Offered through our long-standing program, the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), we convene Portland's leading experts to teach multi-day workshops for active transportation professionals looking to hit the ground running (or cycling!) as they design multimodal options in their communities.
Hosted since 2009, our professional bicycle and pedestrian workshops have trained nearly 800 professionals from the United States, Canada, and abroad. This map offers a snapshot of our impact to date:
Our experiential learning opportunities serve as a valuable source of knowledge, connections, and inspiration to each cohort. Want to be notified when we announce the next trainings? Fill out this interest form.
Student Study Abroad: Sustainable Transportation
This two-week Portland State University course (5 credits CE 495 / 595) offers an immersive experience to explore international approaches to cycling, transit, innovative mobility and land use. The curriculum provides a comparison between U.S. and European problems, priorities, and solutions. Specific emphasis on planning and engineering principles, policy, and practice will be explored through field trips, tours and guest lectures, while visiting The Netherlands, Sweden, or Denmark. Students completing this course will develop a broader understanding of sustainable transportation issues and expand their toolkit for context-sensitive solutions. We’ll examine how the urban areas and transportation systems of these countries have been designed to promote transportation by foot, bicycle, and public transit. Learn more about the annual study abroad.
Integrating Bike-Ped Topics into University Transportation Courses (for Faculty)
Hosted every summer since 2012, this two-day course is designed to help transportation planning and engineering faculty integrate bicycle and pedestrian topics into their courses. We focus on a holistic approach to teaching transportation engineering and planning by integrating design for bicycles and pedestrians. You'll gain an understanding of state-of-the art practice as well obtain learning materials and resources to broaden your curriculum and course design. Learn more about the annual Integrating Bike-Ped Topics into University Transportation Courses workshop.
Comprehensive Bikeway Design
As Portland, Oregon has put bikeway plans into effect, we’ve learned what works and what doesn’t—how to plan effectively, design correctly and make investments that get results. We’ve distilled those lessons into this course, which covers the fundamentals of bikeway design and planning through an intensive week of interactive classroom, field tours, and design exercises. Instructors draw from their years of experience, along with project examples, to highlight practical applications of the principles and techniques covered. The pioneers and leading practitioners in the field will teach the fundamentals of bikeway planning and design through an intensive week of classroom sessions and tours. The instruction and interaction with other participants will bring you up to speed on innovative practice and research and teach you the skills and techniques you need to get started on your next project. Learn more about the annual Comprehensive Bikeway Design Workshop.
Creating Effective Active Transportation Programs
This three-day workshop offers strategies for building and strengthening communities around increased walking and bicycling. You'll learn and experience firsthand the design of various, successful active transportation programs that incorporate these strategies. We kick it off with city staff on a behind-the-scenes learning tour of Portland's Sunday Parkways, the city's premiere Open Streets initiative that attracts over 80,000 participants annually. The subsequent days will delve into other transportation demand management and transportation options programs that play a key role in helping more people to bike, walk, and use transit. This course offers insights and strategies to make the case for policymakers, inspire communities, and build a movement toward healthier, more active cities. Learn more about the Creating Effective Active Transportation Programs workshop.
Anna is a low-vision parent, nondriver and author of 
Ray Delahanty is the creator behind 
Author of Roadways for People: Rethinking Transportation Planning and Engineering, Lynn Peterson’s career has led her on a journey from building projects to building communities that work for everyone. Lynn’s 30-year-plus transportation career has covered an impressive range of experience. From building and designing roads to serving as an elected and appointed official in both Oregon and Washington, respectively, she has worked on policy and implementation of transportation projects and trained State DOTs on forward-thinking transportation planning processes. Nationally recognized as a transportation and land use integration expert, she understands the pitfalls of being a White urban woman working with communities that are culturally and racially different from her own. She also recognizes that in order to do her best work, she must always strive to keep an open heart and mind in order to understand the perspectives of individuals in her communities.
Elise Roy is a deaf human centered designer, former lawyer, and motivational speaker who works in the vanguard of the disruptive innovation movement. She is a passionate proponent of the notion that when we design for disability, we often develop solutions that are better than when we design for the norm. A highly skilled public speaker, she has given talks at Microsoft, the U.S. Institute for Peace, the United Nations, and the World Bank. Her TEDx talk, "When we Design for Disability, We All Benefit," has over 1.2 million views. Elise’s deafness has always given her a heightened awareness of how profoundly design shapes the social, emotional and physical environment and this led her to study human-centered design in Maryland Institute College of Art’s (MICA) Social Design program. She completed a master’s degree with a thesis that investigated the barriers that exist for individuals with hearing loss in the fabrication technology and design realm. In 2016 Elise founded Elise Roy & Associates, a social enterprise that helps organizations analyze problems from the vantage point of people with disabilities to disrupt markets and industries. The organization is founded on the notion that when we design for extremes we come up with better solutions than when we design for the norm.
The inaugural Ann Niles Active Transportation Lecture was given in 2013 by Jean-François Pronovost, vice president for development and public affairs at advocacy group Vélo Québec. One of the most notable projects for Vélo Québec is La Route Verte (The Green Route), a 5,000-kilometer-plus bicycle route across Canada's largest province. La Route Verte crosses rural areas, towns and cities and incorporates all types of bikeways. The route got its start in 1992, when Pronovost was organizer of the Velo Mondial conference. There, Vélo Québec presented a vision and plan for what cycling could be at the turn of the century. The efforts paid off in 1995, with the provincial government investing $88.5 million and tasking Vélo Québec to plan and build the route. La Route Verte is now the most extensive bike route in North America.
Jordan Katcher (she/her) is an Initiatives Facilitator for the Wallace Stegner Center Environmental Dispute Resolution (EDR) Program and an Adjunct Instructor within the City + Metropolitan Planning Department at the University of Utah. She serves as facilitator and operations manager for the Gateway + Natural Amenity Region (GNAR) Initiative, facilitates community conversations, conducts situation assessments, and provides training and coaching related to conflict management and collaborative process design. Outside of work, she enjoys forest bathing, baking sourdough bread, traveling, laughing with loved ones, and practicing gratitude.
Elizabeth Sodja is the Program Coordinator for the Gateway & Natural Amenity Region (GNAR) Initiative at Utah State University (USU) Extension. She has a decade of communications and community outreach experience, and has worked with federal, state, and local government agencies. Before joining GNAR, she worked for USU's Center for Community Engagement and the National Park Service. She grew up in a small town in Utah where most family vacations were either camping, fishing, or in a National Park, and has a passion for helping small towns around the west preserve what is special about them. When she isn't working, you can usually find her and her husband climbing a rock, living out of a tent, or driving down a dirt road covered in dog hair.
Dr. Appleyard is a Professor of City Planning and Urban Design at San Diego State University (SDSU) where he is the Director of The Active Transportation Research (ATR), the Action Institute for Sustainability, Livability, and Equity (AISLE), and SDSU’s Director of the national Center for Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety (CPBS). Working at the intersection of land use, housing, transportation, and urban design, he helps people and agencies make more informed decisions about how we live, work, and thrive. Working from the human to regional/ecosystem scale, he is an author of numerous peer-reviewed and professional publications, and is the most highly cited scholar in the SDSU School of Public Affairs. He is also a renowned expert on urban quality, regional planning, the future of transport, street livability and designing for pedestrians and bicyclists.
