PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

• View the presentation slides
• Watch the video

THE TOPIC

This seminar is brought to you by the Oregon chapter of the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals (APBP), with support from TREC at Portland State.

Transit stops and stations are a confluence of complementary and competing activities - pedestrians accessing businesses, passengers boarding and alighting, and bicyclists zipping through to their destinations. People are moving in different directions, at different speeds, and need to be able to navigate this space safely and comfortably. A common point of conflict is the bus/bicycle interaction when a transit stop is adjacent to a bike lane. Designs for integrating pedestrian and bicycle facilities at high demand transit stops have advanced over the last decade, but often involve costly infrastructure which require generous right-of-way space, significant streetscape reconfiguration and/or expensive property acquisitions.

TriMet, in coordination with Alta Planning and Design, WSP, PIVOT Architecture and regional stakeholders developed a new station area typology for constrained locations along the Division Street corridor in Portland, OR as a part of the Division Transit Project (DTP) - the city’s first Bus Rapid Transit project. The team’s goal was to develop a concept that could be tested and applied across the corridor, connecting sidewalks and protected bike lanes, in an intuitive, safe station environment.

In the first session of the Spring term, Jesse Stemmler of TriMet and Derek Abe of Alta Planning + Design will be kicking off a joint presentation with the Oregon Chapter of the Association of Bicycle and Pedestrian Professionals (APBP) on their design process and outcomes toward the development of the new integrated station area typology.

SPEAKER

Derek Abe, Alta Planning + Design

Derek Abe is a transportation planner and project manager with a background in mechanical engineering, environmental science, and urban planning.  At Alta Planning + Design, he leads research and data analysis, policy analysis, network planning, and facility design on an array of projects including bicycle and pedestrian master plans,transit access plans, design standards and guidelines, and experimental facility studies. He is a leader in Alta's analytics, facility design, new mobility, and tactical urbanism service areas.

Jesse Stemmler, TriMet
Jesse Stemmler is the Lead Urban Designer for TriMet’s Division Transit Project – a new, high capacity bus project for the region that connects downtown Portland, Oregon to the City of Gresham. In this role, Jesse leads a team of urban design professionals in the design and development of enhanced transit station environments throughout the Division Street corridor.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

This 60-minute seminar is eligible for 1 hour of professional development credit for AICP (see our provider summary). We can provide an electronic attendance certificate for other types of certification maintenance.

LEARN MORE

Sign up for our newsletter to receive monthly updates.

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.

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

• Watch the video
• View the presentation slides

OVERVIEW

Connecting with cities and bike share operators from across the United States, Portland State University conducted a nationwide scan on what programs and initiatives were running to address equity in bike share. The report “National Scan of Bike Share Equity Programs” documents responses from over 70 bike share systems. This resource will help cities and operators navigate the range of actions that have been implemented to make bike share systems more equitable, examine successful strategies employed across the U.S., and understand how those successes (and challenges) are being measured and articulated. In doing so, we hope the report helps bike share systems learn from the experiences of others, innovate, and more quickly move toward greater equity. The research team will be joined by a bike share operator to discuss what they learned, best practices, and where they see the future of bike share equity programs headed.

THE RESEARCH

This webinar is based on a study funded by the Better Bike Share Partnership and the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) and conducted at Portland State University. Read more about the research: Portland State University Releases Evaluation Of Bike Share Equity Programs.

SPEAKERS

John MacArthur, Sustainable Transportation Program Manager, Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC)

 John MacArthur is the Principal Investigator for TREC's electric bicycle research initiatives. His research also includes low-/no-emission vehicle infrastructure in Portland metro, as well as a climate change impact assessment for surface transportation in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Before joining the TREC staff, John was the Context Sensitive and Sustainable Solutions Program Manager for the Oregon Department of Transportation’s OTIA III State Bridge Delivery Program. 

Nathan McNeil, Portland State University

Nathan McNeil is a research associate at the Center for Urban Studies at Portland State University. He conducts research around impacts of new bicycle infrastructure and programs on travel behavior and attitudes towards cycling, shared-use mobility programs including carsharing and bike-share, and the connection between land-use and transportation. Nathan received a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from Portland State University, and studied history at Columbia University as an undergraduate. Prior to PSU, McNeil worked for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in New York City as a performance auditor where he evaluated capital programs and contractors. 

