Nick Puczkowskyj is a graduate research and teaching assistant at Portland State University's College of Urban and Public Affairs. He is a current Urban Studies PhD candidate, and has served as past president of Students in Transportation Engineering and Planning (STEP), PSU's transportation student group. 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.

Connect with Nick on LinkedIn or view his PSU profile.

Follow Nick on Twitter @NickPuczkowskyj

Tell us about yourself?

Currently I'm a 5th year urban studies Phd candidate. Originally from Chicago, I also call Portland and Hong Kong home. Off campus, you can find me on the rugby pitch with the Portland Lumberjacks RFC or foraging Oregon’s forests for mushrooms.

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

Growing up in Chicago and working as a bike messenger provided a massive influence on my career in transportation and urban planning. These experiences really pushed me to go into transportation planning. Working and researching at the Chinese University of Hong Kong solidified my decision to pursue a career in academia.

You're currently supporting a project on marginalized populations' access to transit, and you recently successfully defended your dissertation proposal on "Expanding transmobilities: An art-informed methodology for gender-diverse travel behavior." Tell us about those projects?

Absolutely! My dissertation works focuses on understanding how genderdiverse individuals' gender identity influences their travel behavior and travel decisions. I will use collage and mental maps as my methodology to delicately capture these data. I believe this work will support mobility justice research and the greater social justice movement.

Learn more about the active NITC-funded project "Marginalized Populations’ Access to Transit: Journeys from Home and Work to Transit", led by Marisa Zapata of PSU.

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

Ideally after graduation, I plan to secure a tenure track position at a research oriented university abroad, either in Europe or East Asia. Preferably, I would love to continue my dissertation research and add more knowledge to the mobility justice field.

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.

Photo by tupungato/iStock

Researchers at Portland State University and Oregon State University have updated the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) Safety Investigation Manual, materials and training resources to assist ODOT traffic investigators with highway safety project investigation, analysis, evaluation, and documentation.

David Hurwitz of OSU worked with Chris Monsere, Sirisha Kothuri and Jason Anderson of PSU to update the manual. The team revised and expanded worksheets used in the safety analysis process and prepared training materials in the form of videos, slide decks, and case study examples to help train ODOT employees and employees from transportation agencies around the state on current best practices.

A decade ago, the first edition of the Safety Investigation Manual was also developed by PSU (Chris Monsere) in collaboration with OSU (Karen Dixon). ODOT continues to look to the leading experts in transportation safety engineering at Oregon's public universities. PSU and OSU have a long history of working together on transportation projects, including addressing safety concerns for senior drivers and pedestrians, assessing bicycle detection and road user understanding of bicycle signal faces on traffic signals, improving safety and efficiency of protected/permitted right turns, and pedestrian safety at signalized intersections operating the flashing yellow arrow.

In addition to providing a comprehensive procedure for safety investigation at both intersection and highway segments, the manual also includes checklists and analysis procedures suitable for a variety of field and office safety investigations and assessments. A consistent approach to safety investigations is critical to ODOT’s Transportation Safety Action Plan (TSAP), which aims to eliminate fatal and serious injuries entirely by 2035.

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.

Dr. Chris Monsere, PH.D., P.E. of Portland State University has been awarded the 2022 Branford Price Millar Award for Faculty Excellence. The Faculty and Staff Excellence Awards are one example of how the university honors, recognizes, and incentivizes the ongoing excellence of PSU faculty and academic professionals for their research, scholarship, service, and dedication to our students and our academy.

Monsere, who also won the 2020 Outstanding Educator Award from the Western District of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), is the associate dean for academic affairs in the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science and a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. His research focuses on improving traffic safety, especially for those bicycling and walking. Much of his research has studied new and novel (in the U.S.) designs. His research has also examined how best to manage the speed of motor vehicles—a primary factor in traffic safety deaths and serious injuries. He has collaborated on nearly $6 million in research and is the author or co-author of 44 peer-reviewed journal articles, 28 peer-reviewed conference papers, and 44 reviewed technical reports. Cumulatively, this body of research has contributed to the evidence cities throughout the country have needed to make the case to expand such infrastructure and to make changes in national guidance allowing and promoting it.

Monsere received his doctorate and master’s in civil engineering from Iowa State University and a bachelor of civil engineering from the University of Detroit Mercy. Before joining Portland State University in 2004, he held engineering positions at the Oregon Department of Transportation.

Monsere was chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering from 2014 to 2021 and has served on many departmental, college, and university committees, including as a member of the PSU Faculty Senate from 2015 to 2018. He has been heavily engaged in the Transportation Research Board (TRB), a branch of the National Academies of Sciences.

A dedicated educator and mentor, Monsere was recognized by the Western District of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) as its Outstanding Transportation Educator in 2020. Nearly all of his research publications include student co-authors. Many of his former students are leaders in the field, working as transportation engineers or planners at public agencies and private consulting firms or as faculty at universities.

