TREC research addresses complex transportation problems by drawing on multiple disciplines, including engineering, planning, economics and design, from across the Portland State University campus. Use the search box at right to search for a specific project.
Research Highlights
Reducing VMT, Encouraging Walk Trips, and Facilitating Efficient Trip Chains through Polycentric Development
Reid Ewing
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 their regional plans will actually meet these goals?
Polycentric development has been…
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Communicating Research through Comics: Transportation and Land Development
Kelly Clifton Kristina Currans
This project created a transportation comic, "Moving From Cars To People," which offers a succinct and fun introduction to a complicated topic: namely, how the built environment in the United States came to be designed for cars and what we can do about it.
The comic includes a dialogue, taking place in various urban settings, between characters Kelly and Kristi who are based on the two principal investigators, Kelly Clifton and Kristina Currans. The two have a long history of collaboration…
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