Adriel Thornton, Director of Marketing & Community Outreach, MoGo Detroit

 As Director of Marketing and Community Outreach, Adriel maintains the social media channels and messaging for MoGo, directs the creation and production of brand marketing collateral, creates targeted marketing campaigns and strategies, and leads the branding, promotional, and public marketing for the organization. He also utilizes his expertise in community relations to execute, with the other members of the MoGo team, community interactions, events, and representational opportunities that propel the MoGo brand forward. Adriel is a native Detroiter who loves cycling and nightlife.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

This 60-minute webinar is eligible for 1 hour of professional development credit for AICP (see our provider summary). We provide an electronic attendance certificate for other types of certification maintenance.

LEARN MORE

Sign up for our newsletter to get updates on our events.

Photo credit: Ian Sane

This webinar is hosted by the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University. The research was funded by the Better Bike Share Partnership; an initiative funded by The JPB Foundation as a collaboration between the City of Philadelphia, the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) and the PeopleForBikes Foundation to build equitable and replicable bike share systems. A series of technical briefs to help practitioners implement the findings were supported by a technology transfer grant from the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC).

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

• Watch the video
• View the presentation slides

OVERVIEW

Since 2005, Portland State University has periodically surveyed occupants of recently developed  higher-density and mixed-use projects near transit, often referred to as Transit-Oriented Developments (TODs). The general objectives of the surveys were to better understand actual transit use, among other factors, of residents in these buildings. Between 2005 and 2018, the research team surveyed residents of nearly 50 TODs. With funding from Metro and the National Institute for Transportation and Communities, the research team carried out a two-pronged study drawing on this wealth of data. First, we explore geographic differences within the Portland region in terms of travel behavior and attitudes of TOD residents, including differences between TODs within the city of Portland, in eastside suburbs, and in westside suburbs. Second, we conducted a second wave of surveys for select TODs to understand if travel behavior or attitudes changed over time, particularly as neighborhoods surrounding the buildings were built up. In this webinar, we will present select findings from both aspects of the study.

KEY LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Learn about the concept and goal of transit-oriented development
• Understand who lives in TODs, and how they get around
• Learn about the potential impact of TOD on travel behavior, including variations by location and over time.

THE RESEARCH

This webinar is based on a study funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) and conducted at Portland State University. Read more about the NITC research: Revisiting TODs: How Subsequent Development Affects the Travel Behavior of Residents in Existing Transit-Oriented Developments.

SPEAKERS

Jennifer Dill, Director of TREC and Professor of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University

Jennifer Dill is a professor of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University, and director of TREC, PSU’s Transportation Research and Education Center. She is also the director of the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC). Her research aims to understand people’s everyday travel decisions, with a focus on bicycling, walking, and transit. Dr. Dill is an internationally cited researcher on sustainable transportation. Among her research projects are Lessons from the Green Lanes: Evaluating Protected Bike Lanes in the U.S., Understanding Types of Cyclists Nationally, Pedestrian Observation and Data Collection Curriculum and more.

Nathan McNeil, Portland State University

Nathan McNeil is a research associate at the Center for Urban Studies at Portland State University. He conducts research around impacts of new bicycle infrastructure and programs on travel behavior and attitudes towards cycling, shared-use mobility programs including carsharing and bike-share, and the connection between land-use and transportation. Nathan received a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from Portland State University, and studied history at Columbia University as an undergraduate. Prior to PSU, McNeil worked for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in New York City as a performance auditor where he evaluated capital programs and contractors.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

This 60-minute webinar is eligible for 1 hour of professional development credit for AICP (see our provider summary). We provide an electronic attendance certificate for other types of certification maintenance.

LEARN MORE

Sign up for our newsletter to get updates on our events.

Image by RUBEN RAMOS/istock

This webinar is hosted by the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University. The research was funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), a program of TREC and one of five U.S. Department of Transportation national university transportation centers. The NITC program is a Portland State-led partnership with the University of Oregon, Oregon Institute of Technology, University of Utah and new partners University of Arizona and University of Texas at Arlington. We pursue our theme — improving mobility of people and goods to build strong communities — through research, education and technology transfer.