The Branford Price Millar Award is given annually to a faculty member in a tenure-track or tenured appointment who has demonstrated excellence in the areas of scholarship, instruction, university service and public service, and whose performance in the area of scholarship and research is judged to be exceptional.

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.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic drastically impacted travel for in-person shopping, commute trips, global supply chains, and food business operations. E-grocery pickup and delivery services saw unprecedented expansions in response. The adoption and use of these e-grocery services have implications for equity and mobility. A PSU masters thesis offers insights: "Adoption and Use of E-Grocery Shopping in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Implications for Transport Systems and Beyond" by Gabriella Abou-Zeid, a 2021 graduate of Portland State University with a masters in civil engineering.

"While the future adoption and use of e-grocery services is uncertain as the COVID-19 pandemic evolves, our analysis revealed a clear impact of the pandemic on e-grocery shopping behaviors, which has impacts for transportation network demand, safety, and equity," Abou-Zeid said.

Enhancing our understanding of the drivers of (and barriers to) online grocery shopping and its potential "stickiness"—or the extent to which e-grocery use will continue at the same or higher frequencies after the pandemic—is a prerequisite for unpacking current and future consequences of this ecommerce sector on people and transportation networks. The two goals of this work are:

1. To explore the drivers of adoption and use of e-grocery services in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and
2. To estimate "stickiness" of online grocery ordering behaviors – or the extent to which e-grocery use will continue at the same or higher frequencies after the pandemic.

Survey data (N=2,266) capturing household and individual information on demographics, attitudes, and behaviors were all employed in carrying out these goals. The culmination of results show attitudes and COVID-19 related variables are strong drivers of e-grocery adoption, use, and stickiness. COVID-19 related characteristics—including individual and household experiences related to employment, income, remote work, diagnosis, food insecurity, and changes in food shopping behaviors—were found to be significant across the suite of estimated models, demonstrating the sheer impact of the pandemic on household provisioning behaviors. Results from the "stickiness" analysis suggests households that are multimodal, below retirement age, and located in places with high e-grocery service availability are more likely to hold or increase their already elevated e-grocery usage. Households who have at least one member particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 or who reduced their in-store shopping frequency during the pandemic are also more likely to have e-grocery shopping "stick". Drivers of e-grocery delivery adoption varied among household income levels.

“It’s Complicated”: Exploring the Relationship Status of In-store and Online Grocery Shopping During the COVID-19 Pandemic (View PDF)

One theme resurfaced consistently throughout the analysis: the importance of attitudes in predicting behavior. “Attitudinal variables showed significance across all models examining e-grocery adoption, use, and ‘stickiness’. As just one example, households who knew others who shopped for groceries online, and who thought shopping online was easy, were more likely to demonstrate e-grocery adoption and use, and were more likely to continue e-grocery shopping behaviors after the pandemic. Households who preferred to use cash when grocery shopping were less likely to continue use of e-grocery shopping after the pandemic, which points to a potential barrier for un- or underbanked households in being able to easily use these services”, Abou-Zeid noted.  

The work concludes with a synthesis of findings, highlighting key drivers of and barriers to online grocery shopping, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on e-grocery, and implications for transportation systems and practice. This discussion includes recommendations for policy and future work.

The data collection effort, led by Dr. Kelly Clifton, supporting this research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC). Abou-Zeid would also like to acknowledge the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Dwight D. Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship Program (DDETFP) and the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) for the financial and professional support provided while developing her thesis.

Abou-Zeid presented this research in a poster session (download the PDF) at the 2022 annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB). She also presented her work at the two previous TRB conferences in 2020 and in 2021, where she was awarded her first and second Eisenhower Fellowship.

Abou-Zeid now works as a Transportation Data Specialist at ICF, supporting local, state, and federal clients in areas of transportation demand management (TDM), transportation systems management and operations (TSMO), public transportation investments, transportation and land use intersections (especially related to parking), and sustainable mobility. She currently resides in Tucson, AZ, where her transportation research journey began while researching walkability. 

Photo courtesy of Gabby Abou-Zeid

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.

In 2022, a PSU Master of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) team made headlines with their strategies to improve safety for houseless pedestrians. Cities across the U.S. are facing alarming increases in traffic fatalities, especially among the number of pedestrians who are struck and killed by drivers. In 2021, 70 percent of all pedestrian fatalities in Portland were of people experiencing houselessness. The MURP team Street Perspective, made up of Peter Domine, Nick Meusch, Asif Haque, Angie Martínez, Sean Doyle, and Meisha Whyte, investigated how to reduce the risk of being hit and killed specifically for unhoused people. 

As the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) is updating the city's Vision Zero Plan, the team provided PBOT with recommendations to reduce the risk of pedestrian fatalities among the city's vulnerable houseless communities.

Watch the recorded Friday Transportation Seminar from June 3, 2022, or view the final report: "Safety Interventions for Houseless Pedestrians" (PDF). 

