"The IBPI Bikeway Design Course gives tangible examples of policies and standards in action. The Neighborhood Greenways are a wonderful example of how walking and bicycling has been prioritized by policy, and then you physically ride a bike and see the diverters and traffic calming measures realizing this vision. I would highly recommend anyone attend this course to learn and experience the practical design implementation of a great cycling city." 
-2024 attendee

"I came into the course hoping to learn new insights on bikeway design and left with all my expectations being exceeded. The TREC staff were amazing during the week providing us with resources and support. Additionally they did a wonderful job putting together a great group of panelists that brought with them a breadth of experience, knowledge and skill."
-2021 attendee

"We are currently in the process of designing some of our first bike lanes. I plan to use the knowledge gained from intersection treatments and shared bike/ped infrastructure to improve our proposals."
-2021 attendee

"I came into the course with very minimal experience with bikeways and how it affects traffic with the implementation of these bike lanes/pathways. The course has taught me that it takes a bit of thinking outside the box to make bikeways work even if it doesn't seem very conventional or helpful."
-2019 attendee

"The course provided guidance on many innovative solutions for enhancing bicycle safety and circulation. The reasons behind prioritizing bicycle travel were also useful, as well as the policy context for focusing on bicycle infrastructure."
-2019 attendee

Below is an example of our typical workshop schedule (e.g. bike rides may shift in timing according to weather, etc.). Days begin at 8:00 AM, and end at 5:00 PM, unless otherwise noted.

MONDAY

Introductions + Orientation

Setting the Context for Bicycle Facility Design

Field Tour (Portland): Bicycle Facility Design - The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Bicycle Facility Design: Bike Boulevards 

Evening: Social Hour (optional, after 5PM)

TUESDAY

Field Tour (Portland): Bicycle Facility Design - A Low Stress Network

Innovation in Bicycle Facility Design: Network Approach and Protected Bike Lanes

Innovation in Bicycle Facility Design (cont.) 

WEDNESDAY

Traffic Engineering Techniques in Support of Active Transportation: Intersections, Signals, and Other Principles

Field Tour (Portland): Traffic Engineering - The Bike Edition

Pathways to Innovation: Evolving Guidance and Standards in Bikeway Design

THURSDAY

Designing for Suburban Environments 

Field Tour (Washington County): Bicycling in a Suburban Environment

Multimodal Integration: Making the Transit and Bike Connection

FRIDAY

What Design Problems Are You Challenged By?

Closing Lunch and Conversation (ends at 1 PM)

Register now for the 2025 workshop.

If you are not able to attend this year, email us at asktrec@pdx.edu if you would like to be added to the waitlist, or sign up to be notified as soon as applications open next year.

The workshop will be held Aug 25–29, 2025.

The workshop fee is $1575 for participants who bring their own bike, which includes:

  • Light breakfast (daily)
  • Lunch (daily, via local Portland food carts)
  • Additional snacks (you won't go hungry!)
  • Electronic course materials

Additional cost to rent a bike for the duration of the workshop:

  • $145 for multi-speed
  • $295 for e-bike (limited number available)

Rented bikes will be available for pickup from 10am - 6pm on Sunday, Aug 24 – the day before the workshop. If possible, please plan to arrive in Portland and pick up your bicycle on Sunday. We will build in time to pick up bicycles on Monday for those who are not able to pick up early.

Overnight bike rentals must be stored inside a domicile (hotel room/concierge closet, living room, etc). A shared bike room is not a safe location. Bike rentals cannot be stored outside overnight - it is a violation of the rental policy and you will be responsible for any theft or damage if stored in a shared bike room or outside.

This year's workshop will be held Aug 25–29, 2025

Please note: We will confirm by July  1 whether enrollment meets the minimum required to run this August workshop. We kindly ask that you wait for this confirmation before making any non‑refundable travel arrangements.

REGISTER NOW

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. 

Over the years, the Portland area has implemented numerous types of innovative bicycle facilities and treatments. Daily field tours provide first-hand experience with these facilities and projects discussed in the classroom. These tours showcase not just the operational qualities but also how bikeway planning affects community livability and economic development.

Upon completion of the course, participants will be able to:

  • Make low-risk investments in proven bicycle plans and facilities
  • Select the appropriate bicycle facility design based on urban form, traffic conditions and multimodal context
  • List the different ways that a bicycle facility can meet or not meet the needs of people who bike
  • Use the FHWA Experiment process to test innovative bikeway design
  • Describe the tradeoffs of designing better facilities to accommodate all road users
  • Identify various options for treating intersections that incorporate bicycle facilities
  • Describe the health benefits of active transportation
  • Identify opportunities, strategies and programs to encourage more people to bike and walk
  • Talk to an engineer and communicate effectively with them about facility requirements
  • Build their personal network with experts from the various facets of bikeway design
  • Feel rejuvenated and excited to go back to work and make an impact!