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

• Watch the video
• View the presentation slides

OVERVIEW

The National Street Improvements Study, conducted by PSU in conjunction with PeopleForBikes and consulting firm Bennett Midland, researched the economic effects of bicycle infrastructure on 14 corridors across six cities — Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Memphis, Minneapolis and Indianapolis. The study found that improvements such as bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure had either positive or non-significant impacts on the local economy as measured through sales and employment. In this webinar, lead researcher Jenny Liu will share the results of the investigation and the unique methodology for investigating these economic outcomes.

THE RESEARCH

This webinar is based on a study funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) and the Summit Foundation, and conducted at Portland State University. Read more about the research: Bike Lanes Can Provide Positive Economic Impact in Cities.

SPEAKER

Jenny Liu, Portland State University

Jenny Liu is an associate professor of urban studies and planning at Portland State University. She is an environmental and resource economist with a focus in transportation economics. Her research interests include the economics of alternative energy sources, links between transportation choices and environmental issues, the effects of physical infrastructure networks and social networks on the adoption of transportation technologies, and technology adoption and its effects on climate change, particularly within the urban and development contexts.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

This 60-minute webinar is eligible for 1 hour of professional development credit for AICP (see our provider summary). We provide an electronic attendance certificate for other types of certification maintenance.

LEARN MORE

Sign up for our newsletter to get updates on our events.

Photo by Michael Lander

This webinar is hosted by the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University. The research was funded by the Summit Foundation and the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), a program of TREC and one of five U.S. Department of Transportation national university transportation centers. The NITC program is a Portland State-led partnership with the University of Oregon, Oregon Institute of Technology, University of Utah and new partners University of Arizona and University of Texas at Arlington. We pursue our theme — improving mobility of people and goods to build strong communities — through research, education and technology transfer.

In response to the global pandemic, in person activities are restricted on the PSU campus. Until further notice, all live events hosted by TREC will be online only.

Friday Transportation Seminars at Portland State University have been a tradition since 2000. You can join us online at 11:30 AM. 

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

• Watch the video
• View the presentation slides
• TREC Twitter thread

THE TOPIC

Neighborhoods of color tend to be the most dangerous places for cyclists and other road users, a result in part of historic disinvestment and failure to provide basic infrastructure. Safety efforts to reduce crashes, like Vision Zero, have called for both increased investment, a qualified benefit for disenfranchised communities, and increased traffic enforcement, a response that is likely to place people of color in even greater harm based on extensively documented police injustice.

• For more about the problems of policy and planning around 'bicycling while black,' check out a Sept 9, 2020 blog post by Jesus Barajas.

To what extent, then, do poor cycling conditions and inadequate infrastructure contribute to disparities in policing in Black and Brown neighborhoods? Using data obtained from the Chicago Police Department, I will present findings that show how street characteristics, cycling infrastructure, and neighborhood characteristics are associated with the number of citations issued for riding a bicycle on the sidewalk over the previous five years. I find evidence that fewer tickets are issued on lower-volume streets and on streets where bike facilities are provided. While the provision of bike lanes and paths do not eliminate racial disparities in policing, they do contribute to more comfortable cycling conditions and lower odds of getting a citation. I will end with a discussion how the findings inform planning and policy.

KEY LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Participants will learn about the role of policing in bicycle safety planning in the U.S. and the issues associated with it.
• Participants will learn how bicycle citations are distributed by neighborhood in Chicago.
• Participants will understand how inadequate transportation infrastructure contributes to inequitable policing for cyclists.

SPEAKER

Jesus Barajas, Assistant Professor of Environmental Science and Policy, UC Davis 

Jesus M. Barajas is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy and affiliated faculty with the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis. His research focuses on mobility justice and transportation equity. His work examines the role that planning and policy contribute to access to opportunity among historically marginalized populations, with a goal of informing policy agendas that remedy injustices. He holds a PhD in City and Regional Planning from UC Berkeley.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

This 60-minute seminar is eligible for 1 hour of professional development credit for AICP (see our provider summary). We provide an electronic attendance certificate for other types of certification maintenance.

LEARN MORE

Sign up for our newsletter to receive monthly updates.

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.

In response to the global pandemic, in person activities are restricted on the PSU campus. Until further notice, all live events hosted by TREC will be online only.