"A disproportionate number of unhoused pedestrians are being killed in car crashes across America — and protecting this uniquely vulnerable group will require a set of strategies that both include and exceed even the conventional street safety playbook... To understand how Portland could do a better job of protecting houseless people from traffic violence — and perhaps chart a model for analysis other communities could follow — the Portland State researchers conducted dozens of interviews, in addition to performing spatial analysis on fatal crash sites that sat within 250 feet of both 1) a reported campsite for unhoused people, and 2) a segment of the city’s High Crash Network, where most of Portland’s vehicle collisions occur," Kea Wilson of Streetsblog USA wrote about the team's work.

BikePortland covered the project as well, focusing on Portland and the city's history of approaches to dealing with houseless individuals and communities. Journalist Taylor Griggs described the team's strategies to reduce crashes near homeless camps as "promising."

The PSU Master of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) program is known for its workshop projects. For the last two quarters of the program, students work on community-based, client-focused projects. This provides students with the opportunity to work in teams on real-world problems for community clients. Learn more about the MURP program.

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.

Active transportation investments offer many types of benefits related to safety, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, physical activity and the economy. Metro, Oregon’s regional government for the Portland metropolitan area, wants to better understand the role of these investments in building stronger communities in their region, and in implementing the Metro 2040 Growth Concept.

Led by Portland State University in partnership with Metro, the Active Transportation Return on Investment (ATROI) study looked at twelve projects constructed in the greater Portland region between 2001 and 2016. These twelve 2040 Catalyst Projects were evaluated to determine if active transportation investments had significant effects on the local economy. 2040 Catalyst Projects retrofit busy commercial streets with pedestrian-friendly treatments to catalyze economic development within 2040 Centers, Main Streets, or Station Communities. 

Redesigned streets can improve economic conditions by creating attractive and walkable business districts, providing access to various destinations, local businesses, and jobs. Nearly all the projects focus primarily on pedestrian improvements, such as improved sidewalks (new, widened, etc.), safer crossings (signals, rectangular rapid flash beacons, curb extensions, crosswalks, signage, ramps, etc.), improved bus stops, landscaping (trees, bioswales for stormwater management, etc.), lighting, and public art. A few projects also included new or restriped bike lanes, shared lane markings, and/or bike parking.

PSU researchers Jennifer Dill, Jenny Liu and Marisa Zapata evaluated two main components: 

• A quantitative analysis on the economic benefits of 12 active transportation projects on busy commercial streets.
• A qualitative assessment of the projects to help tell the story and understand other benefits and impacts of each project. This was conducted through stakeholder interviews, online surveys, and existing feedback recorded from other projects (intercept surveys, surveys of residents of TODs, etc).

"Taking both a quantitative and qualitative approach was important, so we could better understand the numbers and hear directly from the people, including customers and business owners, about the value of the projects. However, our work was done mainly in 2020, so we had to get creative in how we found those people, including an online survey and social media.," Dill said.

Overall, the research team found positive effects on business activity in the retail and/or food sectors, demonstrating that the potential economic benefits are not just in more urban parts of the city of Portland:

• 75% of the project locations saw measurable economic gains in the food or retail industries after implementation.
• Layering complementary investments (e.g. light rail stations and transit oriented-development) has the potential to yield the greatest benefits.
• The projects that did not see positive effects tended to have higher traffic volumes and/or speeds. Projects are more likely to reach their full potential when they reduce the effects of an auto-oriented environment and create places for walking that are also less stressful and more comfortable.

"The findings reveal that these types of investments can have positive outcomes in places outside of downtown and inner Portland, particularly when coupled with other planning and infrastructure investments, but that we do need to address the negative effects of high speed, multi-lane arterials," Dill said.

Together they help us understand many of the benefits of these recent active transportation projects that used regional flexible funding in the past. One of the most important outcomes of the study is informing the region’s decision makers, business owners, and the general public in the recent public comment period for Metro’s Regional Flexible Funding Allocations (RFFA) for transportation projects. With 29 project proposals on the table, it’s important to have the context and data on what has been effective in the Portland region.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Active Transportation Return on Investment Study

Jennifer Dill, Jenny Liu, and Marisa Zapata; Portland State University

• Visit the Active Transportation Return on Investment (ATROI) study page to download the full report, four-page fact sheet, appendix of the technical report, and bikeway case studies.
• Watch a recording of our Friday Transportation Seminar with Dill and Liu.

The study was funded by Portland Metro and conducted by researchers at PSU and Metro, with report design from Alta Planning + Design. The PSU team included Jennifer Dill, Jenny Liu, Marisa Zapata, Minji Cho, Kyuri Kim, Natalie Chavez, Natalie Knowles, and Lacey Friedly.

Photo courtesy of Oregon Metro.

Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) is home to the U.S. DOT funded National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), PORTAL, BikePed Portal and other transportation grants and programs. We produce impactful research and tools for transportation decision makers, expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engage students and professionals through education and participation in research.

Incorporating transportation into the land development process is a big undertaking, with many important angles to be considered. Researchers are translating NITC research on this theme into a popular, easy-to-understand graphic format: comics. Led by an interdisciplinary team at Portland State University and the University of Arizona, they're illustrating transportation considerations in the land development process as a comic to reach a broader audience on this critical topic. 

