Image: Left - Crosswalk with blue lines to illustrate the concept of ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems); Right- Hanna Hutcheson with a ponytail and a blue shirt. Text reads: NITC student spotlight, Hanna Hutcheson, University of Utah.
Photo by metamorworks/iStock

Hanna Hutcheson is a second-year Masters of City and Metropolitan Planning student at the University of Utah. Her specialization is in Transportation and SMART Growth, and she is passionate about increasing accessibility to transit, designing cities to be more pedestrian and cyclist friendly, and improving environmental conditions through planning. Hanna also works as a graduate teaching assistant, and in the summer of 2020 she completed an internship with the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center. 

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Tell us about yourself?

Hi! I’m originally from Eugene, OR, but I got my undergraduate degree in geography from BYU and have been living on and off in Utah ever since. I’m in my second year of the MCMP program at the University of Utah, focusing on SMART growth and transportation; my passion lies specifically with transit and, to a lesser degree, active transportation and complete streets. Outside of school, I’m a big fan of reading, Netflix, ‘80s music, and embroidery.

What (or who) has influenced your career path in transportation?

I have to give a shout-out to Ted Knowlton, the deputy director of the SLC region’s MPO, for really sparking my interest in...

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Bus riders board a bus at a stop with a shelter, sign, and benches.
Photo by Ja Young Kim
Keith Bartholomew, University of Utah; Arlie Adkins, University of Arizona, Tucson

 A bus stop can be anything from a simple signpost stuck in the grass, to a comfortable shelter with seating and paved access to the sidewalk. For many U.S. transit agencies across the country, improving facilities at bus stops is a priority. But how much do these improvements actually affect ridership? A lot, it turns out. A new NITC study, co-funded by the Utah Transit Authority (UTA) and led by Keith Bartholomew...

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Left: A Google streetview image of the University of Texas at Arlington, near the School of Social Work. Right: Sarah Robinson, wearing  blue and pink shirt. Text: NITC Student Spotlight, Sarah Robinson, University of Texas at Arlington.

Sarah Robinson is a doctoral candidate at the University of Texas at Arlington in Arlington, Texas and a NITC dissertation fellow. Her research primarily focuses on service provision and utilization by survivors of intimate partner violence. Sarah's NITC dissertation will explore the transportation challenges of survivors in intimate partner violence shelters. She is particularly interested in how the built environment (i.e. the structure, location, design of service agencies and transportation networks) impacts survivors’ abilities to access services and survivors’ outcomes, such as future experiences of violence and overall health and well-being.

NITC Researcher Profile | ResearchGate Profile


Tell us about yourself?

My name is Sarah Robinson and I am a current...

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Salt Lake City overview on a sunny day
Photo by AndreyKrav
Reid Ewing, University of Utah

 A "polycentric" region is a network of compact developments (centers) that are connected with each other through high-quality transportation options. As the antidote to sprawling suburbs, compact centers can encourage all the things that sprawl discourages: public health, environmental sustainability, social cohesion, and economic diversity. But how can metropolitan planning organizations ensure that...

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Left image: Screenshot of USA map showing locations of transit agencies. Right image: Headshot of John Larson-Friend in a checked shirt. Text reads "Student Spotlight: John Larson-Friend, University of Oregon."

John Larson-Friend is in his second year in the Masters of Community and Regional Planning program at the University of Oregon. He discovered transportation planning during his undergraduate degree in International Studies at Portland State University, and has been hooked ever since. He is very interested in how transportation will continue to evolve over the next decades, and desires to play a role in that change. Currently, John is the Planning Intern for the City of Cottage Grove, the 2020-2021 LiveMove Speaker Series Coordinator, a student researcher working with UO faculty Marc Schlossberg and Rebecca Lewis on a new edition of the Rethinking Streets book series, and recently began a research position with Anne Brown researching Equity in Shared Mobility.

LinkedIn


Tell us about yourself?

I grew up in Forest Grove, Oregon, but had the opportunity to live in the Midwest and Southern California before I ultimately returned to Oregon. Similarly, my journey to transportation planning has been long and winding. I have worked in the film industry...

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Left: A view from behind of Jennifer Dill biking down a bike boulevard. Right: Jennifer Dill, wearing glasses and a red dress, stands in front of a patch of yellow flowers holding her APBP award plaque.