Friday Transportation Seminars at Portland State University have been a tradition since 2000. You can join us online at 11:30 AM.

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

• Watch the video
• View the presentation slides
• TREC Twitter thread

THE TOPIC

Eastern Washington University's Small Urban, Rural & Tribal Center on Mobility (SURTCOM) focuses on the mobility needs and challenges faced by tribal communities. In this presentation, SURTCOM Associate Director Margo Hill will examine the accessibility of tribal communities to basic necessities. These necessities include:

• Interstate Onramps
• Micropolitan Population Centers
• Metropolitan Population Centers
• Indian Health Service (IHS) Facilities
• Grocery Stores
• Department Stores
• Fast Food Restaurants

Destinations were chosen based on observed health disparities within the American Indian population (Jones, 2006), and the importance of accessibility to healthy foods found throughout the food desert literature.

Professor Hill will also discuss Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. There are thousands of deaths and disappearances of Native women and girls in the U.S and Canada. These native women and girls vanish from tribal lands, rural communities and cities with no official accounting. Transportation and transit intersect with human trafficking and jurisdictional problems tribal people encounter. Native Americans have unique mobility patterns as they travel from rural tribal territories to urban centers. This session will discuss issues of risk factors, human trafficking and how the complicated jurisdictional scheme of Indian Country makes it difficult to protect native women. Lastly, we will discuss Federal Indian Law and the United States Supreme Court decisions on tribal issues and mobility.

KEY LEARNING OUTCOMES

Participants will learn about:

• The unique mobility patterns of tribal communities
• The accessibility of tribal communities to basic necessities such as health care, grocery stores and department stores
• Tribal sovereignty and how the United States Supreme Court has ruled on tribal mobility

SPEAKER

Margo Hill, Eastern Washington University

Margo Hill, JD, MURP, is a Spokane Tribal member and grew up on the Spokane Indian reservation. She serves as the Associate Director of Small, Urban, Rural and Tribal Center on Mobility (SURTCOM). Dr. Hill served as the Spokane Tribal Attorney for 10+ years and as a Coeur d’Alene Tribal Court Judge. In this capacity, she received letters of declination from the U.S. Attorney’s Office and worked to bring perpetrators to justice in the complex criminal law scheme of Indian Country. Margo Hill is faculty at Eastern Washington University where she teaches Planning Law and Legislation, Administrative Law, Community Development, Tribal Planning classes and American Indian Law.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

This 60-minute seminar is eligible for 1 hour of professional development credit for AICP (see our provider summary). We provide an electronic attendance certificate for other types of certification maintenance.

LEARN MORE

Photo by SEASTOCK/iStock

Sign up for our newsletter to receive monthly updates.

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.

In response to the global pandemic, in person activities are restricted on the PSU campus. Until further notice, all live events hosted by TREC will be online only.

Friday Transportation Seminars at Portland State University have been a tradition since 2000. You can join us online at 11:30 AM.

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

• Watch the video
• View the presentation slides
• TREC Twitter thread

THE TOPIC

In 2019, the LADOT Vision Zero Division launched the Vision Zero Dignity Infused Community Engagement (VZ DICE) strategy with the intent to transform the way the City engages with local communities. This planning process intentionally and holistically incorporates the viewpoints, lived experiences, and perspectives of those most impacted by a planning project and seeks to restore and atone for historic, systemic, and institutional injustices. A team of community partners, advocates, social scientists, artists, everyday residents, and technical experts came together to reach community residents in ways that reflect the local social, cultural, and racial/ethnic identity of a neighborhood. The strategy was purposely multifaceted involving a local street team, small business partnerships, an anti-displacement resource kit, and a ground truthing process to assess how local projects can center community needs and reflect local values. Over 18,000 residents and counting have been engaged through the project so far and LADOT continues to apply this framework to other planning projects.

KEY LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Community engagement should be culturally relevant and reflect the community being served.
• Transportation projects can negatively impact communities if residents aren’t involved in the engagement process.
• Partner, build, and pay community partners as they are local experts.
• Community engagement requires building trust, starting with a willingness to innovate, intervene, and invest.