Related: Read about the NITC Research Roadmap on Transportation and Land Use.

Still in development (the images here are early working drafts, illustrated by PSU student Joaquin Golez and Portland, OR illustrator Ryan Alexander-Tanner), the comics are based on research findings from several projects funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC). The project team is working with readers at neighborhood associations and nonprofits to test this unique approach in sharing research findings. We interviewed three of the project team members Kelly Clifton of PSU, Ryan Alexander-Tanner and Susan Kirtley of PSU to hear how it's going.

Can you share more about your body of research on transportation and land use that sparked the idea for this comics project?

Kelly Clifton

I first started thinking about how we can better coordinate land development and transportation when I was doing my dissertation in the late 90s, but I didn't really have an occasion to do any funded research until I came to Portland in 2010. My very first project on this topic was funded by our U.S. DOT-supported program NITC and Metro, our regional body that governs transportation and land. We looked at system development charges because we wanted to know whether the different communities within our region were headed to more auto oriented built environments or not. At the time, Kristi [Currans] was a Masters student at PSU and she did her thesis on this topic. Lucky for me, she stayed on and did her PhD with me. Since then we’ve done five or six projects together, maybe more! Notably we did a big project for CalTrans looking at these questions for affordable housing and impacts on residents. We’ve done a lot of work with the City of Portland, revamping how they're coordinating transportation and land development. More recently, we’ve started looking at how we account for scooters and uber and rideshare and all of these new transportation options.

What unique strengths do project team members bring to this project?

Kelly Clifton

Kristi and I are bringing the technical know-how of transportation and land use, but I’ve always been interested in interdisciplinary projects and combining different talents to tackle a problem. Susan is coming from English and directing PSU’s comic studies program, and Ryan is a local professional comic artist and illustrator. And then we have a Master of Fine Arts student who's going to do a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of the artwork.

Ryan Alexander-Tanner

This is very much in line with my body of work in comics. Earlier in my career, Columbia University hired me to illustrate a book on teaching, and after working closely with the author for over a year I internalized the core message of being a student of your students. I learned how to take in a lot of information and reinterpret it into this accessible medium of comics, and that project helped me create a process for myself. In our informal sessions together I’m repackaging Kelly and Kristi’s expertise combined with Susan’s background as an academic in comics. I enjoy the role of mediating the collaborative process. 

Susan Kirtley

As Ryan mentioned, I’m coming at this as a comics scholar. I’ve done research in comics history and I bring with me this interest in visual rhetoric, and I've been very passionate about the potential for comics pedagogy –teaching with and through comics. I feel very strongly that comics have unique potential to inform and educate and entertain, so that's always something that appeals to me. This project is particularly appealing in that I get to learn all kinds of cool stuff, but also think more about that process of how do we teach with comics?

Kelly Clifton

Normally when I'm doing a research project I have an idea, and although we don't know what the outcome is going to be, we do know what the process is going to be. But I’ve never made a comic before, and I don’t know the process. Susan and Ryan offer these checks and balances, and I think everyone's learning something new through this project, which is, I think, really cool.

What do you see as barriers to communicating research? 

Kelly Clifton

The first barrier is academic training. We're not really trained on how to talk to a broader audience. We’re very much taught how to talk to each other, to be very cautious in the language we use, and to not over generalize. I’m always very reserved about overstating the implications of work, which is important - but, how can we strike a balance to reach a general audience? Another barrier is retraining my brain. How do you tell a story without all the inherent complexity in research? And how do you adjust based on your audience, which could be academics, decision makers in policy and practice, students, and then the general public? There is no one way to communicate that would hit all those groups.

Susan Kirtley

As academics we are encouraged to talk amongst ourselves, to publish in peer-reviewed scholarly journals in the insular university press world. Not only is it what we’re encouraged to do, it’s also how we’re valued and evaluated in terms of our performance and consideration for tenure. There's a lot of great research that's happening, but it’s not necessarily being shared with a wider audience. How can that form of communication be incentivized to change the norm?

Why do you think it is so important for universities to communicate research findings in new innovative ways like comics?

Ryan Alexander-Tanner 

I'm hearing this over and over in my work for universities and in the public health field. They say ‘we're insulated, and we do all this work and nobody reads it, no one engages with it.’ And while I don't think comics are the only method, I do think they're an effective method. We're in this media bombardment era where you're getting slammed with articles, podcasts, talks all the time. It’s hard to break through the noise.

Susan Kirtley

Working with students we talk a lot about going to the source of the information and why that's important, particularly in an era where there's so much misinformation. The expert tells the journalist, and then the journalist tells someone else, and then Buzzfeed picks it up. By the time it gets to that point it's lost the original focus and findings. With Kelly and Kristi, we have the opportunity to tap into the expert source right here and bring it to life with visuals.

