Webinar: Impacts of Roadway and Traffic Characteristics on Air Pollution Risks for Bicyclists

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

Active travel such as walking and bicycling can lead to health benefits through an increase in physical activity. At the same time, more active travelers breath more and so can experience high pollution inhalation rates during travel. This webinar will review the state of knowledge about how roadway and traffic characteristics impact air pollution risks for bicyclists, including the latest PSU research quantifying bicyclists' uptake of traffic-related air pollution using on-road measurements in Portland. The PSU research team including Alex Bigazzi, Jim Pankow, and Miguel Figliozzi quantified bicyclist exposure concentrations on different types of roadways, respiration responses to exertion level, and changes in blood concentrations of pollutants. Implications for planners, engineers, and policy-makers will be discussed, including guidance for more pollution-conscious bicycle network planning and design. Additionally, ways for individual travelers to reduce their air pollution risks will be discussed.

This 60-minute webinar is eligible for one hour of training which equals 1 CM or 1 PDH. NITC applies to the AICP for Certification Maintenance credit for each webinar. We will provide an attendance certificate...

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Terminal Access: Increasing Bike and Pedestrian Access to PDX

The video begins at 1:00.

Forget Yards, Metro Homebuyers Are Looking for Good Sidewalks

Putting the Fun Before the Wonk: Using Bike Fun to Diversify Bike Ridership

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Putting the Fun Before the Wonk: Using Bike Fun to Diversify Bike Ridership

The Community Cycling Center has been at the business of broadening access to bicycling for 22 years. Far before anyone was talking about "equity" in the world of bike commuting and advocacy, the Community Cycling Center was working directly with youth of color to make...

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Bike Planning Methods in Oregon Communities

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Summary: In this seminar, Tara Weidner will discuss changes in the works to the State Analysis Procedures Manual (APM) to include three graduated levels of bike planning methods for use in Oregon communities, based on community size, data needs, and planning stage.  These include the Bike Level of Traffic Stress (BLTS), a sketch tool used to assess bike network connectivity, the data-heavy Highway Capacity Manual Multi-modal Level of Service (MMLOS) procedures, and a simplified MMLOS developed by the same researchers. 

Bio: Tara Weidner is an Integrated Transportation Analysis Engineer in ODOT’s Transportation Planning Analysis Unit (TPAU).  She has over 20 years of experience in modeling and analysis of multi-modal transportation systems. Her work focuses on arming Oregon’s communities with tools to plan for the future, including being the lead on ODOT’s GreenSTEP Greenhouse Gas model and coordinating other multi-modal transportation and land use tools and analysis. She joined TPAU about a year ago after working as a Senior Planner for Parsons Brinkerhoff (PB), where she was the consultant lead for the ODOT StateWide Integrated Model (SWIM) and worked with the FHWA on Mega-Regions modeling tools and managed a webinar series on "Climate Change Planning for MPOs.

Transforming Traffic Signals to Support Sustainability: Applications, Ideas, and Research Needs

The video begins at 5:27.

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Abstract: Today, most streets are designed and managed to meet mobility standards that focus on the movement of motor vehicles, failing to adequately accommodate and prioritize transit, walking, and biking. A new culture of innovation is needed in transportation as traditional solutions alone will not suffice. By 2035, the Portland Plan envisions transportation facilities that are designed and managed to prioritize travel investments that improve walking, biking, and universal accessibility as the first priority.

In support of this vision, Peter Koonce, Manager of the City's Signals, Street Lighting, & ITS Division will discuss how he's looking to make the City's traffic signals consistent with these goals resulting in more effective integration of land use, transit, cycling, and walking. The discussion will be centered around research that is needed to improve our understanding of best practices from the U.S. and Europe for application in Portland.

Cycle Tracks and Bicycle Priority Lanes: More Tools to Serve Traffic Intolerant Riders

Room 315 Engineering Building (ITS Lab)

If American cities are to serve the mainstream population of traffic-intolerant bicyclists, we need a broad range of low-stress facility types that can be applied depending on traffic and space constraints. This seminar will focus on two kinds of bicycle accommodations. A “Bicycle Priority Lane” is a shared lane treatment, like the shared lane arrow or “sharrow” that is becoming popular, intended for streets lacking the space to provide a dedicated bike lane. It enhances the sharrow by providing longitudinal markings that define a “lane within a lane,” drawing from “advisory lanes” (UK) and “suggestion lanes” (NL). We show how defining the bicyclist’s space objectively with road marking frees bicyclists from the stress of negotiating for operating space with motorists.

Separated paths or cycle tracks are bike paths along a road that are physically separated from moving traffic by a curb, median, or parking lane. For decades, they have been the mainstay of bicycle networks in the Netherlands and in Montreal, but have been shunned by US planners due to misplaced safety concerns. We will expose the flaws of the studies used to discredit separated paths, and discuss their safety record in the Netherlands and in Montreal. Practical issues in cycle track design will be discussed based on Montreal’s experience of the last two decades.

Rails-with-trails: issues related to safety, design, planning, and implementation of trails next to active railway lines

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System of cycletracks would make biking safer

Is It Working? Are the Region's and City's Transportation Policies and Actions Moving Us in Their Desired Directions?

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The City of Portland and the Metropolitan Region have strong policies in place to encourage transportation through means other than the single-occupancy vehicle. Both governments have numeric goals for the proportion of trips to be made by walking, bicycling, transit, shared vehicles, working at home and driving alone. Indeed, the City of Portland desires that by 2035 no more than thirty percent of commute trips be made by people driving alone. Similar policies have driven transportation planning in the city and region for decades.

To understand if these policies will be effective it's necessary to understand whether their antecedents have been effective. The Portland region has been investing in transit, bicycling and walking for more than two decades? Are we moving the needle? Have we been effective?

Roger's presentation will take a look at regional data for the period 2000-2014 to assess the effectiveness of our efforts and use that information to suggest pathways forward.

Roger Geller has been Portland, Oregon’s bicycle coordinator since 2000...

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