Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood proclaims “Portland is the transportation capital of the United States…” as part of his speech unveiling the Portland-made streetcar, the first to be built in the US in nearly 60 years. OTREC staff were present to witness this historic moment for Portland, in addition to having the opportunity to meet and talk with other leaders in transportation from Oregon. Pictured left: Jon Makler, Lily Makler, Congressman Peter DeFazio, and Hau Hagedorn Pictured right: Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood
May 21, 2009
Northeastern Universityís Peter Furth is known equally for his research in public transportation, bike planning and traffic signals. Furth brings his diverse interests to Portland for the holiday-shortened week of May 25th. On Tuesday, 5/26, there will be a seminar on his traffic signal priority work and on Wednesday, 5/27, there will be another seminar on his work regarding cycle tracks. In addition, Furth will have a variety of meetings with local transportation practitioners, including a bike tour by staff from the Portland Bureau of Transportation. The visit is co-sponsored by OTREC and IBPI. For more information about the seminars, visit PSU's Center for Transportation Studies.
Nov 15, 2007
Dr. Brian Taylor, Professor in Urban Planning and Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA, was the guest speaker and OTREC Visiting Scholar for the CTS Transportation Seminar on November 16, 2007. Dr. Taylor presented "Transit’s Dirty Little Secret: Analyzing Patterns of Transit Use." Later in the day, he was also the keynote speaker at the fall TransNow Student Conference at PSU, presenting "Rethinking Congestion" to the group of students from around the northwest. Professor Taylor’s research centers around transportation policy and planning. In particular, his work explores how society pays for transportation systems and how these systems in turn serve the needs of people who have low levels of mobility.
The video begins at 0:47.
Topic: Schedule-based Public Transportation Planning Model and Integration with Other Transportation Planning Models
Speaker Hyunsoo Noh, a PhD Candidate from the University of Arizona, will discuss the integration of schedule-based public transportation and other transporation planning models.
The video begins at 4:15.
Abstract: The California High-Speed Rail Ridership and Revenue Forecasting Model is a state-of-the-practice transportation model designed to portray what future conditions might look like in California with and without a high-speed train. The model was developed by Cambridge Systematics, Inc., and took roughly two years to complete. The resulting ridership and revenue forecasts provided, and continue to provide, sound information for planning decisions for high-speed rail in California. This presentation briefly describes the underlying model that was developed to generate the ridership and revenue forecasts along with summaries of ridership forecasts from published reports.
The video begins at 1:35.
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Abstract: TriMet collects detailed ridership data from automatic passenger counters on buses and trains. In addition, an automatic vehicle location system provides specific information on how well buses and trains adhere to preset schedules. This presentation is an overview of how TriMet uses these data in designing and managing the transit network, ranging from developing regional service policies to making minor schedule adjustments on a bus line.
Speaker Bio: Ken Zatarain is TriMet Director of Service Planning and Scheduling. He has had several other positions at TriMet. Prior to joining TriMet, he worked at the federal and local government levels. Ken has a degree in Regional and City Planning from the University of North Carolina.
In the Engineering Building, Room 315
Abstract: Signal priority applications in the U.S. tend to be timid about giving priority to buses, because if they interrupt the green period of a competing traffic stream, they have no means of compensating that stream in the next signal cycle (by giving it a longer green period). Common restrictions set up to protect cross streets include preventing a priority interruption in consecutive signal cycles, having short extension intervals, and inhibiting priority when traffic is heavy on the cross street. In addition, most priority applications are limited to one or two simple control tactics, green extension and early green. As a result of these limitations, transit signal priority often falls far short of its potential, saving buses 3 seconds or less per intersection. We show how by using multiple intelligent signal priority tactics, in which traffic is aggressively interrupted but also compensated in the following cycle, large benefits can accrue to transit operations without any undue effect on general traffic. In a simulation study of four traffic signals around a large bus terminal in Boston, we found that average delay per bus could be reduced by almost 20 seconds per intersection with no change in average motorist delay.
Smart Growth America hosted a webinar Jan. 31 on NITC research finding that standard guidelines lead to a drastic oversupply of parking at transit-oriented developments. That restricts the supply of housing, office and retail space while driving up the price.
The webinar marks the release of Smart Growth America's lay summary of the NITC report, called "Empty Spaces," which will be available to webinar attendees.
Watch the recorded webinar here.
The research, led by Reid Ewing of the University of Utah, is one of the first comprehensive data-driven reports to estimate peak parking and vehicle trip generation rates for transit-oriented development projects, as well as one of the first to estimate travel mode shares for TODs. Ewing analyzed data on actual parking usage and total trip generation near five transit stations: Redmond, Washington; Rhode Island Row in Washington, D.C.; Fruitvale Village in Oakland, California; Englewood, Colorado; and Wilshire/Vermont in Los...
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