GoodMaps team began scanning PSU's Smith Memorial Student Union onsite using Lidar equipment. In November of that year, GoodMaps collaborated with PSU's Disability Resource Center to host interested students and staff with visual impairments to informally evaluate the technology installation within SMSU. In December 2021, the refined version of the GoodMaps installation was ready for research participants to evaluate.

The Digital City Testbed Center (DCTC) at Portland State University works towards establishing a network of campuses in the Pacific Northwest where smart city technologies can be tested before being deployed in communities at large. DCTC’s support of this project allowed the hiring of a graduate research assistant, Julie Wright, who contributed to the achievement of project milestones and the creation of project deliverables.

This research was funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities, with additional support from Portland State University, the PSU Digital City Testbed Center, and the American Printing House for the Blind.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Pedestrian Wayfinding Under Consideration of Visual Impairment, Blindness, and Deafblindness: A Mixed-Method Investigation Into Individual Experiences and Supporting Elements

Martin Swobodzinski and Amy Parker, Portland State University

• Download the Final Report (PDF)
• Download the Project Brief (PDF)
• Register for the Dec 15 Webinar: Wayfinding by Individuals with Functional Disability in Indoor and Outdoor Spaces

RELATED RESEARCH

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

• A Comprehensive Examination of Electronic Wayfinding Technology for Visually Impaired Travelers in an Urban Environment
• Developing Strategies To Enhance Mobility And Accessibility For Community-Dwelling Older Adults
• The Role of Bus Stop Features in Facilitating Accessibility

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.

Researchers Ivis Garcia, Sadika Maheruma Khan, and Kevin Fagundo-Ojeda of the University of Utah with Miriam Abelson and Nicholas Puczkowskyj of Portland State University have published a new article in the November 2022 issue of Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment.

Scholarship on gendered mobilities has shown that women experience transit differently than men do, particularly regarding personal safety. The article, "Harassment of low-income women on transit: A photovoice project in Oregon and Utah," makes a unique contribution to this body of literature because it shows that women feel targeted also based on their racial or ethnic identity and not only their gender. The article discusses women’s actions every day to increase their sense of safety.

Research has shown that low-income women who are transit-dependent experience unique disadvantages while riding, waiting, or trying to access public transit. In response to harassment, women might increase car dependency, which has negative environmental and public health impacts.

Given the importance of women feeling safe when using public transit to quality of life, public health, and ecological and economic sustainability, this research has implications for the planning and administration of public transit systems. Highlights from the findings include:

• Past policies like redlining result in unsafe spaces today.
• Truly safe spaces must account for experiences of low-income women of color.
• The research participants suggest some societal and transit agency changes to improve safety, including police, monitors next to businesses, additional lighting and safety booths with phones at light rail stops.

The paper is based on the in-progress project Marginalized Populations’ Access to Transit: Journeys from Home and Work to Transit, led by Marisa Zapata of Portland State University and funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC). The research employs a photovoice methodology which includes in-depth interviews and phone texting with 22 low-income women of color who ride transit at least a few times a month in Oregon and Utah.

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.

Students at Hood River Middle School in Hood River, Oregon, will get some hands-on transportation experience next spring as they participate in the redesign of bike and pedestrian infrastructure around their school. Members of the (tentatively named) "Better Blocks Club," a new after-school extracurricular club, will get the chance to observe infrastructure, go on field trips by bike, learn urban planning best practices, and be involved in implementing a pilot safety project.

They'll be helping to plan and install new pop-up pedestrian and bike facilities at the intersection of May Street and 17th/18th Streets, a dogleg intersection adjacent to their school. The intersection design, which will include a protected intersection near the school and pop-up mobility lanes on the approaching streets, was created by PSU civil engineering students as part of the Better Block PSU program.

After the 6-month pilot demonstration is complete, the project will undergo community feedback and design modifications before infrastructure is permanently installed by the City of Hood River.

