Livability encompasses several aspects of community, including safe, walkable neighborhoods; quality transit service and healthy green spaces. Making these types of benefits more available to underserved and marginalized populations is a key component of TREC's research focus. With the support of the Ann Niles Active Transportation Lecture Endowment, every year we host leaders who have made great strides in advocating for health, safety, and bicycle and pedestrian access.

For our 4th annual Ann Niles Lecture we've invited Tamika Butler – Executive Director of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust. In her current role she grows healthier, safer, and stronger communities through the creation of urban parks and community gardens—addressing the critical lack of green and recreational spaces in greater Los Angeles' underserved neighborhoods. Prior to this, Butler was the the executive director of the Los Angeles Bicycle Coalition, bringing energy and passion to the quest for better bicycle access. 

Through our programs, including the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI) and the National Institute for Communities (NITC), we seek to grow social equity in transportation and communities through:

• Ann Niles Active Transportation Lecture
• K - 12 Education and Outreach
• NITC funded research in transportation equity

K - 12 Education and Outreach

Transportation workforce development doesn't always take place at the university level, students' interest in transportation can start much earlier. To serve that need, every year we host the National Summer Transportation Institute - a free, two-week transportation summer camp for female high school students, funded by the FHWA and designed to boost career opportunities in STEM for minority or underrepresented students.

We also partner with ChickTech, a nonprofit dedicated to retaining women in the technology workforce and increasing the number of women and girls pursuing technology-based careers, to host free transportation-focused workshops for middle school and high school girls. These workshops teach specific skill sets such as GIS mapping and data analysis.

NITC Funded Research in Transportation Equity

An equitable transportation system is a cornerstone of NITC's research focus of "improving mobility of people and goods to build strong communities. In the past year, NITC has supported research that seeks to improve the walking and bicycling experience of people of color, women, and elderly and low-income populations through examining racial bias in drivers' yielding behavior at crosswalks, ways to improve the equity of bike share systems, and understanding obstacles to biking faced by marginalized people.

NITC researchers have also looked into mitigating the effects of gentrification, preventing community displacement by enriching and stabilizing traditional neighborhoods, and providing tools to help low-income residents afford their housing and transportation costs. Explore more of our equity research here.

"If Los Angeles is a better city for people who bike, it'll be a better city for everybody." 
-Tamika Butler

Through sharing Butler's vision with other transportation advocates in the Portland Metro, we hope to connect more professionals who share in this common goal, and to foster greater understanding of methods and strategies for creating equitable communities. In addition to the evening lecture, Butler's visit to Portland will also include roundtables with local leaders, professionals and advocates.

The lecture series serves as a legacy to Ann Niles, who was a strong advocate for livable neighborhoods and served on many boards and committees related to transportation in Portland. Niles pushed for better sidewalks and crosswalks to make Portland a safe and comfortable place to walk, and for bicycle routes and parking to do the same for bicycling. The annual forum furthers IBPI's mission to facilitate the exchange of knowledge among scholars, practitioners and community advocates around issues of active transportation. By promoting dialogue across disciplines and interests, the lecture endowment also supports PSU's mission to "let knowledge serve the city."

This event is sold out, but please RSVP to be added to the waiting list as we are releasing seats daily.

Evaluation of Electric Bike Use at Three Kaiser Permanente NW Employment Centers in Portland Metro Region
John MacArthur, Portland State University; Jennifer Dill, Portland State University

• Download the Final Report (PDF)
• View the Project Brief (PDF)

Despite efforts to get more people biking, North America still has low ridership numbers. The problem? Biking is hard.

A new report by John MacArthur of Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC), funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communtiies, offers a solution to that problem: e-bikes. 

Many people surveyed say that having to pedal up hills and arriving at their destination sweaty are major deterrents to commuting by bike, even when bike lanes and other facilities are there.

Researchers have put a lot of thought into ways to get more people riding bicycles by improving bicycle infrastructure, land use and public engagement. The efforts are largely due to concerns about congestion, climate change and public health. Comparatively little research, however, has focused on the bicycle itself.

