PDOT’s “Hub” Project (a.k.a. Travel Smart) has a new name, a new logo, and a new plan.
Now calling their work “SmartTrips”, the folks in the Transportation Options division are gearing up to work their magic in and around Sellwood.
SmartTrips is a comprehensive, individualized marketing program that encourages people to take less car trips by making it easier for them to choose transit, walking, and bikes. Once chosen, target areas are inundated with a series of bike rides and walks, clinics, classes, maps, free gifts and other resources and incentives.
Coming off their Northeast Hub project — which resulted in a 13% decrease in drive-alone trips — the new SmartTrips Southeast initiative will blanket 23,400 households (pending a grant to include the city of Milwaukie). The map on the right shows the boundaries of this target area.
I went behind the scenes of the Northeast Hub project back in April.
SmartTrips Southeast will begin in early May but PDOT will partner up with the Three Bridges Celebration on May 19th to officially kick things off.
The Options division is also working on a “SmartTrips Downtown” initiative to minimize auto use during the transit mall reconstruction project.
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This is awesome – the City really needs to focus on this area, especially since the Three Bridges project is complete. With the Springwater Corridor cutting right through the project area, this is the perfect set of neighborhoods to encourage bicycle commuting and bicycle infrastructure.
Totally. The Springwater between Johnson Creek and Sellwood was PACKED this weekend through there. Whatever they did to get the word out that the path was open worked great. I almost feel kinda bad for pedestrians through there because there are a LOT of bikes and not a lot of room.
Save the date: May 19th, 2007 is the Grand Opening of the Sprinwater Corridor – with 3 Bridges in place – and also the Kickoff Event for SmartTrips Southeast.
And yes, we’ll be encouraging harmony between all modes (remember – everyone is a pedestrian at some point in their trip!).
Hmmm… SmartTrips Northeast, Southeast and Downtown. If I ride on the westside, does that mean I’m making StupidTrips?
Cate, the Travelsmart pilot program (from summer 02 – fall 03) was conducted in Multnomah & Hillsdale – so I think the westside gets bragging rights for first on the block! The city of Portland’s 2006 bike count data show many fewer cyclists (often a quarter of eastside counts) on the westside, and it’s possible the return on eastside projects is significantly higher – more low-hanging fruit, as it were. So maybe that’s why they’ve stacked three smartTrips projects on the eastside.
Thank you, Eric. Now that you mention it, I do have this vague memory of hearing something about the Multnomah/Hillsdale program. I wonder if anyone has done a follow-up survey to see if changes made back then have stuck.
I still am not really sure why taxpayers need to foot the bill on this?
…and where did the 13% decrease/increase come from that is stated above? What exactly is a auto trip considered? Is that a one way point to point trip?
All in all it’s really neat that Portland works to decrease auto usage in such a way (still scratching my head on taxpayer/PDOT budget money being spent on this). It would be really nice if people just paid attention to the benifit, and went for the bang for the buck of riding bikes, transit, and other such modes more frequently instead of always defaulting to auto usage.