News Tagged: Step
8 Entries Tagged
Photo set: PSU’s Urban Olympics draws most competitors yet
Students in Transportation Engineering and Planning, the OTREC-funded transportation student group at Portland State University, held its biggest-ever Urban Olympics, the annual celebration of Portland’s quirks and oddities. The 2012 games, held in April, featured participation from planning, engineering and public health departments.
Teams competed in games such as Urban NASCAR, which included slow-biking and gummy worm-eating components, and the noncopyright-infringing “Astonishing Rush” scavenger hunt. The first-year master of urban and regional planning, or MURP, students took the participation award, with 16 competitors, while the best department award went to the second-year MURPs.
The best team award went to Team Jellis, composed of Jamie Jones and Scotty Ellis. More awards are at the STEP website.
Photos are after the jump.
Tags: bicycling, master of urban and regional planning, portland state university, step, transportation, urban olympics
Conference-goers bring TRB back to Portland
On Feb. 21, OTREC joined with the Portland State University Students in Transportation and Planning (STEP) and the Portland-area News Rail~Volutionaries to host a debrief of January’s annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) in Washington DC. Portland was well represented at the TRB meeting with a diverse array of students, faculty, and transportation professionals, and this event brought many of those attendees together at the Lucky Labrador pub in northwest Portland to share stories and lessons learned.
For students, the gathering presented an opportunity to showcase the research they presented TRB. Posters lined the room and many attendees donned buttons bearing the enthusiastic encouragement, “Ask me about TRB!” Built-in icebreakers ensured lively discussions about current issues and research in transportation.
Those who did not get to attend TRB were able to experience a little taste of it in Portland, as those who did go had no shortage of tales about the biggest annual gathering of transportation professionals.
STEP members in attendance took advantage opportunity to network with potential future employers and coworkers. To aid the soon-to-be graduates in their job hunts, STEP has created a LinkedIn group containing the profiles and resumes of many STEP members.
Tags: brian davis, otrec, step, transportation research board, trb
Photo set: Columbia River Crossing gingerbread competition
Nothing signals the holiday season like a contentious multi-billion-dollar public works project. With that in mind, Portland State University's Students in Transportation Engineering and Planning sought to design and build an edible version of the Columbia River Crossing project. Teams of students built the bridge portion of the project using only edible elements, including graham crackers, licorice and gummy creatures.
The event, held Dec. 8, was the second annual competition for STEP. Last year, teams competed to build a gingerbread transit station.
Tags: columbia river crossing, step
Conference puts students at heart of transportation system
In town to network and share research results, participants in the Region X Student Transportation Conference also saw the inner workings of the transportation system and even got to stop Portland traffic.
The ninth annual conference drew around 75 people to Portland November 18. The conference showcases student transportation research in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska and is entirely organized and run by students.
This year, the conference also featured breakout sessions and tours with working transportation professionals. Groups visited the Oregon Department of Transportation Region I incident management command center, dug into city of Portland traffic signal systems and operations, toured the city’s bicycle infrastructure and explored the mechanics of Portland’s drawbridges in detail with three bridge lifts.
Portland State University’s student group, Students in Transportation Engineering and Planning, or STEP, hosted the conference, which was sponsored by OTREC. The conference provides plenty of formal and informal opportunities for students working at different universities to inform each other, said Kristi Currans, an organizer with STEP.
Tags: cortney mild, kristi currans, region x, step, traffic bowl, traffic signal systems
New Chicago Transportation Department head will bring lessons from Oregon trip
When Gabe Klein starts his new job as commissioner of the Chicago Department of Transportation, the lessons of Oregon’s transportation system will be fresh in his mind. Klein, the former director of the District (of Columbia) Department of Transportation, visited OTREC programs and student groups over several packed days in Oregon.
Klein started his tour April 6 in Eugene as an expert in residence with the Sustainable Cities Initiative and LiveMove student group at the University of Oregon. He worked his way up the Willamette Valley with meetings and presentations in Salem and Portland.
On bicycle, Klein toured Eugene’s off-street paths, including pedestrian and bicycle bridges, and the street that will carry the area’s first cycle track. 
He met with city and Lane Transit District officials before touring the EmX bus rapid transit system.
In lectures in Eugene and Portland, Klein discussed the future of transportation, lauding the movement to redesign cities for walkability instead of drivability. (Watch video of the presentation here.) Klein has worked to change people’s relationships with vehicles, both in D.C., where he launched the Capital Bikeshare program, and previously with ZipCar.
Tags: alta bicycle share, bike sharing, bus rapid transit, capital bikeshare, chicago department of transportation, district department of transportation, gabe klein, livemove, step
Archives
Categories
Filter By University
- Portland State University
- University of Oregon
- Oregon State University
- Oregon Institute of Technology
OTREC's Most Used Tags
alex bigazzi bicycle bicycle infrastructure bicycling chris monsere cutc design electric vehicles hau hagedorn hiring ibpi its lab jennifer dill john macarthur karen dixon kelly clifton livability livemove marc schlossberg meeting metro miguel figliozzi newsletter nico larco oregon department of transportation oregon transportation summit otrec peter dusicka portland state university proposals public transportation region x region x consortium rfp rita robert bertini roger lindgren sam adams step sustainable cities initiative transit transportation modeling transportation research board trb trimet utc visiting scholar program visiting scholars program walking yizhao yang