News Tagged: Marc Schlossberg
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Campus visits kick off new NITC program
Staff from OTREC at Portland State University toured three partner campuses to prepare for the first round of projects under the National Institute for Transportation and Communities program, or NITC. Portland State, the University of Oregon, Oregon Institute of Technology and the University of Utah teamed up for the program, funded with a $3.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The University of Utah was the first to receive a visit, March 19-20, in Salt Lake City. There, NITC executive committee member Keith Bartholomew hosted tours and meetings. Staff met with student representatives from various disciplines and with potential researchers from across campus before meeting potential community partners at the Utah Transit Authority offices. OTREC finance and communications staff members met with their University of Utah counterparts.
The meetings marked the first connection for much of the Utah faculty and OTREC staff. While the University of Oregon and Oregon Tech were already partners under the original OTREC grant, the NITC program marks Portland State and Utah’s first formal collaboration under the federal University Transportation Centers program.
Tags: jennifer dill, keith bartholomew, marc schlossberg, national institute for transportation and communities, nitc, oregon institute of technology, oregon renewable energy center, roger lindgren, salt lake city, trax, university of oregon, university of utah, university transportation center
Photo set: OTREC at TRB
The Transportation Research Board's annual meeting lets OTREC resesarchers share their work with the rest of the country, network and learn from research conducted elsewhere. OTREC faculty, staff and students, with their ubiquitous yellow lanyards, hit Washington, D.C. for research presentations, poster sessions and committee meetings Jan. 21 to 26.
Tags: brian davis, carl olson, cortney mild, geoff rose, hau hagedorn, john macarthur, keith bartholomew, kelly clifton, kristi currans, marc schlossberg, miguel figliozzi, nathan mcneil, roger chen, roger lindgren, transportation research board, trb
Need A Bike Lane? There’s an App For That
Fixing a community’s pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure issues could be as simple as turning on one’s smart phone in the future. At least that’s the hope of OTREC researchers Marc Schlossberg, Ken Kato, Dana Maher, Cody Evers, and Christo Brehm of the University of Oregon.
In the report, Transportation Planning Through Mobile Mapping (Read The Full Report Here), researchers developed and tested the Fix This Tool, a smart phone application that allows community members to assess problems within their transportation environment. The goal was to create a tool that could be affordably distributed to communities across the country so pedestrians and cyclists can actively participate in improving their means of transportation.
As the desire for reduced carbon emissions, reduced congestion, and reduced public spending on transportation infrastructure grows, many state and local governments are looking to encourage walking and bicycling in their communities as an alternative to cars. However, current data on pedestrian and bike networks are limited and there is little understanding on what constitutes appropriate bike and pedestrian infrastructure. To remedy this, local governments must engage residents to find out challenges current users face and what infrastructure is needed to increase biking and walking by residents.
Tags: bicycling, christo brehm, cody evers, dana maher, gis, ken kato, marc schlossberg, otrec, walking
Metro’s Robert Liberty to head Sustainable Cities Initiative
The University of Oregon's Sustainable Cities Initiative has hired Metro Councilor Robert Liberty as the program's executive director. Liberty will start in the newly created post Jan. 18.
Liberty currently represents 240,000 residents in northeast, southeast and southwest Portland on the regional government's council, where he has served since 2005.
The Sustainable Cities Initiative is a multi-disciplinary effort to transform higher education with community engagement, interdisciplinary collaboration and sustainability study to influence public policy. The initiative is one of three OTREC-supported initiatives for 2011. This support has helped the initiative blossom, and hiring an exectuive director is indicative of its growth and continuing success.
Tags: david bragdon, earl blumenauer, marc schlossberg, robert liberty, sustainable cities initiative
OTREC well represented at D.C. livability conference
Ten OTREC researchers, staff, and students participated in the Transportation Research Board and University Transportation Center Transportation Systems for Livable Communities Conference last week in Washington, D.C. The conference brought together researchers and practitioners from transportation, housing and public health.
Highlights of the conference included an insightful discussion on defining livability. Despite inconclusive debate on the definition, participants agreed that for the concept to be embraced it can neither be dictated nor prescribed. Performance measures also were a recurring theme of the two-day conference. Concepts explored included: re-evaluating outdated measures such as volume-to-capacity ratio and level of service to better reflect different modes, shifting thinking from mobility to accessibility and proximity, and data standardization and measurement methodologies. To complete the livability picture, the multigenerational and socioeconomic considerations need to be included.
The following four OTREC research projects were highlighted during the conference poster session:
- Implementation of Active Living Policies by Land Use and Transportation Agencies: Jennifer Dill, Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium, Portland State University; Deborah Howe, Temple University
- Yes, They Do Walk in Suburbia: Suburban Multifamily Housing and Trips to Strips: Nico Larco, University of Oregon
- “Fix This Tool”: Empowering Citizens to Spatially Assess their Active Transportation Environment: Marc Schlossberg, Ken Kato, Christo Brehm, and Dana Maher, University of Oregon
- Universities as Catalysts for Retrofitting Communities Toward Livability: The Sustainable Cities Initiative: Marc Schlossberg and Nico Larco, Sustainable Cities Initiative
The conference validated much of OTREC's current research and provided further evidence that we are moving livability research in the right direction. OTREC's livability research focuses on tools for decision-making, planning and design, economics and performance measures.
Presentations are posted on the TRB conference Website. Conference tweets are on Twitter at #utclivability.
Tags: christo brehm, dana maher, deborah howe, jennifer dill, ken kato, marc schlossberg, nico larco, research and innovative technology administration, transportation research board
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