Oregon Transportation Summit:
A Day for Professional Development
Friday, September 11, 2009
Smith Memorial Union, Portland State University

Why a Summit?

The Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium (OTREC) supports faculty and students at PSU, UO, OSU and OIT. The idea for the summit began with the desire to bring this group together in one place. By partnering with the Portland chapter of WTS, the Oregon chapter of APA, and the Oregon section of ITE, we hope to create exciting and productive connections between academic and practicing transportation professionals.

What Will Happen at the Summit?

• Morning Program: There will be separate tracks in this half of the day for OTREC faculty and practitioners. While the faculty members participate in an intercampus retreat, there will be presentation sessions on climate change and tolling policy. Participants will learn about demand and system management strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the authors of the new report, Moving Cooler. They will also receive a briefing on ODOT’s tolling policy research initiative, which recently produced seven thematic white papers on topics such as “the economics of reliability.”

• Luncheon: We are very excited to have Tom Vanderbilt, author of the New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) as our keynote speaker. The lunch program will also include the presentation of OTREC’s Peter DeFazio Transportation Hall of Fame Award.

• Afternoon Program: There will be concurrent workshops on topics such as safety, asset management, and electric vehicles, during which academics and practitioners will collaborate, with the help of a facilitator, to identify research that can be transferred into practice and to generate new research ideas.

• The day will end with a casual reception.
  

Location and Directions

The Oregon Transportation Summit will be held in the Smith Memorial Union at Portland State University. The main entrance is located on SW Broadway between Montgomery and Harrison. Registration and the morning plenary sessions (and the faculty retreat) will be held on the second floor; the luncheon and afternoon sessions will be held on the third floor. Many forms of public transportation are convenient and there is ample bike parking near the building. For more details, including directions and parking information, please visit http://transportation.pdx.edu/visitors/home.

Thanks to CH2M HILL, David Evans & Associates, Jeanne Lawson Associates, Sharp Communications and EnviroIssues for contributing professional facilitators to help with the Summit's afternoon workshop sessions.