Advances in transportation technology — e-scooters and bike share, Lyft & Uber, and autonomous vehicles — are beginning to have profound impacts on cities. New mobility is changing not only how we travel, but also urban form and development itself. In the near future, we can expect differences in what public transit looks like, the layout of cities, and the places we spend our time. In turn,...
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Finley Heeb and Maddy Reznick are both undergraduate students in the School of Planning, Public Policy and Management (PPPM) at the University of Oregon. They are both active in the UO's transportation student group, LiveMove, and have worked together as LiveMove's speaker series coordinators for the past two years. Finley was recently featured in a Student Spotlight story in UO news, recounting what they gained from their participation in the summer 2019 Sustainable Bicycle Transportation in Europe study abroad program with faculty Marc Schlossberg and Rebecca Lewis. Maddy was an intern in 2019 at the Los Angeles Regional Collaborative for Climate Action and Sustainability, working with a team of University students to collect and present case study research supporting implementation of a TDM Ordinance in Los Angeles County to the Chief Sustainability Office of LA County.
Finley's LinkedIn | Maddy's LinkedIn
Tell us about yourself?
Finley: I am in my third year of the Planning, Public Policy, and Management program at the University of Oregon. Learning about cities, transportation, and communities has influenced every aspect of how I interact with where I live. Now, I...
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We've collected posters and presentations of NITC research at TRB. Explore the links below to see what NITC researchers brought to D.C. this year—the below projects have a connection to NITC funding, but are not necessarily representative of the full body of work that researchers at these institutions brought to the annual meeting.
Check out our TRB 2020 photo album here!
Portland State University
Photo by Cait McCusker
The National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) program has released its 2020 general research request for proposals. Faculty at NITC's partner universities* are invited to submit abstracts by March 23, 2020.
Through funding provided by the U.S. DOT, we will award up to $1,000,000 to research projects that support NITC’s theme: improving mobility of people and goods to build strong communities. Our theme includes a few key topics:
Increasing access to opportunities.
Well-connected regions and communities can improve social equity by providing access to jobs, services, recreation, and social opportunities. Research should examine barriers to access, including the connections between transportation, land use, and housing. It should look at how to overcome these barriers and improve accessibility, affordability, and equity in our communities.
Improving multi-modal planning and shared use of infrastructure.
Improved mobility requires a range of options for moving people and goods. As concepts of mobility evolve, research is needed to understand how people and firms make mode choices so that we can design better multi-modal systems. Research should examine how...
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What was...
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This page serves as a homebase for our coverage of the 2020 Transportation Research Board (TRB) annual conference. Check back here for ongoing updates, as well as our Twitter and Facebook.
NITC GUIDE TO TRB (PDF): Our printable schedule of where all of our NITC researchers will be presenting at lectures, poster sessions, and workshops.
NITC RECEPTION AT TRB: Join us for transportation bingo and networking on Monday, January 13 (8:00 –10:30 PM) nearby at Fadó Irish Pub.
NITC STUDENT AWARD AT CUTC BANQUET: We’ll be celebrating our 2019 NITC “Student of the Year," Samuel Jensen of the University of Arizona, at the annual CUTC Banquet.
Below is a small sampling of the expertise NITC is bringing to TRB 2020. For the ...
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Our National Institute for Transportation & Communities (NITC) research program has awarded grant funding for a new series of Small Starts projects.
The latest Small Starts Grant projects, evaluated by the NITC Advisory Board and selected by NITC's Executive Committee, will explore mobility impacts of construction workzones, transportation equity and barriers for low-income travelers, and the widespread impacts of emerging technologies like e-scooters and ride hailing.
This annual NITC funding program is a unique opportunity to tackle small-scale ($20,000 or less in scope) research projects. In contrast to our larger, annual flagship program ($30–150K), Small Starts enables us to include researchers who:
Bring a diverse, interdisciplinary perspective
Offer a new voice in the field, whether they’re untenured faculty or a researcher who has not received a NITC grant before
Want to kick-start a larger project by first tackling an exploratory study smaller in scope
Autonomous vehicles (AVs), e-commerce and the sharing economy are rapidly changing land use and transportation in cities. City leaders and professional planners are wondering how these technologies will change how they plan and operate cities. For the past year, the University of Oregon’s Urbanism Next Center and Sustainable Year Program focused staff and students on helping the cities of Gresham and Eugene better understand the potential impacts of a wide-range of topics and study a variety of potential responses to address the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities. These topics include issues related to safety, social equity, active transportation, sustainability and environmental impacts, design and management of the right-of-way, and the metropolitan footprint. In addition, the cities thought about city operations and budgeting and how they can inform decision-making, manage innovation, and consider the fiscal impacts and new mobility revenue.
During this webinar, the Urbanism Next researchers will discuss the research they conducted to help the cities navigate new mobility and emerging technologies. Researchers will discuss how cities are preparing for new mobility...
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NITC researchers Stephen Fickas and Marc Schlossberg of the University of Oregon are on a mission: bring the benefits of V2I (vehicle-to-infrastructure communication) to bicycling. Earlier this year they published their proof-of-concept of a DIY vehicle-to-infrastructure "bike box" in Oregon for communicating with traffic signal controllers. In the most recent round of NITC grants awarded...
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The 11th annual Transportation and Communities Summit 2019, held at Portland State University (PSU) on September 19–20, drew attendees from 14 states across the U.S. Over 250 people joined us for the Summit day, and nearly 60 took part in the deep-dive workshop day. We hope the event offered new opportunities for collaboration and synergy between researchers, practitioners, and community members.
Peter DeFazio, the U.S. Representative for Oregon's 4th congressional district, kicked off the day with a video welcome message for the summit attendees, followed on the main stage by TREC director and urban planning faculty Jennifer Dill.
At lunchtime Ben Wellington, the data...
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