SPEAKERS

Caro Vera, Senior Transportation Planner, Fehr & Peers

Caro is a Transportation Planner at Fehr & Peers, a transportation planning and engineering firm devoted to creating solutions that improve communities. She specializes in bicycle and pedestrian planning, equity, and community engagement. Caro is born and raised in South Central Los Angeles and takes much of her inspiration for creating safer streets from her community’s experiences biking, walking, rolling, driving, and riding public transit. She has ten years of experience in community organizing and engagement with communities of color. Caro holds a B.A. in Ethnic Studies and Chicano studies from UC Berkeley as well as a M.A. in Urban Planning from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

Kevin Ocubillo, Los Angeles Department of Transportation

Kevin Ocubillo is a planning assistant at the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT).

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

This 60-minute seminar is eligible for 1 hour of professional development credit for AICP (see our provider summary). We provide an electronic attendance certificate for other types of certification maintenance.

LEARN MORE

Photo by MSPhotographic/iStock

Sign up for our newsletter to receive monthly updates.

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.

We are committed to making decisions that promote the success and well-being of our campus community. Like an increasing number of universities nationwide, Portland State is taking steps to respond to the global pandemic. Until further notice, all live events hosted by TREC will be online only.

Friday Transportation Seminars at Portland State University have been a tradition since 2000. You can join us online at 11:30 AM.

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

• Watch the video
• View the presentation slides
• TREC Twitter thread

THE TOPIC

Transportation policies at the local, regional, state and national levels have a direct impact on urban land use and development patterns. Transportation intersects with multiple areas including public health, education, climate change, physical activity, health outcomes, build environment, violence, safety, social cohesion and the wellness of communities. For the health outcomes influenced by transportation, disparities exist by race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status in Multnomah County. Disproportionate exposure to injury, air pollution, and noise contributes to inequitable burdens of injuries and chronic disease among race and ethnic groups. This is exacerbated by lack of access to safe places for active transportation and lack of safe access to destinations that support health such as jobs, schools, and healthcare. According to an analysis conducted by the Health Department, the REACH focus population faces safety issues from both traffic crashes and concerns for personal security. These exposures result in a disproportionate burden of injury and chronic disease. Black/African Americans residents in Multnomah county die from traffic crash injuries at higher rates than white residents, about 1.8 times higher from 2013-2017. Compared to their White counterparts, more deaths are observed from chronic diseases among African Americans than expected: 24% more from heart disease, 68% more from stroke, and 32% more from cancer.

The cost of health inequalities in Multnomah County is an estimated $442 million annually, including $332 million from premature death, $92 million in direct health care costs, and $18 million in indirect costs of illness. The Oregon Health Authority estimated that implementing Metro’s Climate Smart Strategy would avoid $100 million in treatment costs annually.

KEY LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Help transportation professionals measure progress toward equity in transportation safety
• Provide tools for public health and transportation agencies to collaborate
• Enhance knowledge of transportation professions and decision makers to connect health equity during transportation process, planning and designs
• Build awareness of personal and institutional action steps professionals can do to bridge racial equity, health equity and transportation equity

SPEAKER

Charlene McGee, Multnomah County REACH Program Manager

Charlene brings over 15 years of leadership working at the intersection of public health and healthcare systems to confront and change social determinants of health. She holds a Bachelors of Science in public health, health promotion and education, with a minor in community health from Oregon State University. She is currently pursuing an executive master’s in public administration at Portland State University. As a Liberian-Oregonian, her experience as a survivor of the Liberian civil war and Black immigrant heavily influenced her career in health equity, health policy and program development. She works closely with community partners to elevate lived experience and community wisdom in order to advocate for systems and policy improvements, and culturally appropriate interventions to promote health.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

This 60-minute seminar is eligible for 1 hour of professional development credit for AICP (see our provider summary). We provide an electronic attendance certificate for other types of certification maintenance.

LEARN MORE

Photo by krblokhin/istock

Sign up for our newsletter to receive monthly updates.

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.

We are committed to making decisions that promote the success and well-being of our campus community. Like an increasing number of universities nationwide, Portland State is taking steps to respond to the global pandemic. Until further notice, all live events hosted by TREC will be online only.

Friday Transportation Seminars at Portland State University have been a tradition since 2000. You can join us online at 11:30 AM.