Kelly Clifton

Universities really are challenged now, and research in particular, to prove their value to the public. What is the value of a university education, not just to the individual, but to society? A shift to prioritizing communicating your work more broadly is about getting the information out there, but also it’s just showing what we do at universities and how it can have an impact beyond just academia.

What is unique about comics as a medium? What does it have to offer that other mediums do not? Would you agree that comics offer a form of education that suits different learning styles?

Ryan Alexander-Tanner

Yes, absolutely. There is a type of learner that comics are their ideal medium. More important though is distilling your message down to the main idea. Like, what is the point of sharing that message? I don't think the medium is as important as the message itself. But there are many people that wouldn't read a research article, but would read a comic about research. The pairing of text and image is really effective. It can activate multiple parts of your brain. And the concise nature of language in comics lends itself to focusing on the main message. Comics can also break up information into bite-size pieces, and even if you’re stringing them together into something that's long…it just makes it more accessible. Integrating that creative element into something that's academic or factual is powerful. In a way, showing rather than telling is also an economical use of the learner’s time.

Susan Kirtley

I agree with all of that. You can do things with comic art that you can’t do with any other medium. The interplay of text and art together makes it unique, but also particularly well suited to an educational environment. Some folks are visual learners, and comics appeal to them. Comics invites the reader in and makes it interactive. Comics creator Scott McCloud talks about this, between the panels, the reader has to take this really active stance to interpreting and understanding the progression in the gaps between panels. Comics ask us to engage in the story in a way that no other medium does. There are so many unique things about comics that make them particularly well suited for communicating.

Ryan Alexander-Tanner

In the past, a lot of time has been spent trying to validate comics. We’re in a good place now where it’s generally accepted that comics are fun to read and an effective way to communicate. I’ve heard many times things like, ‘You know I had to read 15 books last semester, and your book stood out because it was a comic book and more engaging to read.’

Kelly Clifton

My biggest motivation was to get this out to a completely different audience. If policymakers or transportation students want to read the comic, great! But I really want community and advocacy organizations, the public to be engaged by this format.

What are you hoping to accomplish by communicating transportation land use research through comics? Who is your target audience?

Kelly Clifton

We have two test reader groups that we’ve arranged. One through a Portland neighborhood association and another through Tucson’s Living Streets Alliance who works closely with the Latin community there. And that's exactly who my target audience is: people who are not subject matter experts on transportation and land use, but they experience the impacts on a daily basis. Everybody understands sitting in traffic. Everybody understands getting cut off by someone while you're riding your bike. Everybody understands the challenges of walking on unimproved roads with no sidewalks. But what they might not understand is how do things get this way? More importantly, how do we advocate for change?

What aspect of this project are you most excited about? What do you expect to be most challenging?

Kelly Clifton

What’s most exciting for me is learning new things every time the team gets together. It’s my favorite part of the week! Maybe when the comic is done, it will be anti-climactic because the process itself has been so exciting.

Susan Kirtley

I would agree with you Kelly, I love learning new things, and so this process of translation between research and comics has been so much fun. As a teacher I can’t help but think ‘Ooh this is something I could talk about in class’ or ‘I could do an activity related to what we're doing’. 

Ryan Alexander-Tanner

It’s the collaboration for me. We’ve been approaching this as very non hierarchical, and learning a lot from each other. One thing that's very exciting is creating this opportunity for our student artist, Joaquin Golez. A lot of my work as a teacher has been trying to provide opportunities for students interested in comics that I didn't have access to when I was in college. If there had been an opportunity like this, when I was in school, it would have changed my life. Something that is both exciting and challenging is we're going to have to let go and support our student in taking the reins. Seeing their creative interpretation of all the stuff we put together - that's thrilling to me.

Can you share anything about what you’ve developed so far, and any similar initiatives at PSU?

Kelly Clifton

We’ve been in the thick, messy part of it. I’ve just been tossing research findings at them and then they've been grabbing it and throwing it back at me. Sort of playing hot potato, like: what's the structure of this going to look like? How are we going to fit the narrative into that structure? After the comic is published we’ll also do a workshop in the fall at Portland State to talk about this process and the power of comics to communicate research.

Ryan Alexander-Tanner

We are hoping to have a completed comic by the end of summer. We’re making a printed comic book and it's going to consist of three articles which will all be available on the web too.

Susan Kirtley

This project speaks to the potential of Portland State. We have really strong faculty doing interesting research, and we also have the Comic Studies program. Portland has so many amazing local creators like Ryan, so I think this project speaks to this intersection of comics and academics while tapping into the city’s resources as a hub of comics. Moreover, we have amazing students who can create them!

COMICS COMING IN 2022

Want to be notified when the comics are published later this year? Add your email address here!

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE UPCOMING WORKSHOP AT PSU THIS FALL:

USP/WR 407/507 RESEARCH INTO COMICS
Dr. Kacy McKinney and Ryan Alexander-Tanner
Mondays and Wednesdays, 12-1:50pm

Students in this class will explore comics as a deeply engaging medium for communicating complex stories and research findings. Students will learn about comics theory and gain hands-on experience in processes of collaborative research and comics creation. Offering a range of approaches to both research and comics creation, students of the social sciences, arts and humanities, the natural sciences, and professional fields will all gain important skills for communicating research to wide audiences. No prior experience with comics creation or drawing skills necessary.

