News Tagged: Psu

16 Entries Tagged

IBPI faculty workshop brings active transportation to the classroom

Posted on August 7, 2013

IBPI, or the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation, is a center for research and learning that is focused on bicycle and pedestrian travel.

Based at Portland State University, the group's aim is to advance bicycling and walking as integral elements of the transportation system in Oregon’s communities. July 24 -26 IBPI hosted a faculty workshop to help transportation professors integrate bicycle and pedestrian topics into their courses.

Aimed at faculty members teaching transportation courses within an accredited planning or engineering program at the university level, the workshop included curriculum, guidebooks, and field trips to gain first-hand knowledge of bicycle and pedestrian facilities in Portland, Oregon.

read more

Tags: active transportation, bicycle, bicycling, chris monsere, ibpi, krista nordback, miguel figliozzi, otrec, peter koonce, psu, robert bertini, sirisha kothuri

PSU graduate students make a good showing at Western ITE conference

Posted on July 25, 2013

OTREC was well-represented at this year’s Western ITE conference, the 2013 conference for the Western District of the Institute of Transportation Engineers. Eight graduate student researchers presented papers at the conference, which took place July 14 through 17 in Phoenix, Arizona.

Portland State University students Katherine Bell, Kirk Paulsen, Adam Moore, Wei Feng, Sirisha Kothuri, Pamela Johnson, Sam Thompson and Alex Bigazzi attended the three-day conference and showcased their work in transportation research.

The conference was held at the Arizona Biltmore, a 1920’s luxury hotel created by architects Albert Chase McArthur and Frank Lloyd Wright. For the engineering and planning students, the Biltmore held its own attraction as an example of unique architecture, and in between events they enjoyed walking the grounds. 

read more

Tags: adam moore, alex bigazzi, conference, katherine bell, kirk paulsen, otrec, pamela johnson, psu, research, sam thompson, sirisha kothuri, wei feng

OTREC researchers make AASHTO’s top 16 high value research projects

Posted on July 19, 2013

OTREC researchers Jennifer DillChris Monsere and Nathan McNeil of Portland State University recently received an honor from AASHTO.
 
AASHTO, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, works with a committee whose role it is to proactively promote quality and excellence in research.
 
Each year at its annual meeting, AASHTO's Research Advisory Committee (RAC) selects four projects from each of its four regions to form a "Sweet Sixteen" group of high value research projects.
 
At this year’s RAC meeting, which took place July 15 through the 18, a project by Dill, Monsere and McNeil made the Sweet Sixteen.
 
The project, “District Department of Transportation Bicycle Facility Evaluation,” was funded by DDOT (the District of Columbia’s transportation department) in an effort to improve the city’s bicycling infrastructure.
 

read more

Tags: aashto, bicycle infrastructure, bicycling, otrec, psu

Summit speaker will shed light on MAP-21, new transportation spending law

Posted on July 18, 2013

The 2013 Oregon Transportation Summit will take place this fall, on September 16 at Portland State University. The summit brings together transportation professionals to shape the agenda for future research, and this year's plenary speaker addresses new federal legislation which will have a direct affect on that agenda.

Adie Tomer of the Brookings Institution will deliver the remarks at the summit's morning plenary session. The topic is MAP-21, a new act which was passed by Congress in 2012. Short for "Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century," the act redistributes the scope and responsibilities of transportation departments at all levels, from municipal to federal.

"What MAP-21 essentially did is, it enhanced the evolution that's available within the federal program," Tomer said. "Because it is an overarching policy, it touches on every actor in the system in a unique way." For example, "MPOs (Metropolitan Planning Organizations) are now tasked with collecting performance measurements ... and state offices are pushed to do a little more planning when it comes to freight."

In general under the new law, "states have more authority to spend federal money in the ways they want than before," Tomer said. 
 
This flexibility at the state level is the answer Tomer would give to those who worry that the new act will cut funding for bikes and walking. Although there is less funding designated for bicycling and pedestrian-oriented spending, there is more freedom for states to choose to allocate money for those areas.
 
"In a state like Wyoming they might have had some requirements to spend money on non-motorized transportation; that requirement has been removed," Tomer said. "In a state like Oregon, if state authorities want to allow metro areas to have more control and/or if the state itself wants to invest in active transportation, then they can do so."
 

read more

Tags: federal, funding, laws, otrec, psu, transportation

Visiting scholar Ralph Buehler offers insight into explaining mode shares

Posted on May 20, 2013

What makes Americans’ travel behaviors so different from that of their West European counterparts? Longer trip distances? Higher rates of licenses and auto-ownership? A culture and economy that depends on the automobile industry? According to visiting scholar Ralph Buehler, none of these explain the differences in mode splits.

In partnership with Students in Transportation Engineering and Planning (STEP), Portland State University recently hosted visiting scholar Ralph Buehler at the Friday Transportation Seminar series. Dr. Buehler traveled west from Washington, D.C. where he is an Assistant Professor in Urban Affairs and Planning at Virginia Tech’s Metropolitan Institute. Dr. Beuhler’s research and expertise is in multimodal planning and travel behaviors, with a focus on Western Europe and North America. 

Click here to view the webcast.

Dr. Buehler’s presentation, titled “Making Urban Transport Sustainable: Comparison of Germany and the US,” poked holes in many of the common theories explaining why Americans are more likely to use their cars for all their travel needs. Instead, he noted that, “transport policies have to explain the difference [in mode shares] over time, including the changes that have happened in Germany and those that have not happened in the US. ” His research has led him to identify four major policy areas that have contributed to Germany’s success in shifting mode shares:

read more

Tags: bicycle, bicycle infrastructure, bicycling, mode shares, otrec, psu, visiting scholar

Page 3 of 4 pages  < 1 2 3 4 > 

Archives



Categories

Filter By University

OTREC's Most Used Tags

active transportation alex bigazzi bicycle bicycle infrastructure bicycling chris monsere design e-bikes electric vehicles emissions hau hagedorn ibpi institute of transportation engineers jennifer dill john macarthur karen dixon kelly clifton krista nordback livability livemove marc schlossberg metro miguel figliozzi nico larco nitc oregon department of transportation oregon institute of technology oregon transportation summit otrec portland state university proposals psu public transportation region x region x consortium research rfp rita robert bertini step sustainable cities initiative transit transportation modeling transportation research board trb trimet university of oregon university of utah visiting scholars program walking