Left: Intersection of 17th/May St (Google Street View, 2022). Right: Map of the project location.

HOW DID THIS PROJECT COME ABOUT?

The project is led by Megan Ramey, Hood River County School District's Safe Routes to School Manager and founder of a bike tourism site, Bikabout, which encourages families and new riders to wander by bike in North America. In 2020 Ramey, then a parent of a 4th grader at May Street Elementary, organized a Bike Parade for National Walk & Roll to School Day. Inspired by the pandemic, an everyday Bike Train (a variation of the Walking School Bus) began as a permanent feature in March 2021 when the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) granted funding to support the bike train and add a walking bus.

• Related: A similar bike bus made headlines this year in Portland, led by Alameda Elementary School PE teacher Sam Balto. Balto has been involved with Better Block PSU before too, heading up a Safer Route to the César Chávez School project in 2021. Ramey said of Balto: "We're rousers, partners in crime, and it's so wonderful because we're showing what can be done, both in a rural setting and a city setting, for bike train and bike bus; and hopefully inspiring a bunch of people around the country to do it."

The Bike Train was a catalyst for this project. Aware of the need for safety improvements at the intersection in front of the middle school, where her daughter is now a student, Ramey submitted a proposal to Better Block PSU, a partnership program between the volunteer-led group Better Block PDX and Portland State University. The project was selected to move forward, with PSU transportation students working to provide design and consulting services for the safety improvements.

"There's a couple of things that this project is doing. One is engaging the actual users of the design before it goes in the ground – So, the students. And second, it's engaging young people from the very beginning of a project, which is rarely ever done," Ramey said.

In the spring of 2022, PSU students Ashley Arries, Atiporn Huayhongtong, Ahmad Alateeqi, Ali AlQaatri, and Reem Almoumen prepared five design alternatives for Hood River Middle School Gateway bike/ped improvements at the May/17th/18th street intersection. The project analysis and creation of alternative facility designs were part of their coursework for Project Management and Design, a Civil & Environmental Engineering capstone course. May Street currently has no stop sign on the eastbound approach to the school, and the existing bike lane ends right before reaching the school. In front of the middle school is a high-use crosswalk with low visibility and no curb ramp. In fact, many pedestrian approaches to the middle school are lacking curb ramps. The design options provided by the students aim to improve bicycle and pedestrian safety and accessibility in what is currently a high-risk area for students.

The six-month pilot demonstration is supported by an ODOT Safety Grant. With the relatively inexpensive popup project, "we're bridging the gap between no infrastructure and one million dollar infrastructure," Ramey said.

STUDENT-LED DEMONSTRATION PROJECTS BRING SAFE ROUTES TO LIFE

The momentum and enthusiasm for active transportation safety in Hood River continues to build. Ramey gave a presentation about this project to a meeting of the Transportation Options Group of Oregon (TOGO) on Friday, September 30. Watch a recording of that presentation (starts at 59:30, passcode is w!m^B#&1 to access the Zoom), or view the presentation slides.

In addition to funding the bike train and walking bus, ODOT is also supporting a "safety rodeo" to add walking and biking curriculum to physical education classes, and a "Free Bikes 4 Kids" program, a partnership with Anson’s Bike Buddies where people can donate used bikes to be refurbished and provided to underserved children and their parents (around 100 bikes have been donated so far). In March and May of 2022, Ramey led safety rodeos at May Street and Mid Valley Elementary Schools, where "about sixty kids learned how to ride bikes from scratch."

The new pop-up project will be built in June or July of 2023, and the Better Blocks Club will be on the scene. Members of Hood River Middle School's new Better Blocks Club will be actively involved in the planning process for the intersection redesign, helping to brainstorm creative, low-cost materials and ways to implement the design. 

"Students will be installing it alongside the fire department, the police department, and the city public works department all together, and then it will be in the ground for five or six months. The students will take before-and-after travel counts and observe the behavior of both their peers and the local residents that are using it," Ramey said.

