OTREC Newsletter April 2011

New Chicago Transportation Department head will bring lessons from Oregon trip, bike sharing

Klein with studentsWhen Gabe Klein starts his new job as commissioner of the Chicago Department of Transportation, the lessons of Oregon’s transportation system will be fresh in his mind. Klein, the former director of the District (of Columbia) Department of Transportation, visited OTREC programs and student groups over several packed days in Oregon.

Klein started his tour April 6 in Eugene as an expert in residence with the Sustainable Cities Initiative and LiveMove student group at the University of Oregon. In lectures in Eugene and Portland, Klein discussed the future of transportation, lauding the movement to redesign cities for walkability instead of drivability. Klein has worked to change people’s relationships with vehicles, both in D.C., where he launched the Capital Bikeshare program, and previously with ZipCar.

With car and bike sharing, “you don’t need to make a capital investment in transportation anymore,” Klein said. Since the launch of Capital Bikeshare, and with expansions of bus and streetcar service, the number of auto registrations in D.C. has started to drop, he said. Read more…

Governor’s adviser wants health, land use, housing on transportation agenda
Oregon governors have had transportation advisers before. Lynn Peterson wants to be something different. Peterson, an OTREC advisory board member and former Clackamas Board of County Commissioners chairwoman, joined Gov. John Kitzhaber’s administration in March as sustainable communities and transportation policy adviser.

“I’ve always been a transportation advocate,” Peterson said. “By adding ‘sustainable communities’ to transportation adviser, we were basically saying, ‘Listen: as we move through the transportation discussion, we need to consider the health component, the housing component, the overlaps in other areas.’” Read more…
 
In many cases, living in suburbia means relying on an automobile for most trips, even short trips to nearby stores. If housing developments incorporated better paths and sidewalks, however, would anyone use them?
 
Researcher Nico Larco found that people who live in well-connected developments are significantly more likely to walk and bicycle than those in developments only accessible by automobile. Read more or download the research report.

Innovative look at effects of bottlenecks wins Transportation Research Forum award
Traffic flows can break down more or less at random as the freeway approaches its capacity. Although drivers pay a high price for bottlenecks both in their time and fuel costs, earlier models have taken an oversimplified look at how the uncertainty associated with how bottlenecks form, and how long they last, affect time and fuel costs. The award-winning paper, called “A Model and Case Study of the Impacts of Stochastic Capacity on Freeway Traffic Flow Benefits and Costs,” takes into account the range and frequency with which these random traffic breakdowns occur. Read more…

‘Tipping point or tripping point’ for electric vehicles, seminar speaker asks
With its major cities clustered along 100 miles of the Willamette Valley, Oregon offers a fertile ground for electric vehicles and their limited range, George Beard of Portland State University said at a recent presentation. But Oregon’s readiness for electric vehicles doesn’t itself put one electric car on the road. Beard opened the Center for Transportation Studies’ spring Transportation Seminar Series with the presentation “Electric Vehicles: Are we in the Driver’s Seat?” Read more…

Engineers month efforts fire up future transportation professionals
National Engineers Month has come and gone, but students will remember their first engineering lessons as they start their careers. Each February, professional engineers visit classrooms to get children participating in problem-solving exercises and having fun while using math and science. And, in one case, showing silly video clips from movies made before the students were born. Read more…

Eugene area prepares for electric vehicles on a large scale
By 2020, the Eugene-Springfield area could have 15,000 electric vehicles on the road. In March, regional leaders took a big step toward making sure their communities will be ready. The Eugene Water and Electric Board, University of Oregon’s Community Service Center and the city of Eugene hosted a forum to discuss the future of electric vehicles, a culmination of a yearlong OTREC-funded project. Read more…