This course is offered through our Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation program.

Hosted since 2009, our Bikeway Design workshop is designed for transportation engineers, urban planners, advocates, policymakers, municipal staff and other transportation professionals interested in nurturing cycling in their communities. See photos from workshops of previous years.

Students must be able to bike 8–15 miles a day, and expect mild elevation. With daily bike rides, this course is physically demanding. Participants who aren't used to riding multiple miles per day have the option of renting e-bikes (we have a limited number, while supplies last). Having an e-bike gives you the same view and makes it easy to keep up with the group!

To request reasonable accommodations, contact us at 503-725-2896 or asktrec@pdx.edu. In order to ensure that reasonable accommodations can be provided in time for this event, please make your request within seven business days before the event.

Watch a video of the lecture here

Access the slides here.

Tamika Butler (@TamikaButler), executive director of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust, will deliver the Ann Niles Active Transportation Lecture this year. She is an advocate and activist who works in support of LGBTQA rights, as well as fighting for social justice and healthy communities. She moved to Los Angeles from Omaha, Nebraska, and became interested in active transportation when she met her wife. It was on bike rides that she fell in love with the city. Uniquely positioned as a queer black woman to understand what marginalized people experience every day, she brought passion, energy and intersectionality to the quest for better bicycle access as the executive director of the Los Angeles Bicycle Coalition. In her new role with the L.A. Neighborhood Land Trust, she continues to help address social and racial equity through building parks and gardens in park-poor communities across Greater Los Angeles. Butler was a featured speaker at the 2017 National Walking Summit in St. Paul this September, and gave the keynote at the 2016 NACTO Designing Cities conference in Seattle.

Prior to leading the L.A. Bicycle Coalition, she was the director of social change strategies at Liberty Hill Foundation, and worked at Young Invincibles as the California director. She received her J.D. from Stanford Law School and her B.A. in Psychology and B.S. in Sociology in her hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. 

READ MORE about Tamika's new role here on StreetsBlog LA "Tamika Butler to Step Down as Head of LACBC; Leaves Behind Strong Legacy of Inclusion in Transportation
WATCH MORE of Tamika and view her 2016 NACTO Designing Cities keynote address

INITIATIVE FOR BICYCLE AND PEDESTRIAN INNOVATION (IBPI) 
Each year, the Ann Niles Active Transportation Lecture Endowment brings a guest speaker to Portland, Oregon. We seek people from all over the world who have made great strides in advocating for health, safety, and bicycle and pedestrian access, and bring them together with the Portland transportation community to share methods and inspiration. The annual forum furthers IBPI's mission to facilitate the exchange of knowledge among scholars, practitioners and community advocates focused on walking and biking. Read more about the Ann Niles Active Transportation Lecture endowment.

Portland State University's Lincoln Recital Hall (Room 75, Ground Fl, 1620 SW Park Ave, Portland, OR 97201) 

Want to learn more about the work we do and how it intersects with equity in transportation? Read more.

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We will be providing ASL interpreters and CART services at this event.

The lecture will begin promptly at 5:30 p.m; doors and seating to the lecture hall begins at 5:00 p.m.

Every year the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State brings a world-class speaker to speak on active transportation - with the support of the Ann Niles endowment for our program the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI). This year the lecture is part of the annual Portland State of Mind.

This year, in celebration of Portland State’s "Disability as Diversity" month of October here on campus, we invited Elise Roy to share her unique perspective on how active transportation interfaces with the Deaf community and others with unique needs. In the City of Portland and surrounding regions, it’s critical that we consider all users at the beginning of the design process for walking, biking, and transit.

Elise Roy (see full bio) 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.

Part of the evening will include a conversation between Elise and Dr. Paula Carder, Director of Portland State University's Institute on Aging, as they explore further how universal design in mobility options and infrastructure truly does benefit everyone at every stage of life.

DIRECTIONS

The accessible entrance to Lincoln Hall is on Broadway. Enter on the ground floor and proceed straight ahead down the hall to the opposite end of the building, then turn left and the Recital Hall will be one of two doors on your left.

SUPPORT PROVIDED BY

Ann Niles Endowment

National Institute for Transportation and Communities

Age-Friendly Portland

RELATED EVENTS

In addition to this fall lecture, TREC is excited to continue the conversation on orientation and mobility with our future upcoming events:

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The Ann Niles Active Transportation Lecture is a unique opportunity to bring world-class thinkers on pedestrian and bicycle issues to Portland State University (PSU) and the active transportation community in the Portland metro region. The annual lecture serves as a legacy to Ann Niles who was a strong advocate for livable neighborhoods, safer pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, and served on many transportation-focused boards and committees in Portland. The forum furthers the mission of our Initative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI) program to facilitate the exchange of knowledge among scholars, practitioners and community advocates around issues of active transportation. By promoting dialogue across disciplines and interests, this lecture series supports PSU's mission to "let knowledge serve the city."