At the end of the year, members of the Better Blocks Club (or whatever the students end up naming it – Ramey wants them to have ownership of the club and their mission) will have the opportunity to become certified in responsible bicycling behavior. Tentatively called the bike ethics & safety certification, this certificate will be the first of its kind in the U.S., modeled after bike safety education programs in the Netherlands for 11 to 12 year olds.

Future goals, for Ramey, include launching an "E-biker’s Ed" class for high school students in Hood River. (Read "Dawn of the 'Throttle Kids'", a BikePortland article written by Megan Ramey in July 2022.)

In a 2018 Safe Routes to School survey, just 14% of middle school parents said they would let their kids walk or bike to school, despite saying they strongly support safe walking or biking access to school.

In May 2022, the Hood River City Council officially adopted a Safe Routes to School Plan.

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.

Researchers Jennifer Dill, Jiahui Ma, Nathan McNeil, Joseph Broach and John MacArthur of Portland State University have published a new article in the November 2022 issue of Transportation Part D: Transport and Environment. The open-access article, "Factors influencing bike share among underserved populations: Evidence from three U.S. cities," examines bike share use and interest among lower-income residents and people of color in New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia.

There is evidence that lower-income and people of color (POC) in the U.S. do not use bike share as much as higher-income and white people. Using data from residents living near bike share stations in New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, the paper examines reasons for these disparities. Researchers looked at many factors that might explain bike share use and interest in lower-income, racially diverse, traditionally underserved neighborhoods. They focused on residents who live near bike share stations, so that proximity would not be a barrier.

A few key findings:

1. People who are not members, but are interested in using bike share, including POC, are motivated to use bike share for fun, recreation, and social reasons (as opposed to utility).
2. Knowledge of bike share and receiving information from interactive sources (for example, bike share ambassadors) are associated with bike share use.
3. Cost is a barrier for people who are interested in using bike share, but are not members. Discounted memberships are one solution, but survey results indicate that many people do know know about them.

Some reasons for not using bike share among people of color and lower-income people may also be related to reasons for not bicycling, generally. These include concerns about traffic safety as well as personal safety.

Some of the barriers to bike share reported by low-income respondents of color in a 2017 survey

This paper is an analysis of data collected in a "Breaking Barriers to Bike Share" project funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) and the Better Bike Share Partnership (BBSP). Read more about the original study and explore some of the products to come out of this research, including a set of ten bike share equity briefs to help operators establish equity programs based on what's been shown to work.

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.

When the COVID-19 pandemic first swept across North America and led to emergency shutdowns during the spring of 2020, the way people acquired food and household necessities was dramatically impacted. As stay-at-home orders minimized personal travel, transit services were reduced and many stores and restaurants either closed or modified their operations. 

Some of the gaps were filled by online retailers and delivery services. However, access to goods and services varied substantially depending on people's age, income level, and ability.

A new multi-university study funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the U.S. DOT-funded university transportation headquartered at Portland State University, and the National Science Foundation (NSF) captured how households responded as local, state, and federal governments imposed and lifted restrictions, brick-and-mortar establishments closed and reopened, and e-commerce and delivery services adjusted to the changing conditions.

The findings of this research are critical for emergency planning, but also for understanding the ever-changing mechanisms used to access retail and service opportunities (whether in person or online). The research identifies opportunities for future interventions to remedy barriers to accessing food, which will remain relevant even after the pandemic recovery.

