The Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University has hosted its Friday Transportation Seminars for more than 20 years. These are free events open to students and the public. During the pandemic, the seminars were 100% virtual. But they’re now returning to the PSU campus (though you’ll still have the option to watch online, too) and the upcoming slate is worth your attention.
On May 6, PSU’s resident e-bike experts John MacArthur and Cameron Bennett will present their latest findings about how e-bike incentive programs can expand the market.
We’ve covered TREC’s electric bike research in the past, looking at how rebate or incentive programs can encourage people to buy e-bikes and help people drive less. Electric bikes have experienced a boom in recent years, but to keep it going we’ll have step up the incentives.
Then on May 13th, local activist and Bike Loud PDX volunteer Cathy Tuttle will share a presentation on her Downtown Portland Car Master Plan, where she’ll put a new spin on the car overuse problem with new data about their dominance in our city. “To move to a new paradigm, cities need to acknowledge car dominance and focus on cars with the same rigor they do other modal plans,” Tuttle says about her novel approach to the issue.
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On May 20, PSU’s Nathan McNeil, April Bertelsen and Jamie Jeffrey from the Portland Bureau of Transportation and TriMet’s Jamie Snook will present on Portland’s Rose Lane Project. PBOT and TriMet have worked on these dedicated bus lane projects for several years now and this presentation will report back on early lessons learned as part of the design, implementation and evaluation of these facilities.
And to wrap up this interesting slate of Friday Seminars, on June 3 you can hear from students in TREC’s Master of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) program who are working on the issue of safety for people who live on the street. This presentation will focus on how to implement safety interventions to protect unhoused people. “The solution is more complex than simply sweeping camps near high-crash corridors and moving people experiencing houselessness to safer locations,” says the seminar blurb.
If you love learning about transportation topics like these, check out the Friday Seminar website where you can sign up for emails to hear about future presentations.