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SAVE THE DATE! Every year the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State brings a world-class speaker to speak on active transportation - with the support of the Ann Niles endowment. This year Angie Schmitt of Streetsblog will deliver the lecture at a luncheon on October 15, 2019. Save the date, registration opens in September!

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

 Miss the lecture, or want to share it with someone?

THE SPEAKER

Angie Schmitt is the editor of Streetsblog USA. Streetsblog is a daily news site that connects people to information about how to reduce dependence on cars and improve conditions for walking, biking, and transit. Since 2006, their reporters have broken important stories about efforts to prevent pedestrian injuries and deaths, build out bicycle networks, and make transit more useful. Angie has been reporting on the movement for sustainable transportation for nine years and is a frequently cited expert. She is currently writing a book about the pedestrian safety crisis, to be published in 2020 by Island Press. Angie holds a degree in urban planning and lives in Cleveland, OH with her husband and two young children.

THE LECTURE

The Pedestrian Safety Crisis in America: Why it's happening -- from SUVs to gentrification -- and what we can do about it. More than 6,000 pedestrians are getting killed every year on American streets, representing an enormous 50 percent increase from the first part of the decade. We'll talk about the social trends that are putting people at risk. And why fundamentally, it is a problem of inequity.

THE TICKETS

THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT. This afternoon lecture includes catered lunch, and the ticket fee covers that cost. To increase access and remove barriers to participation, we are offering a sliding scale option. Access to learning should be lifelong, participatory, and affordable - please let us know if you need additional support at asktrec@pdx.edu:

  • $20 Luncheon Ticket
  • $10 Luncheon Ticket (Choose this price if you are a student or an employee of a community-based organization)

Refund Policy: You may cancel your ticket and receive a full refund up until two weeks prior to the event. Refunds close on Monday, October 1st. You may tranfer your ticket to another individual at no cost, at any time.

The Ann Niles Active Transportation Lecture is a unique opportunity to bring world-class thinkers on pedestrian and bicycle issues to Portland State University (PSU) and the active transportation community in the Portland metro region. The annual lecture serves as a legacy to Ann Niles who was a strong advocate for livable neighborhoods, safer pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, and served on many transportation-focused boards and committees in Portland. The forum furthers the mission of our Initative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI) program to facilitate the exchange of knowledge among scholars, practitioners and community advocates around issues of active transportation. By promoting dialogue across disciplines and interests, this lecture series supports PSU's mission to "let knowledge serve the city."

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Each year, the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State brings a world-class speaker to speak on active transportation with the support of the Ann Niles endowment.

THE LECTURE

Roadways for People: Building Safe, Just and Affordable Communities

When Lynn Peterson began working as a transportation engineer, she was taught to evaluate roadway projects based only on metrics related to driver safety, allowable speed for the highest number of cars, project schedule, and budget. Involving the community and collaborating with peers were never part of the discussion. Today, Peterson is a nationally recognized leader in transportation planning and engineering, known for her approach that is rooted in racial equity, guided by a process of community engagement, and includes collaboration with other professionals. Lynn Peterson will draw from her personal experience and interviews with leaders in the field to showcase new possibilities within transportation engineering and planning.  Join us in a discussion on how to pave the way towards more inclusive communities.

THE SPEAKER

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.

THE TICKETS 

This lecture includes a catered lunch, and the ticket fee covers that cost. To increase access and remove barriers to participation, we are offering a sliding scale option. Access to learning should be lifelong, participatory, and affordable - please let us know if you need additional support at asktrec@pdx.edu.

  • $10 Luncheon Ticket (Choose this price if you are a student or work for a community-based organization)
  • $25 Luncheon Ticket

Refund Policy: You may cancel your ticket and receive a full refund up until two weeks prior to the event. Refunds close on Wednesday, May 10. You may transfer your ticket to another individual at no cost, at any time.

The Ann Niles Active Transportation Lecture is a unique opportunity to bring world-class thinkers on pedestrian and bicycle issues to Portland State University (PSU) and the active transportation community in the Portland metro region. The annual lecture serves as a legacy to Ann Niles who was a strong advocate for livable neighborhoods, safer pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, and served on many transportation-focused boards and committees in Portland. The forum furthers the mission of our Initative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI) program to facilitate the exchange of knowledge among scholars, practitioners and community advocates around issues of active transportation. By promoting dialogue across disciplines and interests, this lecture series supports PSU's mission to "let knowledge serve the city."

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