THE RESEARCH

The project was led by Kelly Clifton of Portland State University (now a professor at the University of British Columbia's School of Community and Regional Planning), Kristina Currans of the University of Arizona, and Amanda Howell and Rebecca Lewis of the University of Oregon. The research team also included Paula Carder, director of PSU's Institute on Aging, and graduate students Max Nonnamaker and Gabriella Abou-Zeid. Nonnamaker used information from the focus groups to complete his masters degree in public health. Abou-Zeid, now a transportation data specialist at ICF, wrote her master's thesis on the adoption and use of e-grocery shopping in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which she presented at TRB 2022. Learn more: PSU Graduate Gabby Abou-Zeid Explores Implications of E-Grocery Shopping during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The researchers used a mixed-methods approach to evaluate the extent to which people modified their shopping behavior during the COVID-19 crisis and following recovery. They administered four waves of cross-sectional online surveys to households in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Oregon, and Washington, from September 2020 through November 2021. These surveys were designed to understand: 

• How have people accessed essential goods during the pandemic crisis and recovery periods?
• What barriers have certain subgroups faced in accessing essential goods?
• And to what extent do/can online platforms help meet demand?

The four waves of surveys in five states produced a unique and rich dataset documenting the grocery shopping behaviors, preferences, and attitudes of consumers during important phases of the pandemic, including: the initial economic reopening in 2020; the loosening and tightening of restrictions through fall and winter of 2020; the emergence of the vaccine in January 2021; and the surge of cases associated with the Delta variant in summer and fall of 2021. Data from the surveys have been made publicly available for future use by researchers. Access the dataset here: Data from "Consumer Responses to Household Provisioning During COVID-19 Crisis" and "Recovery and Accessing Opportunities for Household Provisioning Post-COVID-19.

To complement the survey data, the researchers conducted interviews and focus groups with a subset of the population—older adults, and friends and family members who had helped them order online—to learn how they adjusted to the conditions of COVID19 in their grocery shopping. Researchers chose to focus on older adults because they are more likely to experience mobility barriers, COVID vulnerabilities, and lack of digital resources or knowledge.

KEY FINDINGS

Findings indicate that in-store food shopping is a mainstay for household provisioning and will likely remain so into the future. Yet, during the pandemic, many households experimented with online shopping and reported a high level of satisfaction with it. Even as people returned to stores, online shopping did not drop off and instead showed a gradual increase over the four waves of the survey. Survey respondents predicted that they will continue to use online shopping at the same or higher rate in the future.

Shoppers mainly drove to retailers to acquire food, but there were changes in mode shares over the course of the pandemic. Walking, cycling, transit, and ridehailing all saw increases in usage over the four waves of the survey.

The biggest limitations to the future growth of e-commerce in the food sector are the inability to inspect items for quality, and delivery fees. While some barriers to online grocery shopping persist, it is clear that it can and does fill important gaps for people. It is a valued option in situations where people have mobility limitations, are quarantining or are sick with COVID, facing time pressures, or stores are not easily accessible.

When asked about barriers to food access, more people cited mobility barriers—such as not owning a vehicle or having a mobility-limiting condition—than technological ones, such as access to smartphones or broadband internet. The focus groups with older adults provided more context. Most respondents rated their digital acumen as high, and they were mostly confident in their technology skills. Being on fixed incomes, their desire to minimize costs, utilize coupons, and shop sales reinforced their preferences for in-store shopping.

"Online ordering can help overcome mobility barriers. However, both our quantitative and qualitative data results point to the idea that many people still want to be able to inspect food items for quality and freshness, and this isn’t something that is going to be easily solved by technology. I think this points to the continued importance of making sure we’re filling mobility gaps and using all the tools available in the practitioner toolbox to incentivize local stores in every neighborhood. These don’t have to be large grocers, but just places that offer a variety of fresh foods which can supplement the dry/bulk items and other household items that people are more comfortable ordering online. No doubt this is easier said than done, but I think it’s important to always come back to this idea that technology is a tool but not a solution unto itself," said Howell.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTITIONERS

These results have implications for planning for food access into the future, including widespread emergency events such as the pandemic, as well as changes in circumstances that individuals may experience.

