Evaluation of Electric Bike Use at Three Kaiser Permanente NW Employment Centers in Portland Metro Region
John MacArthur, Portland State University; Jennifer Dill, Portland State University
Despite efforts to get more people biking, North America still has low ridership numbers. The problem? Biking is hard.
A new report by John MacArthur of Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC), funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communtiies, offers a solution to that problem: e-bikes.
Many people surveyed say that having to pedal up hills and arriving at their destination sweaty are major deterrents to commuting by bike, even when bike lanes and other facilities are there.
Researchers have put a lot of thought into ways to get more people riding bicycles by improving bicycle infrastructure, land use and public engagement. The efforts are largely due to concerns about congestion, climate change and public health. Comparatively little research, however, has focused on the bicycle itself.
MacArthur and co-investigator...
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A new NITC report offers a multimodal framework for transportation impact analysis – a welcome tool for professionals in many cities seeking more detailed data about non-drivers.
Improving Trip Generation Methods for Livable Communities, a research project headed by Kelly Clifton of Portland State University and Nico Larco of the University of Oregon, is the latest effort in an ongoing collaboration to create more open sourced, widely available data about non-motorized road users.
Over the last decades, cities have become more invested in fostering the conditions to support walking, biking and public transit.
The land development process presents a unique challenge.
Prior to a zoning change or new development, someone has to determine what its impact on the transportation system will be, and whether upgrades will be necessary to accommodate travelers to the new destination. Trip generation is the first step in the conventional transportation forecasting process.
Current trip generation methods used by engineers across the country tend to focus on motorized modes.
Without reliable trip generation rates for anyone but drivers, the transportation impact is difficult to predict. Certain land uses will draw far more walkers,...
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Global heating caused by human activity is increasingly recognized as a threat to life on earth.
Despite the lack of a comprehensive national response to this threat, several states have already taken ambitious measures to combat the climate emergency.
A new NITC report examines the approaches used in four leading states—California, Maryland, Oregon and Washington—to identify strengths and weaknesses of the transportation-land use-climate policy framework in each state, and to find opportunities for improvement.
Rebecca Lewis and Rob Zako of the University of Oregon just released their report, Assessing State Efforts to Integrate Transportation, Land Use and Climate.
“States have been seen as laboratories of democracy, where we ground-test the ideas that might later apply at the federal level. States should be looking to learn from each other,” Lewis said. “States and cities are the ones taking action.”
The four states examined in this report are progressive in adopting state-level legislation to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) from transportation.
Since the transportation sector accounts for almost one-third of all GHG emissions in the United States, transportation planners and policymakers have the ability to take...
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Six students in the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Student Chapter of the Oregon Institute of Technology had an in-person meeting earlier this month with Congressman Greg Walden, Representative of the 2nd District of Oregon.
The students, along with Faculty Advisor Dr. Roger Lindgren, were in Washington DC attending the 2017 Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting. Funding for the student travel was provided by NITC.
Students Andrew Wixon, Alex Antonaras, Ryan Kelly, Kevin Baker, Jason Millar and Jordan Preston had the opportunity for a brief conversation with the congressman as part of their TRB experience. Students at Oregon Tech have a strong tradition of participating in NITC projects and events.
Oregon Tech has partnered with the university transportation center at Portland State since its 2006 inception as OTREC, and continues this collaboration by being a part of the expanded NITC program grant established in 2016.
The ITE student chapter at Oregon Tech, since its establishment in 2002, has provided its student members with a variety of transportation learning activities including field tours, webinars, traffic bowl participation and travel to conferences.
One of the group's main priorities is putting engineering students in contact with practicing engineers and real-world projects...
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Portland State doctoral student Patrick Singleton won the best presentation award for the Doctoral Research in Transport Modeling and Traveler Behavior session of the Transportation Research Board annual meeting in Washington, D.C. This marks the second year running that a Portland State student has won the award, after Steven Gehrke won in 2016.
Singleton presented “Exploring the Positive Utility of Travel and Mode Choice,” drawn from his dissertation research. Positive utility of travel is a concept that travel can provide benefits and be motivated by factors beyond reaching a destination.
The award will be formally presented during the Network Modeling Committee meeting at next year’s Transportation Research Board conference.