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.

Would monetary incentives encourage more people to buy e-bikes? 

Portland State University (PSU) researchers are examining how purchase incentive programs can expand the current e-bike market, and the latest product to come out of this research is a white paper released earlier this month: “Using E-Bike Purchase Incentive Programs to Expand the Market – North American Trends and Recommended Practices (PDF)”

The paper offers methods of identifying the most effective program structure for the incentive provider's priorities, and helpful information on how to administer and track the program. 

A great number of cities in the United States have cycling goals, and a great way to address those is by promoting e-bikes, because they provide for a much wider range of users than a traditional bike does," said Cameron Bennett, who is a master student in transportation engineering at PSU.

Bennett co-authored the paper with John MacArthur of PSU; Christopher Cherry of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; and Luke Jones of Valdosta State University. The authors reviewed impacts and statistics from around 75 current, past, and proposed e-bike incentive programs in North America, and also interviewed industry leaders, academics and incentive program managers to identify key considerations. Streetsblog USA interviewed MacArthur on what the team found and the implications for program administrators.

Funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) and PeopleForBikes, the multi-part research project has three stages:

1. Tracking current and proposed e-bike incentive programs in North America (for more on that, see our Jan 2022 story or see the live online tracker spreadsheet);
2. Evaluating practices, trends and case studies in those programs (download the white paper or watch the May 2022 webinar);
3. Learning more about potential e-bike buyers and how incentive programs could influence their decision-making.

Later this year the team will publish the results of a national stated preference survey (take the survey here), aimed at learning the potential effects of different rebate methods, cash amounts, demographics and other factors. This will yield even more insight into what affects people's decision-making, and which types of incentive programs may hit the sweet spot.

John MacArthur has a long track record in e-bike research, and he and Christopher Cherry collaborate on research for the Light Electric Vehicle Education and Research (LEVER) Institute.

Photo by Dongho Chang

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

Better Block PSU is a partnership program between the volunteer-led group Better Block PDX and Portland State University - encouraging everyone to imagine what spaces could be when they are designed for people. Once a year, community members submit their project ideas to the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at PSU. Selected projects are then integrated into a pathway of PSU planning and engineering classes, through which students gain hands-on experiential learning by developing plans, designs, and engineering solutions. 

Students in PSU's Pedestrian and Bicycle Planning course, taught by Drusilla van Hengel, are currently working on the newest slate of projects. The course seeks to provide each project partner with an evaluation of each site's level of pedestrian and bicycle activity and existing conditions, a community engagement plan, and performance metric recommendations for uses during the demonstration to measure the project's success. Those five community-led projects include:

• Argay Terrace Transformation: This project seeks to transform the intersection of NE 131st and NE Prescott Dr from a dangerous corner into a welcoming neighborhood space, in a community which is 47 percent Black, Indigenous and people of color.
• Car Free Zones in Downtown Portland: In 1972, Portland City Planners and the City Council approved a car-free plan for the downtown. Parts of it were implemented in the Waterfront Trail and Halprin Open Space Sequence, and this project seeks to update and operationalize the rest of the Car-Free Downtown Plan (see page 33 of the 1972 Portland Downtown Plan).
• Keaton Otis Memorial: This project seeks to create a safe space for community members to gather at a memorial, with a street design that reduces or eliminates car traffic at the gathering space.
• Sabin Outdoor Community Space: This project would convert a dead-end cul de sac near a future affordable housing development into a pleasant, functional outdoor space that can be easily navigated by foot, bike or wheelchair.
• Walkable Rosewood: This project would improve the pedestrian experience along several streets in the Rosewood neighborhood with temporary or permanent walkways, intersection treatments, and art installations.

Below we share summaries from the proposals of the chosen projects. These are initial ideas and aspirations, and what is pursued by the project partners and the PSU student teams will evolve and change over time, depending upon the goals and constraints of the class working closely with community partners. Later this year we’ll share an update on the progress and accomplishments of each project team. Want to be notified when applications open in Spring 2023? Add your email address here, and learn more about the Better Block PSU program here.

Argay Terrace Transformation

Led by the Argay Terrace Neighborhood Association, this project seeks to transform the intersection of NE 131st and NE Prescott Dr from a dangerous corner into a welcoming neighborhood space, in an area of the neighborhood that has the most racially diverse residents.

The Opportunity

The intersection is a mix of commercial and residential uses, with a large multifamily housing development and a thriving indoor soccer league nearby. Kids walking to Shaver Elementary School must cross the street here, amid an environment that has been the site for illegal dumping of trash and other illegal activity. The community is 49% people of color, and many residents are below the median household income for Portland. This project is an opportunity to improve the intersection and make it into a safer, more welcoming space for residents.