"Practitioners—whether they work in public, private, or advocacy institutions—require evidence and data to both identify opportunities to tailor their services to those most in need and to support funding requests that enable them to provide new or different services. One of the biggest contributions of this work is the data itself, capturing behavior across a multitude of built and social environments over the course of one year," said Currans.

Understanding the impacts of the pandemic on food access and the adoption and use of e-commerce platforms has benefits to transportation planners and urban planners (the results can likely inform the provision of parking, land use, road capacity, and internet connectivity), as well as public health professionals. The popularity of ordering online but picking up in-store indicates that people value the time savings but do not want to pay delivery fees. Should this increase in the future, the amount of parking needed at these stores may be reduced, as there may be shorter dwell times and higher turnover.

The research offers insights about who lacks access to food resources, who is adopting technology, how new behaviors intersect with old ones, and the potential "stickiness" of these behaviors as we recover from the pandemic.

This research was funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities and the National Science Foundation, with additional support from  Portland State University, the University of Arizona, and the University of Oregon.

ABOUT THE PROJECT 

Accessing Opportunities for Household Provisioning Post-COVID-19

Kelly Clifton, Portland State University; Kristina Currans, University of Arizona; Amanda Howell, University of Oregon

• Download the Final Report (PDF)
• Download the Project Brief (PDF)
• Access the Public Dataset: Data from "Consumer Responses to Household Provisioning During COVID-19 Crisis" and "Recovery and Accessing Opportunities for Household Provisioning Post-COVID-19.

RELATED RESEARCH

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

• The Impact of Ride Hail Services on the Accessibility of Nonprofit Services
• Emerging Technologies and Cities: Assessing the Impacts of New Mobility on Cities
• Life-Space Mobility and Aging in Place

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.

Travel time reliability – or the consistency and dependability of travel times from day to day, and at different times of day – is a key metric that significantly affects people’s travel behavior. Since businesses rely heavily on transportation systems, an unreliable transportation network can also impact the economic competitiveness of urban areas. As such, reliable travel times are important for transportation agencies to promote economic stability within a community. Having accurate methods to evaluate reliability is important for both transportation practitioners and researchers.

A new report from Portland State University offers an improved method for determining the confidence interval of travel time reliability metrics. Researchers Avinash Unnikrishnan, Subhash Kochar and Miguel Figliozzi of PSU’s Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science used a highway corridor in Portland, Oregon as a case study to evaluate their method, and found that it compared favorably with other methods of evaluating the confidence interval of travel time reliability metrics.

"Traffic engineers can apply this method to come up with a range of estimates for the unknown true travel time reliability metric. The travel time reliability metrics calculated by traffic engineers and transportation planners will have variability due to factors such as road and mode type. The methods proposed in this research can be used to make inferences on travel time reliability metrics which accounts for this variability. Traffic engineers can apply the methods to attach statistical guarantees to the travel time reliability metrics," Unnikrishnan said.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

This research is timely because the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent changes in traffic levels have highlighted the need to quickly compare and better understand the behavior of most commonly used traffic reliability measures.

One challenge for the research team: there is a general lack of consensus on the population distribution of travel times. Depending on the study and the context, a wide variety of distributions have been found to be appropriate. To overcome this difficulty, the researchers developed confidence interval procedures that are general because they are independent of the type of travel time distributions, and can work for a wide range of distribution shapes. This makes the evaluation method more flexible and able to be applied in different situations.

The methods they developed can be used to arrive at practical estimates of changes in traffic, which can help transportation agencies maintain consistent travel times across a roadway network. The outcomes of this project can also help transportation researchers to test other travel time reliability measures, and conduct before-and-after travel time reliability evaluation studies with improved accuracy.

PORTLAND, OREGON CASE STUDY

Next, researchers applied these approaches to a real-world case study. The data for the case study came from the Portland, OR metropolitan region and was originally collected and analyzed as part of an earlier NITC project, Understanding Factors Affecting Arterial Reliability Performance Metrics. In that project, Unnikrishnan worked with PSU civil engineering researchers Sirisha Kothuri and Jason Anderson to understand the temporal variation in travel time reliability metrics on three major arterials in Washington County. 