MacArthur and co-investigator Jennifer Dill teamed up with Drive Oregon, Metro and Kaiser Permanente Northwest to provide Kaiser employees with electric-assist bicycles (e-bikes) to use for a trial period of ten weeks. The goal was to see if e-bikes might help overcome some commonly cited barriers to cycling. The study, Evaluation of Electric Bike Use at Three Kaiser Permanente NW Employment Centers in Portland Metro Region, took place in Portland, Oregon from April 2014 to September 2015:

• A total of 150 Kaiser employees participated in the study.
• Fewer than 10% of them had ever ridden an e-bike as an adult, and 50% of them said that they normally never rode a bike at all.
• Half the participants fit into the "interested but concerned" category in Roger Geller’s typology of bicyclists—the category seen as key to increasing cycling rates.

Provided by local dealer Bike N Hike, each person was given a Currie iZip E3 e-bike to take home: a 42-pound bicycle with a rear rack-mounted battery pack, capable of doing 18 mph (29 kph) under motor assist. They could use it however they wanted during the 10-week period.

Researchers sought to find out if having the e-bikes would encourage participants to cycle more. “For certain segments of the population there is lower participation in cycling, particularly women, older adults and people with physical limitations," MacArthur said. "E-bikes could get more people biking and biking more often."

The Kaiser volunteers in this study—over half of whom were women—were asked to take online surveys before, during, and after the study.

• The pre-use survey collected data on their demographics, their attitudes toward biking, and their typical travel habits.
• During the study, there were questions about how they were using the e-bikes and their impressions of the experience.
• The post-use survey asked questions about attitudes and travel habits similar to the first survey, now that the participants had used the e-bikes.

Before beginning the program, 38% of respondents were categorized as “strong and fearless” or “enthused and confident" using Geller's typology. After using an e-bike, 52% were categorized as such.

Researchers compared the barriers participants faced before and after the program and found some notable shifts in attitudes and behaviors:

• The number of people commuting to work by bicycle at least once a week more than doubled during the study.
• The second most common use of the e-bikes was for personal trips. The number of people biking at least once a month for shopping or other errands doubled when they had access to the e-bikes, and those biking to visit friends or family at least once a week more than quadrupled.
• A majority of the respondents – 64% – said they were likely to ride the e-bike purely for exercise or fun. This analysis shows that people will use a bicycle more if it is electric assist.
• About 85% of respondents had access to a functional bicycle before the program, yet only 23% reported using a bicycle once per week or more. During the program, this rate became 53%, in part because the e-bikes made people feel more confident riding.

In Portland, e-bikes can use the same facilities that are intended for regular bikes – bike lanes, multi-use paths and greenways – as well as riding in the lane with on-road traffic. That’s not true everywhere. In 2014, MacArthur and Nick Kobel, an associate economic planner with the city of Portland who at the time was a Portland State University graduate student, conducted a comprehensive review of the different regulations of e-bikes in North America; a useful resource for anyone interested in adopting or advocating for e-bikes.

Vanessa Garrison, co-founder of national walking movement GirlTrek, gave the Ann Niles Active Transportation Lecture October 19 at Portland State University. Her simple, powerful message has mobilized more than 75,000 black women and girls since 2011 to start changing their lives and their communities for the better.

“Change starts with one woman,” she said. That is GirlTrek’s change theory: start with one woman, and there is a ripple effect.

Every time one woman is inspired by GirlTrek to commit to a daily habit of walking, so the theory goes, she can begin to motivate her friends, family or neighbors to walk with her and the movement gains another focal point around which to build momentum.

It's about health, but so much more.

In improving her own health, each GirlTrek walker gains the strength to effect other positive changes in her world.

With a group of women walking together every day, the neighborhood becomes safer. Then, depending on the needs of the community, more change begins to evolve. Are there safe sidewalks? Does traffic speed down the streets of the neighborhood? Should there be more destinations to walk to? What forms of social injustice can be addressed at the local level? These are questions that GirlTrek staff members love to help trekkers answer.

“Whatever it is that a women needs, to go back into her community and create change, we help bring her there,” Garrison said. Making use of its vast network, GirlTrek provides education and resources to help women effect that change.

Though the movement is securely grounded in research, its primary purpose is not to collect data or support a hypothesis. The purpose is much more personal and direct: to improve the lives of black women and their loved ones.

