Do you want to learn more about transportation in Oregon and the Portland Region, including how you can make your voice heard and improve transportation in your community?
PSU Students Present Innovative Designs to Enhance Portland's Active Transportation Networks
Students in Portland State University’s Urban and Regional Planning program are helping imagine safer, more welcoming streets across Portland. As part of the Active Transportation Planning–Design Studio, student teams worked directly with community partners to identify solutions that are both realistic and affordable. Last month, three student groups presented final projects that propose improvements for walking and biking in three Portland neighborhoods. The projects were developed through Better Block PSU, a program that connects PSU students with local partners to test ideas and advance people-centered street design. Together, the projects show how small, strategic changes can make a meaningful difference for safety, accessibility, and neighborhood connectivity.
Apply now for the 2026 Community Transportation Academy (CTA) at Portland State University!
Do you want to learn more about transportation in Oregon and the Portland Region, including how you can make your voice heard and improve transportation in your community? Portland State University is partnering with Metro, TriMet and the Oregon Department of Transportation to deliver this 10 week class. The course is open to any Oregon resident, and will cover statewide and local transportation topics, delivered by PSU transportation faculty/researchers and transportation experts from the Portland region and beyond. This class is for community members that want to understand the agencies, plans, decisions, investments, and discussions that result in our transportation system. Classes will be on Tuesdays, 6 to 7:40 pm, starting March 31st 2026 through June 2, 2026. Participants will be able to attend in person at the Portland State University campus, or join on-line. It is being offered free of charge to community members; stipends are offered for eligible participants that can defray costs such as child care or transportation to attend the class. The priority application deadline is Monday, February 16th (applicants after this date may be eligible if space is available).
Tired of finding errors in your spreadsheets that perpetuate and cascade through your work? Still trying to cram “big” data into tiny worksheets? Wish you had an easier way to easily share data and results with others? Want to better manage and maintain your workflow? Always wanted to learn R and version control but never found the time? If any of your answers are yes, then this course is for you! After several years of hiatus, we are excited to host an "Intro to R" workshop where we will cover coding and scripting basics, data wrangling and visualizations, version control & best practices, and where to go for help. The introductory three-day workshop will be taught by transportation data program administrator Tammy Lee and adjunct research associate Joe Broach of Portland State University. Click the link below to see course prerequisites and software requirements.
IBPI Study Abroad: Sustainable Transportation in Denmark
June 20–July 4, 2026
Applications are open now for our Sustainable Transportation Study Abroad program! Open to college juniors & seniors and graduate students from any university, as well as professionals, this two-week course offers an immersive experience to explore European approaches to cycling, transit, innovative mobility, and land use. Students completing this course will develop a broader understanding of sustainable transportation issues and expand their toolkit for context-sensitive solutions. Hosted through our Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI) and supported by funding from ScanDesign Foundation, the course will feature material that provides a comparison between the U.S. and Denmark in terms of problems, priorities, and solutions. Through design projects, students have an opportunity to apply lessons learned to the U.S. context.
PSU Planning Graduates Receive Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC) Group Project Award
A group of Portland State University alumni from the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning received the 2026 award for Best Graduate Level Group Project in Planning & Policy from the Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC). The project was titled Bridgeless to Better Burnside: Reclaiming Burnside, Reconnecting the West Side, and was a workshop project by students in PSU's Master of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) program. The team included Michael Azierski, Brian Bill, Eric Gasper, Alex Gill, Jackson Morrison, and Michel Rojas. Gasper and Gill were able to attend the banquet to accept the award for their team at this year's annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB).
Transportation Alumni Highlight: Tara Goddard, Class of 2017
Tara Goddard graduated from Portland State University in 2017 with a Ph.D. in Urban Studies & Planning. She now works as an assistant professor of civil engineering at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California. Previously, she was an assistant, then associate, professor of urban planning at Texas A&M University.
"I am so grateful that I did my doctoral work in Urban Studies at Portland State. It added a lot of dimension to my previous academic and work experience. One aspect was being in an urban studies department, and getting introduced to a much broader scholarship related to how we build, move around in, operate, control, and contest the public realm. Before Portland State, I'm not sure that I could have told you what critical geography or sociology were, but being around faculty and peers with these backgrounds or research approaches really helped me give me a bigger "vocabulary" and understanding of different disciplinary approaches and theories and how they might inform my own work," Goddard said.
Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) is a multidisciplinary hub for all things transportation. We are home to the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), the data programs PORTAL and BikePed Portal, the Better Block PSU program, and PSU's membership in PacTrans, the Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium. Our continuing goal is to produce impactful research and tools for transportation decision makers, expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engage students and professionals through education, seminars, and participation in research.
Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC), Portland State University, 1900 SW 4th Ave, Suite 175, Portland, OR 97201
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