Map of the study corridor; a stretch of Tualatin-Sherwood road from OR 99W to SW Nyberg Street.

Using the data from one of those three arterials—Tualatin-Sherwood Road from OR 99W to SW Nyberg Street—the research team of the current study estimated confidence intervals for three different travel time reliability metrics: buffer index, modified buffer index, and the relative width of travel time distributions. 

Where a travel time index is the average additional time required during peak times as compared to times of light traffic, the buffer index represents the additional time that is necessary above the average peak travel time. In this project, researchers considered two forms of buffer index. First, the ratio of 95th percentile travel time to sample average travel time minus one. The modified buffer index refers to the ratio of 95th percentile travel time to median travel time minus one. 

The relative width of travel time distributions is defined as the ratio of the range of travel times in which 80% of the observations around the median fall into the median travel time. In another NITC project focused on buses, PSU researchers Travis Glick and Miguel Figliozzi used a similar metric for understanding transit reliability using speed data. 

The research team compared their new methods against several existing methods and found that they worked well: Numerical tests showed a positive performance and high statistical power for analyzing the available travel time data. More details about the process can be found in the final report.

Photo courtesy of Google Streetview

This research was funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities, with additional support from the Oregon Department of Transportation.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Statistical Inference for Multimodal Travel Time Reliability

Avinash Unnikrishnan, Miguel Andres Figliozzi and Subhash Kochar; Portland State University

• Download the Final Report (PDF)
• Download the Project Brief (PDF)
• Access the Dataset

RELATED RESEARCH

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

• Understanding Factors Affecting Arterial Reliability Performance Metrics
• Data-Driven Mobility Strategies for Multimodal Transportation
• Using High-Resolution Bus Detection Data to Improve Travel Time Prediction and Identify Urban Congestion Spots

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.

A group of nine transportation students traveled to Denmark and Sweden this past summer, to meet with planners and engineers and get a feel for on-the-ground transportation in Copenhagen and Stockholm. They explored the area by rail, foot, bike and boat, in between presentations and tours led by professionals. 

Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC)'s associate director, Hau Hagedorn, and sustainable transportation program manager, John MacArthur, led the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI) Study Abroad program. See photos from the trip.

In past years they've traveled to the Netherlands to experience the Dutch approach to cycling infrastructure and multimodal travel. This year, they decided to expand the mission. Copenhagen, like Amserdam, is sometimes referred to as the cycling capital of the world. Stockholm, along with some of the world's most progressive congestion mitigation policies, also boasts a robust multimodal public transportation system that includes ferries. 

Why host a study abroad program on sustainable transportation? Seeing infrastructure up close and personal, using it, is much more impactful than studying it any other way.

"One thing that we really pushed this year was that the time in-country was about experiencing the place, riding the roads, using the system, watching people on the system and talking with experts. The streets were our classroom," MacArthur said.

Some of the trip's highlights included: 

• A presentation and meeting with Lars Ekman, senior advisor of traffic safety at the Swedish Transport Administration. He spoke to the group about Vision Zero, which was pioneered in Sweden.
• A bike ride led by Henrik Söderström and Theo Bratt, with Stockholms Stad (City of Stockholm);
• A presentation on public transit by Mattias Lundberg of the City of Stockholm Transport Department;
• The Traffic Garden (Trafiklegepladsen), a playground financed by the city of Copenhagen to educate kids and adults on real-world traffic navigation;
• The Park 'n' Play, a parking garage with a playground on top, located in one of Copenhagen’s newly redeveloped boroughs, Nordhavn, which the group heard more about from architect Charlotte Algren;
• A guided bike tour to the Norrebro section of Copenhagen with Tina Saaby, a former sustainability architect with the City of Copenhagen;
• The Amager Resource Center (ARC), a power plant that generates energy for much of Copenhagen using recycled waste;
• A presentation from the manager of transportation planning and the cordon pricing policy for the City of Stockholm, followed by a trip to see the electric autonomous shuttle buses currently being tested in the suburb of Barkarbystaden;
• The Stockholm Transport Museum and the Vasa Museum, with its preserved 17th century sunken ship;
• A bike infrastructure and Levande “pedestrian streets” tour of Stockholm with city planners. 