Garrison hailed Bree Newsome, who in 2015 shimmied up a 30-foot flagpole and removed the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the South Carolina state Capitol, as an embodiment of one of GirlTrek’s most fundamental statements:

"We are the ones we’ve been waiting for."

Vanessa Garrison didn’t set out to build a health movement. Growing up in Seattle’s Central District, a historically black neighborhood, Garrison just wanted her household and her community to be healthy.

“It was a challenge for me to develop solutions that work for the women I love,” Garrison said.

Those solutions, however, did set off a movement: GirlTrek, a community-based walking movement that has reached 250,000 black women and girls across the country. Garrison co-founded GirlTrek and serves as its chief operating officer.

> Garrison will tell her story at the Ann Niles Active Transportation Lecture Oct. 19 at Portland State University. Reserve a space if you plan to attend.

“Seattle is one of the most active cities in the country, but my household was completely inactive,” Garrison said. “All the women in my family were really experiencing health challenges due to chronic disease.”

Those problems ran deeper than simply inactivity. Obesity and inactivity often have roots in concerns about safety and other community issues built on historical trauma and systemic racism. A fitness-only approach, Garrison reasoned, would fail to overcome these powerful forces. 

With friend Morgan Dixon, who would become her GirlTrek co-founder, Garrison took inspiration from liberation movements over the years. Harriet Tubman, especially, was a model. 

“In our solution, we chose walking, not primarily because of the physical benefits but because it’s something that, throughout history, in the black community, has been really effective for mobilizing people for change,” Garrison said. 

“Harriet Tubman walked herself to freedom, to liberation.”

The examples were everywhere. The Montgomery bus boycott, in which walking proved a conspicuous fulfillment of the pledge “We will not ride.” The powerful marches throughout the Civil Rights Movement. Gandhi’s Salt March. The Soweto uprising against the racist South African government.

“We approached it from that lens,” Garrison said. “And then we saw the impact of walking on obesity and anxiety. It was this super powerful activity: it’s affordable, it’s accessible—and we thought ‘we’re really onto something!’ ”

In 2011, Garrison and Dixon sent an email to 100 friends and family: we’re going to start walking for 10 weeks. Join us and we’ll send you motivating messages each Monday. 

They finished with a plea: “Don’t let this movement stop in your inbox. Forward this to someone you love.” 

550 women responded. 

Garrison and Dixon had tapped into something. “At the end of that 10 weeks, the number of emails and phone calls we got was so overwhelming,” Garrison said. “Women were in tears, telling us this was the first time in their life they had stuck to something, that their doctors had been telling them for years that they’re going to die if they don’t do something.”

Garrison and Dixon weren’t prepared to respond to this outpouring. “We said ‘Whoa! This is too much information. We’re not doctors!’ ” Garrison said. 

Both had other jobs. “But we also felt we had a moral responsibility. This is a sign that the need is so much bigger than we realized.”

Neither knew of existing walking advocacy organizations to turn to. “It’s actually one of the problems,” Garrison said. “For all the best intentions of the ‘walking movement’ space, the people in our communities don’t know it exists.”

So they started with their communities, and from scratch: how do we meet and connect with people so this doesn’t feel like just another program?

Each month, GirlTrek unveils a high-visibility, themed walking campaign based on black history and culture, making it easy and fun to join in. Then they train women to be leaders, first on walking teams and then as community organizers. 

As GirlTrek groups organize around content relevant to their communities, the groups look dramatically different from one place to the next. “That’s the heart and soul of GirlTrek,” Garrison said.

“The women in Chicago are motivated by the bigger issue of gun violence in their community and how coming together makes their streets safer. Jackson (Mississippi) is very faith-based and people are walking after bible study and church. GirlTrek tells them their body is a temple and walking honors this temple God gave them,” she said.

The Washington, D.C. group gets deep into legislative politics. The Oakland, California group draws on that city’s activist history. 

“GirlTrek does not have the solution to the problems of every community,” Garrison said. “But we do know that every community has the resources.”

