Example of temporary roundabout that will be installed in the Portsmouth neighborhood.

A mini-roundabout could be coming to a dangerous intersection in the Portsmouth neighborhood of north Portland later this year thanks to an inspiring partnership between the César Chávez K-8 School community and Portland State University.

The intersection of North Portsmouth and Willis has been known for years as a hotspot for crashes and near misses. When a school student was hit by a driver in 2020, local advocates stepped up and nominated the intersection to be part of the Better Block PSU pathway program. As we’ve shared in the past, leaders with nonprofit tactical urbanism group Better Block have forged close ties with PSU urban planning students and the school’s Transportation Research & Education Center (TREC). [Read more…]

(Photos: Transportation Research and Education Center at Portland State University)

Did you know the vaunted urban planning department at Portland State University hosts a free, week-long summer camp for high school students? [Read more…]

(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)

“E-bikes are the future!” That’s what Portland mayoral candidate Sarah Iannarone proclaimed at a forum earlier this week. Iannarone is bullish on e-bikes not just because she’s an expert on innovative transportation solutions (thanks in part to her work at First Stop Portland), but because she rides an e-bike herself.

Many that ride e-bikes quickly become evangelists like Iannarone and start using words like “transformational” and “revolution”.

Now a Portland State University research project wants to add more science to back up all the excitement. And they’re looking for subjects. [Read more…]

This protected intersection in Salt Lake City, Utah was rated comfortable by the largest number of respondents.
(Photo: TREC at PSU Researchers)

With protected bike lanes all the rage in Portland and throughout the U.S., a big question remains: What about intersections? After all, protection on the blockface doesn’t mean much when you come face-to-face with a drivers’ car at the intersection.[Read more…]

This story was written by Malia Knapp-Rossi, a Master of Urban and Regional Planning candidate at Portland State University and intern with Better Block PDX.

Better Block PDX is excited to announce that Portland State University’s Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) has adopted the Project Pathway program.
[Read more…]

(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

You can add another bike-related topic that researchers at Portland State University have gained national notoriety for: equity in bike share systems.

PSU’s Transportation Research and Education Consortium (TREC) just won a grant worth nearly $75,000 from the Better Bike Share Partnership. The award, announced today by People for Bikes, is part of $410,000 split between eight projects across the country.

The money will go toward a “national assessment of bike share equity programs.” Here’s more about the project:

Portland State’s research team will document the programs and strategies developed to address equity in bike share across the U.S., and identify the definitions and measures of success for each of these efforts. The result will be a catalog of equity approaches employed, an aggregated summary of key elements of each approach or strategy, and a record of which metrics agencies used to assess if they are meeting their equity goals, along with the various ways agencies are assessing their programs.

[Read more…]

A more humane way to plan.
(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

When it comes to planning a city, trips matter. Estimates about the amount of trips generated by a transportation project or new development are what dictate not just what our redesigned streets will look like, but also how we pay for them.

One of the ways the City of Portland pays for infrastructure is by charging developers a fee based on the impact their new building will have on the transportation system. These fees — known as Transportation System Development Charges, or just TSDCs for short — are based on a model that estimates how many trips a new development will generate.

There’s just one small problem: The methodology is centered almost exclusively around cars. The Portland Bureau of Transportation wants to change that.

At City Council today commissioners unanimously passed an ordinance (PDF) allowing PBOT to use a methodology that uses “person trips” – meaning trips made not just by people in cars and trucks but also foot, by bike and in transit vehicles.
[Read more…]