The Regional and Division Administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency, Housing and Urban Development and Department of Transportation are working with the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium (OTREC) to convene a one-day, statewide, community dialogue to discuss their joint Partnership for Sustainable Communities today (June 30, 2010) at Willamette University.
Attendees represent a balanced representation of subject (transportation, housing, environment), geography (statewide, regional, local), and sector (public, private, academic, NGO).
The purpose of the event is to “increase awareness and understanding of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities; to receive input from state, regional, and local participants about opportunities and needs to inform our efforts; and, to catalyze an enhanced level of participation throughout Oregon.” The meeting will include presentations by the Administrators and workshop discussions facilitated by the National Policy Consensus Center.
We are pleased to announce our proposal funding decisions for 2010-2011. OTREC received a total of 44 proposals with a request of $4,463,880 for consideration. On June 15th, 22 proposals were selected for funding by the OTREC Executive Committee. We are particularly excited about supporting three initiatives (the Sustainable Cities Initiative, the Oregon Modeling Collaborative, and the Transportation Electrification Initiative) that will help build research and education capacity across our partner institutions that will further our focus on transportation livability and sustainability. You can view the complete list of projects here: http://www.otrec.us/main/projects.php?year=2011
The Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium (OTREC) at Portland State University is seeking a Student Assistant. This position supports the OTREC staff, and will be involved in a variety of tasks to ensure seamless daily functions at Portland State University. OTREC is a collaborative, multimodal, multidisciplinary, multicampus transportation center focusing on research, education, and technology transfer. Pay rate: $12.50 Hours per week: ~15 hours as soon as possible Contact: Send your resume to Hau Hagedorn (hagedorn@pdx.edu) Responsibilities include:
- Provide first point of contact for general inquiries and handling general correspondence.
- Printing, copying, faxing, and scanning.
- Sort and file documentation in an established system.
- Assist with coordinating, scheduling and organizing receptions, workshops, outreach, promotional events and conferences including catering and travel arrangements.
- Enter data and maintain central OTREC contacts database.
- Keep office well organized and free of clutter including maintain inventory of equipment, ordering office supplies and make sure equipment is in good working order.
- Format Word, Powerpoint and Excel documents, flyers, presentations, etc.
- Distribute newsletters, annual reports, and other materials.
- Help with project file system; need hard copy files for each project....
National Geographic recently described Portland as the City that “…gets almost everything right; it’s friendly, sustainable, accessible, and maybe a model for America’s future” (Cover story, Dec. 2009). Portland has a shared vision of a livable city, articulated in many different ways. It is seen in neighborhood self-help projects, big municipal investments, enlightened developers that build infill projects consistent with city plans, and the highest recycling participation rate in the country. Taken together Portland is a city that is environmentally responsible, and conscious of both street level and of global impact of doing things right.
Early History
Arguably, Portland’s first act of ‘building green’ was in 1892, when it built a reservoir network to protect and preserve the sole source of its drinking water, the pristine . Today, this 102-square mile conservation zone provides ample fresh water to a region of half million people
Fast forward almost 100 years and the same ethic motivated Portlanders to reject a Robert Moses-style highway plan...
Read morePortland State University students Nikki Wheeler, Lindsay Walker, Peter Pelzer and Josh Steiner won the Rudin Center/APA graduate student award in transportation planning. The award recognizes student projects with a substantial transportation planning and design component that demonstrate an understanding of planning principals and a spirit of innovation.
The winning project designed two bicycle boulevards in northwest Portland as part of a graduate-level bicycle and pedestrian design studio at PSU.
An approximately 1-mile segment of Northwest 24th Avenue and an approximately 2/3-mile segment of Northwest Flanders Street were selected as the project routes. Although identified as bicycle boulevards in the City’s Bicycle Master Plan, these routes were largely unimproved for bicycle travel and failed to function as bicycle boulevards.
In the last of the livability seminar series, OTREC's visiting scholars program welcomed Shawn Turner from the Texas Transportation Institute. Shawn's research spans the gamut of intelligent transportation systems data to bicycle and pedestrian issues. Most recently, Shawn participated in the International Scan on Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety and Mobility. His presentation compared his experiences on the scan in Europe to those in China. During his presentation, he posed three challenges to Oregon:
- How does active transportation contribute to economic development?
- What is the tipping point for behavior and behavioral change?
- Can vanity play a role in social acceptance?
His presentation was followed by a discussion with local agencies, faculty, students and partners along with a 10-mile tour of innovative bike infrastructure in Portland. Thank goodness...
Read moreIn the last of the livability seminar series, OTREC’s visiting scholars program welcomed Shawn Turner†from the Texas Transportation Institute.†Shawn’s research spans the gamut of intelligent transportation systems data to bicycle and pedestrian issues.† Most recently, Shawn participated in the International Scan on Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety and Mobility.† His presentation†compared his experiences on the†scan in Europe to those in China.† During his presentation, he posed three challenges to Oregon:
- How does active transportation contribute to economic development?
- What is the tipping point for behavior and behavioral change?
- Can vanity play a role†in social acceptance?
His presentation was followed by a discussion with local agencies, faculty, students and partners along with a 10-mile tour of innovative bike infrastructure in Portland.† Thank goodness the weather held up!
designBridge is a student-based organization at the University of Oregon that exposes students to real architectural and planning projects in their community. The organization promotes studentsí engagement in their community while providing them with professional experience that will benefit them in their careers. In this OTREC-funded education project, led by Professor Nico Larco, the students of designBridge undertook the design and construction of a new transportation shelter for Roosevelt Middle School in Eugene, Oregon. The project results include not only the completion of the shelter but also the continued development of a service learning program that can effectively address small community transportation-related needs. To learn more about the project, down the final report at: https://ppms.trec.pdx.edu/docs/detail/2172
Suburban multifamily housing makes up the fastest-growing housing market in the country. Townhouses, condos and apartment complexes bring density to suburbia. They are also often located close to commercial areas. For these reasons, they offer the potential for active transportation and mixed-use development. Yet this potential rarely becomes a reality. Professor Nico Larcoís OTREC project explores why inaccessible, disconnected forms of suburban multifamily development dominate. The project draws on interviews with architects, planners, developers, and property managers of developments in four states. It proposes ways in which current practices might shift in order to create more livable, less congested, and multi-modal suburban communities. To read the report in its entirety go to: https://ppms.trec.pdx.edu/media/project_files/OTREC-RR-10-03_final.pdf
To look at how buses, light rail, street cars, and bicycling have all become prominent modes in Portland, you need to trace back to important land use decisions made three decades ago. In 1974, Oregon adopted statewide land use planning goals. These goals shifted planning efforts away from freeway-building, toward investment in alternative forms of transportation. Since then, Oregon has been a leader in pushing back against car-centric landscapes and lifestyles. In this OTREC project, Professor Carl Abbott and Sam Lowry of Portland State University traced the history of land use planning in Oregon from 1890-1974. One of the projectís aims is to make transportation planning relevant and compelling to a broad audience. To do so, Abbott and Lowry gathered stories and information from a wide range of sources who enthusiastically shared their knowledge of transportation history. You can download the report to read more: https://ppms.trec.pdx.edu/media/project_files/OTREC-TT-10-01.pdf