So far, more than 75,000 women have taken the GirlTrek pledge to start walking in their neighborhoods. The bigger number, 250,000, have connected through social media. Garrison has set a goal of inspiring 1 million women by 2018. She also aims to see walkers make a habit of walking by completing at least three monthly challenges.

Garrison hasn’t forgotten her own family. “The hardest thing you can actually do is to convey to the people around you to change their behavior,” she said. “In doing that, most people sabotage their own personal health.”

There, again, she has Harriet Tubman as a guide.

Tubman had earlier found an escape route from slavery and tried repeatedly to convince her husband and two of her brothers to join her. “Eventually, she did the smartest thing any woman can do,” Garrison said. “She left by herself.

“All around you are super negative influences, whether they realize it or not, and you have to make the super hard decision to leave those people behind.”

But Tubman’s story doesn’t end with her escape. “Why she’s famous is she started to go back,” Garrison said. “She got her family.”

Understanding that history, each pledge to walk, each community gathering, each woman starting to identify as a healthy black woman, carries the symbolism of crossing the Mason-Dixon line. 

“Every single day, we bring more family members across the health line.”

RSVP now to reserve a spot. More information on the talk is available at the Ann Niles Active Transportation Lecture page.

Seleta Reynolds of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation treated attendees of the Ann Niles Active Transportation Lecture to a provocative, entertaining presentation Oct. 6. Reynolds, the head of a 2,000-employee department, offered a perspective on striving for equity in a huge, diverse city. 

TREC’s Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation program, or IBPI, Reynolds filled the Billy Frank Jr. Conference Center at the Ecotrust building in northwest Portland Oct. 6. Her presentation ranged from Vision Zero to autonomous vehicles. 

The Niles lecture series serves as a legacy to Ann Niles, an advocate for livable neighborhoods in Portland. The lecture also coincided with the kickoff of a two-year campaign to create the IBPI Innovation in Active Transportation Endowed Scholarship, designed to help Portland State attract and retain the best and brightest students. 

In Los Angeles, making sure transportation decisions benefit all residents is a constant and evolving challenge, Reynolds said at the lecture. All communities need to be at the table for discussions that affect them. The key, Reynolds said, is to “listen quietly and speak with humility.”

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"2052","field_deltas":{},"attributes":{"height":"315","width":"480","style":"width: 400px; height: 263px; margin: 3px; border: 1px solid black; float: left;","class":"media-image media-image-left media-element file-media-large","data-delta":"1"},"fields":{}}]]Doing so can make help sort out the sometimes competing claim to public resources such as streets. “Who has permission and who is trespassing on these streets?” Reynolds asked. Vision Zero, the concept that all transportation deaths are preventable, changes the discussion. “The most vulnerable user is the one who trumps,” Reynolds said. 

That mindset is helpful, but not sufficient for equity concerns. Traditional ways to get around are being joined by newer technologies, Reynolds said—technologies that can upend cities if policymakers aren’t up to speed. What’s needed, Reynolds said, is a two-pronged approach: infuse equity into new shared-use mobility options while at the same time promoting and thanking people for walking, cycling and using transit. 

Allowing new transportation models, including ride-hailing apps such as Lyft and Uber, to operate in an unregulated environment turns over stewardship of a city to the market —which doesn’t have the same concerns about transportation serving all residents. Once those services, and newer technologies, become established, it’s much harder to compel them to advance city transportation objectives. Those negotiations have to take place at the outset, Reynolds said. 

The lecture came at the end of an active day for Reynolds that including meetings with TREC staff and students and Portland Bureau of Transportation leaders. Miguel Figliozzi, a civil and environmental engineering associate professor and TREC researcher, opened his freight logistics class to welcome Reynolds and other transportation students. 

Los Angeles, Reynolds told the students, moves more vehicles with the same amount of infrastructure than any other city in the world. That’s in large part to an advanced traffic control center called ATSAC, the Automated Traffic Surveillance and Control system. 

Transportation in L.A., despite its proficiency at—and reputation for— vehicle mobility, has always included more than automobiles, Reynolds said. “People in L.A. are wanting to use streets differently,” she said. “They are giving up cars and are hungry for other options to get around.”

The Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI) opened the Ann Niles Transportation Lecture series Monday, August 26 with a talk by Jean-Francois Pronovost, the vice president for development and public affairs at advocacy group Vélo Québec. The Ann Niles lecture series serves as a legacy to Ann Niles, who was a strong advocate for livable neighborhoods and served on many boards and committees related to transportation in Portland. OTREC and IBPI are proud to be part of an ongoing collaborative effort to make Portland a more livable city.

Pronovost was preceded at Monday's lecture by OTREC director Jennifer Dill, who opened the talk with remarks about Niles' spirit of advocacy and passion, and the opportunity that Portlanders have to change their city for the better. Jean-Francois Pronovost has been instrumental in building the world’s longest bicycle greenway, the Route Verte, which runs 3,100 miles through the province of Quebec. He described the process of building partnerships with nonprofits, local businesses and community groups in order to make the greenway a reality. Pronovosts's enthusiasm for bicycling was infectious; his presentation included highlights from Vélo Québec's annual rides, including a kids-only ride with no parents allowed, as well as photos from a province-wide celebration to mark the completion of the trail. His talk underscored the principle behind all of Vélo Québec's greenway efforts: Biking is fun.

Pronovost is convinced that building bike-friendlier cities is achievable with collaboration. Infrastructure, he said, is the key. Although Montreal already sets a high standard with its existing bicycle infrastructure, Vélo Québec is continually looking for ways to improve it.

During the question-and-answer session that followed the speech, several people wanted to know about the practical differences between Montreal and Portland, and how a fully connected greenway could be achieved in the Pacific Northwest.

Pronovost is vice president, development and public affairs for Vélo Québec, where he works on the focus, strategy and development of new projects and partnerships.

From 1989 to 2010, he was the executive director of the association division of Vélo Québec. In 1992, he acted as Chief Organizer of the first world-wide conference on bicycling, the Conférence Vélo Mondiale Pro Bike•Velo City, in Montréal. The Technical Handbook of Bikeway Design is among the many technical publications he has edited. Since 1995, he has been involved with the development of the Route Verte, a 5,000-kilometer bike route across Québec, and with the launch of several active transportation initiatives in collaboration with municipalities and the school network. 

Read Jean-Francois' interview with BikePortland here.

(First published by BikePortland.org)

Portland has a network of neighborhood greenways, and they're great. But Jean-Francois Pronovost's is 3,100 miles long. That's approximately the distance from Portland to Nicaragua.

The Greenway (Route Verte in Pronovost's native French) is a bike route network running all over the Canadian province of Quebec. On Monday, the vice president for development and public affairs at advocacy group Vélo Québec visits Portland to share lessons from this project and others in the first annual Ann Niles Transportation Lecture, a major new series produced by Portland State University's Institute for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation.

The event is free, though space is limited to 240. On Thursday, BikePortland spoke with Pronovost to learn more about his life's work, the best parts of Quebec bike touring and how his hometown of Montreal managed to replace 320 auto parking spaces with a downtown protected lane that carries 9,000 bikes per day. Questions and answers were edited for space. 

Can you describe your most famous achievement, the Route Verte??

The Route Verte [pronounced with hard Ts and silent Es] is now 5,000 kilometers all over the province, linking the major city centers. The most interesting thing is that partnership that has built over 18 years, which is still going on. Tons of organizations, hotels, lodging facilities, that sort of thing.

Do you know how much money gets spent in a year by people on the Route Verte??

A few years ago when we measured that with university researchers, we were $134 million ($127 million USD). That doesn't include bikes and accessories – it's only travel expenses.

In his campaign last year, Portland Mayor Charlie Hales called for more emphasis on big, inspiring ideas like a bike trail to the Oregon coast. Did Route Verte begin with advocacy from people at the local level, or at the provincial level?

?It's very rare, but it was actually a decision of the prime minister of the province. He decided it was a way to help regional development and to help young people be involved in a big mobilization.

I talk to a lot of people in the US and Europe. Their first priority is not to link to every territory and every country. It takes some perspective to see all the benefits that you could have linking every region, every city, every municipality together. In little rural communities, the bicycle was not the agenda. But with the Route Verte, they were asked to be part of the movement, and that was their first experience to see how to include bicycles in the community.