Singleton continues to rack up awards. He has been named the NITC university transportation center student of the year and has received Eno and Eisenhower fellowships, being named the top-ranked Eisenhower recipient at the 2015 TRB annual meeting. He was also named a NITC dissertation fellow in 2016.
He is a doctoral student in the Civil and Environmental Engineering department and is involved in several TREC research projects. His adviser is Prof....
Proponents of advanced bikeways will point out a growing body of research on these facilities’ safety and benefits for cycling. They can now add another benefit: higher home values.
Research led by Jenny Liu of Portland State University looked at property around advanced bikeways in Portland, defined as bicycle boulevards, protected bike lanes and buffered bike lanes. She found positive effects on property values close to one of these bikeways and an even stronger effect where the network was denser.
Liu presents her research Wednesday at the annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board in Washington, D.C. Learn more or download the research paper.
For single family home sales, being a quarter mile closer to an advanced bikeway translated to a $686 premium, while increasing the density by a quarter mile represented a $4,039 premium. For multi-family homes, the effect of being close to a bikeway wasn’t statistically significant on sale price, but increasing the density of bikeways translated to $4,712 of value.
The research can inform policymakers who may question how much residents value bikeways and provide insight into siting decisions. “My results don’t necessarily say to put one here or not, but it does show there is indeed a...
Saddling transit-oriented developments with parking requirements better suited to typical suburban developments can make housing and office space near transit scarce and overly expensive. That’s one implication of a recent NITC research report "Trip and Parking Generation at Transit-Oriented Developments" examining driving and parking at these centers.
It makes sense that transit-oriented developments—dense, walkable centers close to transit that combine residential, commercial and office uses—would generate fewer car trips and need less parking than other development types. But until now, no one has found out how much less parking.
NITC researcher Reid Ewing of the University of Utah took up the challenge and reveals the answer in a report: a lot less. The developments Ewing’s team studied generally generated less than half the driving, and required fewer than half the parking spaces, than standard guidebooks predict. They presented some of their findings Jan. 10 during the annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board in Washington, D.C. Learn more about the conference or download the paper.
Ewing’s team studied transit-oriented...
Read more of our TRB 2017 coverage here.
Tara Goddard, a doctoral candidate in the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University, has been selected as the 2016 NITC university transportation center student of the year.
NITC takes pride in the development of tomorrow’s transportation leaders, involving students in research and supporting student transportation groups.
Goddard is the 11th student of the year since Portland State established its university transportation center in 2006. She is being recognized at the Council of University Transportation Centers 2017 Annual Awards Banquet in Washington, D.C., where she's also attending the Transportation Research Board annual meeting.
Goddard’s dissertation research explores drivers’ attitudes and behaviors toward bicyclists. This reflects her broader interest in the intersectionality between transportation and the social sciences, and how professionals in both disciplines can work together to improve upon public spaces and the ways that people interact within them.
This research focus comes with exciting opportunities for future work, a future which is still being determined: Goddard has applied for academic positions in different parts of the world and is waiting to...
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- Download the Final Report (PDF)
- Download the Guidbook on Signal Control Strategies for Pedestrians (PDF)
- Download the Project Brief (PDF)
- Watch the recording of the Jan 26, 2017 webinar
Pedestrians often have to wait longer than drivers for the light to change. Increased delay for pedestrians can lead to noncompliance, which can have a negative impact on safety. Most planning efforts geared toward those on foot have tended to focus on safety, but pedestrian efficiency is also...
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The final report on this research is available now: Design for an Aging Population
Published in April 2017, this study sought to increase understanding of the obstacles faced by people with impairments in vision, hearing and/or mobility, which are common issues for older people, and generate physical product solutions.
The research shows that aging riders face conceptual, physical and social barriers that impact their willingness to use buses. Using the bus was seen as inconvenient, time consuming, physically draining and potentially frustrating. Priority seating areas designated for older and disabled users fill quickly. People with mobility challenges may use bulky walkers and require the availability of grab bars, and users of wheeled mobility devices need different device security. Several situations noted in the study show that physically challenged riders are subject to awkward, uncomfortable social dynamics more than other bus users. Innovation in easy access seats and secure WhMD stations at the front of the bus are critical for older users, as it makes riding the bus less draining and more safe.
This research was presented at TRB's 2017 annual meeting. See below for our coverage of the research at TRB.
Seniors make up a...
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