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

• Watch the video
• View the presentation slides

THE TOPIC

Travel Demand Models are the backbone of decision-making for public transportation infrastructure investment. Yet, critiques of these models with respect to their usefulness  and performance for transport disadvantage communities are rare in the academic literature. These disadvantage communities may include  (but are not limited to) low income travelers, transit dependents, un/underemployed, and the elderly. With the objective of promoting travel demand models that are better equipped for assessing transportation impacts for disadvantaged communities, this presentation highlights lessons learned from two case studies of applying travel demand analysis to understand the transportation accessibility of low income, elderly, and transit dependent communities. The case studies take place in two Michigan cities,  Benton Harbor and Detroit.

KEY LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Case study findings
• The importance of advancing data collection and curation approaches
• The importance of more carefully considering the ramifications of mis-specifying travel model structures, particularly for minority travel populations

SPEAKER

Tierra Bills, Assistant Professor, Wayne State University

Dr. Tierra Bills is an Assistant Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Wayne State university. She has recently joined Wayne State (in Summer 2019) after spending 3 years as a Michigan Society Fellow and Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan. Prior to her fellowship at UMich, Dr. Bills worked as a Research Scientist at IBM Research Africa for 3 years, in Nairobi Kenya. Much of Dr. Bills’ current research focuses on investigating the social impacts of transportation projects. She develops activity-based travel-demand models to investigate individual and household-level transportation-equity effects, for the purpose of designing transportation systems that will provide more equitable returns to society. Her latest project aims to understand the potential for next generation transit systems to affect transportation equity outcomes. 

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

This 60-minute seminar is eligible for 1 hour of professional development credit for AICP (see our provider summary). We provide an electronic attendance certificate for other types of certification maintenance.

LEARN MORE

Photo by J2R/iStock

Sign up for our newsletter to receive monthly updates.

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.

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

• Watch the video
• View the presentation slides

OVERVIEW

Improving bus stops by providing shelters, seating, signage, and sidewalks is relatively inexpensive and popular among riders and local officials. Making such improvements, however, is not often a priority for U.S. transit providers because of competing demands for capital funds and a perception that amenities are not tied to measurable increases in system effectiveness or efficiency. This webinar focuses on the role that bus stops play as the point of first contact between transit agencies and their potential riders, and how the quality of that contact can influence both ridership and accessibility for riders with mobility-related disabilities. The webinar will use results from recent research sponsored by NITC and the Utah Department of Transportation looking at possible impacts that bus stop improvements made by the Utah Transit Authority (UTA) have had on stop-level ridership and demand for Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) paratransit services. The results demonstrate how investments in bus stop facilities are not amenities, as they are frequently referred to, but essential elements of infrastructure necessary to provide access to transit and, by extension, to opportunities and essential services. Stops are, through this frame, conceptualized as an element of transportation justice.

KEY LEARNING TAKEAWAYS

Bus stop improvements are associated with stop-level increases in ridership and a reduction in demand for ADA paratransit services.

THE RESEARCH

This webinar is based on a study funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) and conducted at the University of Utah and the University of Arizona. Read more about the research: The Connection between Investments in Bus Stops, Ridership, and ADA Accessibility.

SPEAKERS

Keith Bartholomew, University of Utah

Keith Bartholomew is the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at the University of Utah College of Architecture + Planning and a Professor of City & Metropolitan Planning.  Before coming to Utah, Professor Bartholomew served as a staff attorney for 1000 Friends of Oregon and was the director of “Making the Land Use, Transportation, Air Quality Connection” (LUTRAQ).  Professor Bartholomew teaches and conducts research on integrated land use-transportation scenario analysis, pedestrian-oriented design, and land use law.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

This 60-minute webinar is eligible for 1 hour of professional development credit for AICP (see our provider summary). We provide an electronic attendance certificate for other types of certification maintenance.

LEARN MORE

Sign up for our newsletter to get updates on our events.

This webinar is hosted by the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University. The research was funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), a program of TREC and one of five U.S. Department of Transportation national university transportation centers. The NITC program is a Portland State-led partnership with the University of Oregon, Oregon Institute of Technology, University of Utah and new partners University of Arizona and University of Texas at Arlington. We pursue our theme — improving mobility of people and goods to build strong communities — through research, education and technology transfer.