Let's shift to talking about cities. Montreal pioneered the use of physically protected urban bike lanes in North America. Lately, there seems to be an almost religious debate within the U.S. bike community over whether these should be widely used. What do you think?

?I think it's less a debate than it was a few years ago. I remember in the 80s we had the first parts of the Montreal bicycle network being built. People were saying, "No, that's not the way to do it, bicycles have to ride in the street." We were really glad to see the administration here build these kind of facilities, because it was one of the reasons why we find so many people on their bicycle in Montreal. It's not the only reason of course, but it's been over the years a major incentive to ordinary people. Many cyclists don't need. But many, many people need.

Is it something that we can implement everywhere? Probably not. It's not the magical recipe. It's something you have to adapt in the context you are working in. But the general idea is to create environment where the ordinary people will feel comfortable. And we don't even talk about "safety," because safety is a concept that is really different from one person to another. Comfort – it's a feeling. You feel comfortable.

Lots of major bike projects lead to a removal of auto parking or an auto travel lane. What can you say to those who worry that these changes will hurt businesses or cause congestion??

I hate to say it, but merchants are often complaining. They complain for everything – they complain for the weather. I know that it's tough to do business these days, but when you are in a neighborhood where a lot of people walk and bike, a lot of people who come to your shop will come by walking and biking. For example, in downtown Montreal in 2008, when the city implemented the bike path on the De Maisonneuve Boulevard — it's a big arterial street in the business district — they remove 320-something car spaces.

We have evaluated that in a corridor with 200 meters on both sides of the route, there were approximately 11,000 parking spaces. So 300 in 11,000 – you know, it's almost nothing. The association of merchants was complaining of course at the beginning, and after a while everyone realize that it didn't change anything. And now you see that facility in downtown, where you have traffic of almost 10,000 cyclists a day. Everyone is happy. It's a major improvement for everyone who wants to travel downtown by bicycle.

What's the best thing about biking in Quebec that someone can't find in Oregon??

Oh, geez. (laughs) I like biking in Oregon. I've been three times at least, mostly on the coast. What is interesting with the Route Verte is the connectivity. I'm able to leave from downtown Montreal with my bike and travel all over the province. We have 500 hotels that are certified "Welcome Cyclists." So that means you arrive there and they are not scary about you. You arrive and you are welcome. They have special meals for you. So that's very fun. And the geography's very different – the St. Laurence River, the old villages, the French culture, the mix of the culture in Montreal – I think it's fun to try at least once.

If you could go back in time and tell yourself one thing to make you a better bike advocate, what would it be??

We never do enough partnership and building relationship. Because it is the key to be able to influence the decision-makers. It's a work that is taking so much time to try to bring people all together.

What about biking most inspires you to work on its behalf?

I think it's because it's so simple. You can change a lot of things with the bicycle. You can change the way that people think, you can change the way that people feel, you can change the way the neighborhoods are friendly. A simple thing that can do so many great things.

Pronovost's speech is 6:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 26, in Lincoln Hall at 1620 SW Park Ave.

The Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation has received a gift to support an annual transportation lecture at Portland State University. The gift, which establishes the Ann Niles Transportation Lecture Endowment, was finalized last month.

Created by Philip Niles in memory of his late wife, Ann, the endowment will bring a speaker each year to address transportation and planning issues for students, faculty and the community. Ann Niles was a strong advocate for livable neighborhoods and served on many transportation-related boards and committees in Portland.

Ann Niles grew up in Grants Pass, Ore., and graduated from Reed College in Portland, where she met Philip. She earned a graduate degree in library science from the University of Minnesota and began her career at the Carleton College library.

Ann and Philip retired in 1999 and returned to Portland. Ann developed a second career in urban development and transportation and worked with the city of Portland and the Pearl District Neighborhood Association. She chaired the Pearl District Transportation Committee for eight years, promoting better sidewalks and crosswalks for pedestrians and better bicycle routes and parking throughout downtown Portland. Ann also represented the Pearl District on the Portland Streetcar Citizens Advisory Committee and the advisory committee for Portland’s transit mall revitalization.

Details on the lecture series, including information on the first lecture, will be released when available.