"Lars Ekman, senior advisor of traffic safety at Swedish Transport Administration, talked to us about Vision Zero. He showed us intersection renovations that reduce fatal accidents. It’s all about reducing speed and impact, so that crashes aren’t fatal," said PSU student Tanja Olson.

The group also toured Copenhagen's canals by boat, explored urban art installations and green spaces, and visited Stockholm's Royal Palace and Seaport and the Stockholm Transport Museum. Speaking with the planners and engineers that made those areas possible offered unique perspectives.

"Because they have limited road space, they have to think differently and creatively. In Sweden, they put snow-melting conduits in their sidewalks. A student went out on a walk and took a picture of the conduits in the road. We were all blown away! It's all framed under the larger umbrella of sustainability and climate change," Hagedorn said.

In addition to guided tours, students got to test out the transportation system by roaming around on their own. On their final day in Copenhagen, MacArthur sent the students on a scavenger hunt to find various transportation easter eggs: a child riding alone, unique transportation features from a neighborhood, or a tiny pedal-powered coffee cart. Among other things, they found many urban-dwelling trolls, all made using recycled and sustainable materials by artist Thomas Dambo. 

The study abroad program, administered through IBPI, was supported in part by a grant from the Scan Design Foundation, which made it possible to offer scholarships to underrepresented students.

"Learning from others, experiencing other places and experimenting with new ideas are the foundation of the transportation profession. I often hear, we can't be like Copenhagen or the Netherlands in terms of cycling. Well, when you go there you see that the cities in Europe are in many ways like US cities – people, streets, buildings. You find out that these cities didn't always have high cycling rates but with the right will, policies, and some good design they created interesting and vibrant communities," MacArthur said.

The program is open to students from any university, not just PSU. This year's cohort consisted of five PSU students, two from Oregon Tech, one from the University of Arizona and one from San Jose State. University of Arizona Master of Science in Urban Planning student Zsalina Allen's participation was highlighted recently in UA news. The students came from both planning and engineering backgrounds. One PSU participant, Phil Armand, is also an engineering associate at the Portland Bureau of Transportation. 

"I wanted to see Scandinavia’s multimodal sustainable infrastructure in action, to increase my knowledge so I can improve transportation design in my work as an engineer. ... What I found was a biking paradise in Copenhagen and a pedestrian's dream in Stockholm. From biking to and from the suburbs to five-minute cities; a train every three minutes to e-bike share; a power station run off of recycling, and so many ways to be sustainable. I found that the public transportation system was accessible to all, sustainable, and reliable," Armand said.

Accessible transportation is a primary factor contributing to the quality of life enjoyed by western Europeans, according to Cameron Bennett, PSU engineering masters student.

"As I have become more aware of the societal and cultural factors supporting a high quality of life, I have realized that an effectively-managed land use and transportation system is a major reason why life seems so good in Western Europe," Bennett said. 

Caroline Schulze, a civil engineering student at Oregon Tech, agrees that a multimodal transportation system improves city life: "By focusing on the humans instead of the cars, transportation will have to work for people instead of around them," Schulze said.

The two-week study abroad, from June 18–July 2, 2022, was an extension of a spring course, Sustainable Transportation in Copenhagen & Stockholm, available as part of the civil engineering as well as urban studies & planning course catalogs. Interested in potentially studying abroad in 2023? Sign up here to be notified about future study abroad opportunities.

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.