We're proud to announce that Dr. Jennifer Dill, director of TREC at Portland State University, has been awarded the 2020 Research Professional of the Year award by the Association of Bicycle and Pedestrian Professionals (APBP). Given the need for ongoing quarantine, we had to get creative with her acceptance speech - Watch the video to see the award delivered to her by TREC staffers, handed off in a multimodal relay, before Dill accepts the award on a neighborhood greenway/bike boulevard.

Dill received the 2020 APBP Research Professional of the Year award for her contributions advancing the state of practice in bicycle and pedestrian research with a high degree of professional integrity. Dr. Dill addresses important research questions related to walking and bicycling, points out limitations, and suggests lines of future research. Her teaching and advice to students at Portland State University, her leadership through the Transportation Research Board and APBP, and her insightful thoughts related to equity inspire practitioners and researchers working in bicycle and pedestrian transportation.

Watch her accept the award:

Text: NITC Student Spotlight, Frank Boateng Appiah, Portland State University. Images: Frank Boateng Appiah in a grey hoodie next to an image of a rectangular rapid flash beacon at a crosswalk.
Frank Boateng Appiah is a graduate student and research assistant in civil engineering at Portland State University, working with Chris Monsere and Sirisha Kothuri on best practices for the installation of Rapid Rectangular Flash Beacons with or without Median Refuge. He graduated from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology with Bsc. Civil Engineering in 2013. Frank is interested in how transportation improves life by increasing productivity, efficiency and other aspects of mobility.
 

Tell us about yourself?

I come from a small town in Ghana called Adamsu but spent most of my formative years in Accra, the capital city. Living in Accra, a city where road transport has been the primary mode for several decades, I came to appreciate how a disintegrated transportation system affects a nation’s economic growth and therefore requires effective and efficient planning and design to increase productivity. This informed my decision to read civil engineering during my 4-year undergraduate study at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and technology. At Tech I was much involved in student groups such as CESA (Civil Engineering Students Association), where I held some...

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NITC Advisory Board, Jen Duthie, Ask Me Anything. Left image: Green traffic lights at Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas during mid morning with storm clouds in the sky. Right Image: Jen Duthie with shoulder-length brown hair wearing a dark jacket with blac

Last month we hosted another online student event in our new series, "Shape Your Transportation Career" with NITC Advisory Board Member Jen Duthie of the City of Austin. Our first event featured Cameron Kergaye of the Utah DOT. Students on NITC campuses get the opportunity to ask our board members about their careers, experience at university, and advice on how to succeed in the transportation industry.

Jen Duthie, PE, PhD leads the Arterial Management Division (AMD) of the City of Austin Transportation Department. AMD is responsible for the design, construction, and maintenance of traffic signals and related systems, as well as managing traffic in real-time through the Mobility Management Center. Dr. Duthie is a Professional Engineer and has a doctorate in Civil Engineering. Prior to working at the City of Austin, she led a research group at The University of Texas at Austin Center for Transportation Research that specialized in building innovative models for current and forecasted traffic flow.

When you were new in your role, and felt like you...

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Courtney Crosson and UA architecture students facilitate a mapping activity to identify current flooding challenges at a neighborhood meeting.
Photo by Eugene Lee
Courtney Crosson, University of Arizona

Short-term flooding from extreme storm events poses a serious transportation challenge in U.S. cities. This problem—which is anticipated to grow over the next century with our global climate crisis—is often hardest on vulnerable populations, including low-income and minority neighborhoods. The latest report from the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), led by Courtney Crosson of University of Arizona (UA), advances national research methods for assessing flood vulnerability and prioritizing transportation improvement investments to ensure that no community is left stranded when the next flood occurs.

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View of North MLK Boulevard in Portland, Oregon with a pedestrian crossing near a mural.
MLK Boulevard in Portland, OR. Photo by Cait McCusker
Steven Howland, Portland State University

The historically Black district of Albina in Portland, Oregon, due to racist real estate practices, faced multiple displacement events between 1960 and 1990 with the construction of Interstate 5 through the heart of the neighborhood as well as wholesale destruction of hundreds of homes to make room for the Memorial Coliseum and various other urban renewal projects. Gentrification in Portland saw a mass displacement of Black households from Albina, largely to East Portland, a suburban area that was unincorporated...

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