News Tagged: Otrec
75 Entries Tagged
Posted on August 17, 2014
An OTREC report from Oregon State University looked at various center median and bicycle lane configurations, and how they affect traffic at road access points.
In the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (
AASHTO) publication
A Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets, commonly known as the
Green Book, access points include the intersections of public roads as well as driveway locations.
In the Green Book, most of the supporting research for the spacing of driveways is based on standard highway design procedures. They include simple human factors and geometric principles, and have not been thoroughly evaluated based on a variety of road cross section configurations.
Principal investigator
Karen Dixon of Oregon State University sought to close this research gap by evaluating the influences of select cross-sectional-related design elements, specifically median configurations and bicycle lanes, on driveways.
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Tags: bicycle infrastructure, karen dixon, oregon state university, otrec, research
Posted on August 13, 2014
A new OTREC report explores an innovative technique for making household travel data more widely available without compromising individual privacy.
Public agencies spend vast amounts of money collecting information in household travel surveys.
Survey respondents are guaranteed anonymity in exchange for their participation. In addition to asking which modes individuals use to get around, surveys learn where they live, where they work, their household sizes and demographic information.
Detailed geospatial referencing of the home, work and other travel destinations is common practice.
Such data can be of enormous use to planning professionals, but its dissemination must be balanced with the need to keep locations confidential.
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Tags: otrec, portland state university, research
Posted on July 8, 2014
The executive committee of the National Institute for Transportation and Communities, or
NITC, program has selected a third round of research, education, and technology transfer projects for funding. This grant is part of the University Transportation Center (UTC) program funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Research and Technology, and is a partnership between Portland State University, the University of Oregon, the Oregon Institute of Technology, and the University of Utah. The committee chose eight projects, totaling $800,000, under the NITC theme of safe, healthy and sustainable transportation to foster livable communities.
The projects are national in scope and support innovations in priority areas including public transit and active transportation.
Projects selected include:
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An analysis of the effects of commuter rail on population deconcentration.
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A look into prioritizing pedestrians at signalized intersections.
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A study of cyclist-vehicle interaction.
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An evaluation of an eco-driving intervention.
The eight projects were chosen from among 20 proposals with a total request of over $2 million.
A complete list of projects and principal investigators is below:
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Tags: bicycle infrastructure, complete streets, cycle tracks, e-bikes, green lanes, light rail, national institute for transportation and communities, nitc, otrec, traffic-related pollution, transit, transit equity, transportation safety, university of utah, utah transit authority, walking
Posted on June 26, 2014
OTREC researchers Krista Nordback and Sirisha Kothuri will present research at the North American Travel Monitoring Exposition and Conference (NATMEC) from June 29 to July 2, 2014.
The conference, organized by the Transportation Research Board, provides an opportunity for traffic monitoring professionals to share information about collecting and using traffic data.
Nordback will talk about what professionals can do to maintain bicycle count programs at the state level. She will give a presentation on the feasibility of using existing traffic signals to collect bicycle counts, and on what to do with that data once it is gathered.
Kothuri will present strategies for counting pedestrians using existing resources such as signal controllers and software already installed at intersections.
Nordback and Kothuri will draw from their own research as well as from the work of Miguel Figliozzi, Chris Monsere, Pam Johnson and Bryan Blanc in their ODOT report, Developing a Statewide Bicycle and Pedestrian Data Collection System in Oregon.
The conference, an international venue for sharing experiences on effectively monitoring traffic flow, will be held at Swissôtel in Chicago, Illinois.
Tags: active transportation, bicycle, bicycle infrastructure, otrec, research, transportation research board, walking
Posted on June 9, 2014
Historically, large-scale transportation infrastructure projects have had devastating outcomes in communities of color. With twentieth-century urban renewal efforts often came the displacement of underprivileged communities, the loss of low-income neighborhoods and their replacement with affluent housing and freeways.
According to new OTREC research from the University of Oregon, transit-oriented development, or TOD, can offer a different trajectory. Rather than displacing residents, TOD has the potential to improve neighborhoods for the benefit of those who live there.
OTREC researcher
Gerardo Sandoval grew up near MacArthur park, one of the two sites studied, and has witnessed firsthand the neighborhood’s dramatic change. “I think the coolest thing about MacArthur Park is that now it’s considered a national model for TOD. When I was growing up there … nobody saw it like that. It was thought of more as a low-income area,” Sandoval said.
The project examined two California neighborhoods: MacArthur Park, in Los Angeles, and Fruitvale, in Oakland. In both neighborhoods, the majority of residents are recent immigrants from Mexico and Central America, many of whom have significantly lower incomes and rely heavily on public transportation.
In the last few decades, both sites have seen TOD coincide with neighborhood revitalization, and gained national and international attention. The secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, Shaun Donovan, referred to the MacArthur park TOD as a “model that the rest of the country should be looking to” after touring it in 2013.
A TOD is a high-density mixed-use residential and commercial area built around a transit stop or station. TODs are designed so that those who live and work within a quarter to a half mile of the transit stop have easy access to public transit.
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Tags: otrec, public transportation, research, social equity, tod, transit, university of oregon