How to Move Forward

The project partners have several ideas on how to potentially improve the area, including: 

• An improvised bike lane to help kids feel safer riding bikes or scooters to school;
• Planters and other street furniture to help the area look and feel cared for;
• A street painting to illustrate the transition between commercial and residential zones;
• Other treatments that make it feel safer to walk and roll in the area.

What Does Success Look Like?

"We are a community that loves to walk to our gorgeous parks (Luuwit View and Argay). We are a neighborhood where people walk their dogs and say 'hi.'  We are a neighborhood where kids ride their bikes despite no bike infrastructure. We have farm fields that produce fresh flowers and vegetables as well as a thriving community garden in Luuwit View Park. That is our community. Loved by those who live here and well used," shared the Parks Chair for the Argay Terrace Neighborhood Association. A successful project would result in a transformation: from a dangerous corner to an area that is cared for by the community; a space where people are welcomed into the neighborhood. Success would be measured by the quality of interaction in the project with Black, Indigenous and People of Color; by an increase in resources to the area of the neighborhood that is most diverse; and finally by the sight of more people walking and riding to school and Luuwit View park from NE Prescott Dr.

Car Free Zones in Downtown Portland

Led by Urban Design & Planning Consultant Cathy Tuttle, this project will work to update and operationalize the 1972 Car-Free Downtown Portland Plan. 

The Opportunity

Downtown Portland is very car-focused, as Cathy Tuttle explained in a recent Friday Transportation Seminar at Portland State. The area has a good transit grid with light rail, buses and streetcar transit, and fairly short blocks that already have good street lighting and pavement. With the implementation of car-free zones, there is the potential to create vibrant and welcoming thoroughfares for pedestrians and bicyclists, boosting commercial activity and contributing to a healthier city through lowered emissions and increased opportunities for physical activity. Portland's Downtown Car-Free Plan (PDF) was approved by planners and the City Council in 1972. Parts of the plan have been implemented in the Waterfront Trail and Halprin Open Space Sequence. This project seeks to move forward with realizing more of the original vision for Portland's car-free downtown. 

How to Move Forward

By moving this project through the Better Block PSU program, the conversation about Portland's car-free downtown can be pushed forward on multiple fronts. The PSU students could potentially contribute by:

• Defining the geographic scope of the car-free zone;
• Creating a timeline and prioritizing which streets to work on first;
• Thinking ahead about how to facilitate cargo bike and other low-carbon freight deliveries;
• Planning for utility access and emergency vehicle access;
• Identifying pricing strategies to collect revenue from limited car entry and parking;
• Securing the relevant environmental permits;
• Determining what metrics would most accurately evaluate success.

What Does Success Look Like?

A successful project would result in livable, equitable streets for people of all ages and abilities in downtown Portland. Success could be measured and quantified in terms of improving air quality, reducing noise, lowering overall CO2 emissions and increasing revenue for local businesses. Engaging with vulnerable community members would also be an essential component of a successful project. "Many people who live and work in Portland do not drive. In fact, 40% of people do not drive citywide because cars are not affordable, because of age or disability, or because of choice. Downtown Portland has a very high concentration of very low income, BIPOC, and other-abled people who need to be part of this planning process," project lead Cathy Tuttle said.

Keaton Otis Memorial

Led by Joshua Baker of Justice for Keaton Otis, this project seeks to create a safe space for community members to gather at a memorial, with a street design that reduces or eliminates car traffic at the gathering space.

The Opportunity

On May 12, 2010, 25-year-old Keaton Otis's life was cut short by Portland Police. At the site where it happened, on Northeast 6th Avenue between Clackamas and Halsey, loved ones and activists of Keaton Otis have met on the street for the past 10+ years for a monthly vigil. Plans are underway to create a permanent memorial. The southern part of the block would be connected to Portland's planned "Green Loop."

How to Move Forward

Project leaders have organized the design vision into a few phases and are seeking funding for moving forward all three phases. All currently planned memorial components either involve work on the sidewalk or a special kintsugi-style street artwork. Kintsugi is the Japanese art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold. One key component that has not yet been addressed, and where Better Block PSU may be able to help, is: What can be done to reduce (or completely eliminate) vehicle traffic along the block, and turn it into a safe space for community members to gather?

What Does Success Look Like?

"This project is based on over a decade of deep community engagement and three years of collective visioning efforts to meaningfully memorialize the life of Keaton Otis. We see it as a model of what community-driven transformative justice could look like," project lead Joshua Baker said. Justice for Keaton Otis is the name of the organization leading the effort. Their hope is that Keaton’s loved ones, and all those fighting for justice, feel a sense of togetherness in this place. Reducing the noise and danger of car traffic at the site would contribute meaningfully to the feeling of safety and acknowledgement.

Sabin Outdoor Community Space

Led by Elizabeth A. Caston, a NE resident and consultant for the Sabin CDC nonprofit, this project would convert a dead-end cul de sac near a future affordable housing development into a pleasant, functional outdoor space that can be easily navigated by foot, bike or wheelchair.

