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2013 Bicycle & Pedestrian Curriculum Workshop

A Workshop for Transportation Planning & Engineering Faculty

Integrating Bicycle & Pedestrian Topics Into University Transportation Curriculum

July 24-26, 2013

Registration

Registration for the workshop is now open. The fee for this professional development course is $70 and includes coffee and snacks as well as continental breakfast and lunch on Thursday. The fee does not include a $60 bicycle rental fee. This course is sponsored by the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI) at Portland State University. IBPI promotes pedestrian and bicycle travel through research, education and outreach.

Travel Scholarships

Up to $1000 for travel expenses is available for each participant. If you are interested, please complete and submit the application by June 10, 2012 to be considered for this year’s seminar. Selected participants will receive additional information on the requirements to receive the registration waiver and travel stipend.

Eligibility and Participation

Participation is limited to ten faculty members to allow for discussion and interaction among participants. Applicants must be tenure-track faculty members teaching within an accredited planning or engineering program, with a focus on transportation. Junior faculty members are encouraged to apply. All participants should be able to ride a bicycle at a moderate pace with frequent stops for eight to ten miles and comfortable riding in urban environments. To assist us with measuring impacts, participants will be required to share how they integrated the information from the seminar into their teaching and provide syllabi of courses taught.

Overview

This course, offered over 2.5 days, is designed to be a resource to transportation planning and engineering faculty who wish to integrate bicycle and pedestrian topics into their courses. It will focus on a holistic approach to teaching transportation engineering and planning by integrating design for bicycles, pedestrians and transit access, and provding an understanding of state-of-the art practice. Participants will receive curriculum, guidebooks and other tools to broaden their curriculum and provide resources for course design.

Participating professors will experience innovative design solutions used in Portland and other US cities to encourage active transportation and increase the share of trips by foot and bicycle and discuss ways to address these challenges in the classroom. The instructors will use the application information to determine the course content. Potential topics to be covered include:

  • Context sensitive traffic signal timing and engineering design for pedestrians and cyclists
  • Best practices in intersection crossing treatments selection and design
  • Incorporation of bicycle treatments in the urban context
  • Site and street design for pedestrian safety and comfort
  • Prioritization of transit and multimodal performance measures
  • Complete streets concepts to design the roadway for all users

Course Format

The course will be a combination of classroom instruction and field visits by bike and foot to Portland’s “living laboratory”. The classroom instruction will integrate facilitated discussion regarding current gaps in course curriculum and case studies to enrich class materials. The participants will be given time to interact with practitioners, share techniques to teach the topics, and experience a wide array of bicycle and pedestrian facilities to gain first-hand knowledge of their design and use. This will include the use of field visits, other data gathering, and discussion among the participants. Participants will be provided with a Resource Guide with examples of materials from the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) and other sources pertinent to the subject matter discussed.

Course Instructors

Robert Bertini is a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Portland State University. From 2009-2011, Bertini served as Deputy Administrator of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration at the U.S. Department of Transportation. Earlier at PSU, he helped develop the Intelligent Transportation Systems Laboratory and the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium (OTREC). A registered professional engineer in Oregon and California, Bertini’s experience includes work with local government, several national transportation consulting firms and the auto industry. He has supervised students in Civil and Environmental Engineering, Urban Studies and Planning, Computer Science, and Statistics at the undergraduate, Master’s and Ph.D. levels, and teaches courses in intelligent transportation systems, public transportation and transportation operations. Bertini chairs the Transportation Research Board Committee on Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics, and received a National Science Foundation CAREER award. A bike commuter for more than 10 years, Bertini spent 2011-12 living in Delft in the Netherlands with a car free lifestyle.

 

 

Peter Koonce, P.E., is the Division Manager for the City of Portland Bureau of Transportation's Signals, Street Lighting, & ITS Division. Prior to this appointment with the City, he worked with Kittelson & Associates, Inc. for 15 years. He has served as an adjunct professor at Portland State University for the past eight years teaching graduate level courses in transportation engineering. He is participating in the development of the NACTO Urban Street Design Guide, has served on National ITE Committees, and is the Panel Chair for the National Cooperative Highway Research Program project 3-103, which is a rewrite of the Signal Timing Manual. He is the secretary of the Transportation Research Board Committee on Traffic Signal Systems and serves as chair of its Signal Timing subcommittee.

Link to the printable version.

Lodging

These hotels are closest to PSU:

In addition, the following hotels are also located within walking distance (roughly 1/2 mile):

 

**Preliminary Schedule**

Integrating Bicycle and Pedestrian Topics

Into University Transportation Curriculum

July 24-26, 2012

220 URBN| Portland State University

The agenda will be informal and times/topics may shift according to participants’ input. Continental breakfast, lunch and snacks will be provided both days, allowing for informal breaks throughout the workshop.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 24

12:00 pm  Lunch, Introductions and Workshop Overview

12:45 pm  A Brief History of Portland Pedestrian and Bicycling Evolution

1:15 pm    Pedestrian Planning and Engineering Design for Curriculum

3:15 pm    Field Tour of Facilities (on foot and bike)            

5:00 pm    Dinner

THURSDAY, JULY 25

8:00 am    Bicycle Planning and Engineering Topics for Curriculum

10:30 am  Bicycle and Pedestrian Data Collection Topics for Curriculum

11:30 am  Field exercise

12:30 pm  Lunch

1:30 pm    Incorporating Research into the Classroom

2:30 pm    Field Tour of Bicycle Facilities (on bike)

5:00 pm    Informal Social Hour and Recap

FRIDAY, JULY 26

8:00 am    Incorporating Bicycle and Pedestrian Topics into Curriculum

10:30 am  Workshop Summary and Wrap-Up

12:00 pm  Workshop Concludes