The Opportunity

In the 1970s, the city blocked off the end of NE 14th place to Killingsworth, which resulted in a cul de sac that dead-ends. The Sabin Community Development Corporation is currently building a new 29-unit low income affordable housing complex that will include an indoor community arts and culture center on the ground floor directly adjacent to this cul-de-sac. At this location there is no crosswalk and there are many obstructions on the sidewalk and sidewalk ramps, impeding access and making it a difficult area to navigate by foot, bike or wheelchair.

How to Move Forward

This outdoor site area has been discussed as a potential community gathering and event space. Improving the space could offer potential benefits to the incoming low-income residents as well as the larger community. Sabin has already done a few rounds of resident outreach and engagement on what they would like to see in a Resident and Community Services program, and will be engaging many more times to help prioritize, vision, and plan for more specifics. Better Block PSU could help by:

• Planning for better bike and pedestrian access to and from nearby Alberta and Ainsworth;
• Engaging further with community members to ensure their voices are heard;
• Designing strategies to turn the cul de sac into a parklet or other outdoor community space.

What Does Success Look Like?

The end result would be a new space for community members to gather that is safe, comfortable, and easy to access, as well as providing safe connections to the rest of the neighborhood. "Having access to pleasant, functional outdoor public space would be the catalyst for this amazing opportunity in community empowerment and engagement. Using outdoor space to create intergenerational connections, and strengthen community socialization between families with kids/youth, and with seniors, and the disabled who are often isolated and lonely. We want to bring people together for community building," project lead Elizabeth Caston said.

Walkable Rosewood

Led by Oregon Walks, this project would improve the pedestrian experience along several streets in the Rosewood neighborhood with temporary or permanent walkways, intersection treatments, and art installations.

The Opportunity

There are no sidewalks along many streets throughout East Portland's Rosewood neighborhood. The lack of sidewalk availability, coupled with the large street blocks and distantly spaced crossings, makes it unsafe and uncomfortable for people to walk in many spaces in the neighborhood. There have been two recent plans/projects already developed for the Rosewood neighborhood, each of which includes streetscape improvement ideas:

• Roses From Concrete, a 2020 Masters of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) workshop project, created a walkability plan for the neighborhood. Shreya Jain, the lead on this project, was a member of the graduate student team that worked on this plan.
• The Rosewood Conceptual Neighborhood Master Plan was developed in 2021 through a partnership with the Rosewood Initiative and SERA Architects. 

How to Move Forward

The desired outcome is a project shaped by Rosewood community members that would make it safer and more enjoyable to walk in the area. Oregon Walks hopes to partner with local transportation advocacy organizations to develop a community engagement strategy focusing on Rosewood’s residents. Better Block PSU could help by prioritizing which intersections and streets could be effectively improved with temporary or permanent walkways, intersection treatments, and art installations.  

What Does Success Look Like?

"Success could be measured by seeing community members engaged in the process and helping shape the overall design. It could also be measured by seeing youth be involved in the decision-making process," project lead Shreya Jain said. If street improvements end up being implemented, a primary indicator that the project succeeded would be people reporting that they walk more, or that they feel safer or more comfortable walking in the Rosewood neighborhood.

Want to be notified when applications open in Spring 2023? Add your email address here, and learn more about the Better Block PSU program here.

Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) is home to the U.S. DOT funded National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), PORTAL, BikePed Portal and other transportation grants and programs. We produce impactful research and tools for transportation decision makers, expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engage students and professionals through education and participation in research.

An Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) report, Resilient and Rapid Repair Measures for Seismically Vulnerable Bridges Following Major Earthquakes, introduces a rapid repair method for bridges in the event of a major earthquake.

The Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake threatens bridges across the Pacific Northwest. Damage is expected to be geographically spread throughout the region and will have a nearly simultaneous impact on transportation through several important corridors. While bridge repair and replacement will ultimately be needed, an immediate priority will be resuming mobility. With that in mind, the project team developed a method for repairs to be implemented quickly.

The quick repair involves encasing a damaged bridge column in a steel jacket, which is then anchored to the foundation through replaceable ductile fuse hold-downs. In full-scale cyclic tests, the team applied this repair method to a damanged column and then subjected it to the cyclic loading it would encounter during a Cascadia Subduction Zone event. The experiments validated the design goal, resulting in restored or controlled strength while also exhibiting no additional damage.

The proof-of-concept experiments have shown the potential of this methodology to rapidly repair earthquake-damaged columns with a relatively generic approach.

Led by Peter Dusicka of Portland State University, the research team included AKM Golam Murtuz, Ilya Palnikov and Gregory Norton. Murtuz and Norton are currently graduate research assistants, Palnikov is a structural research engineer, and Dusicka is a professor and chair of civil and environmental engineering. All four team members work in the Maseeh College of Engineering & Computer Science at Portland State. Dusicka has worked on several other earthquake structural engineering projects, with a focus on infrastructure resilience.

Photo by Cait McCusker

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