Today the University hosts the annual Region X Student Transportation Conference, and it’s all about sustainability.
The conference brings together students and transportation experts from schools all over the Northwest, mostly from Portland State University, Oregon State University, University of Washington and Oregon Institute of Technology. The one-day event, which starts at 8:30 a.m. in 240A McKenzie, features student presentations, keynote speaker Jim Whitty from the Oregon Department of Transportation and a panel of transportation professionals from Eugene and Portland.
This year’s conference theme is “Moving People,” which focuses on finding alternative, more efficient means of transportation for community members in a new age of environmental awareness.
Kevin Belanger, a graduate student in environmental studies, will present research from his master’s thesis at the conference. His project involves “trying to get people to walk and bike in the suburbs” rather than drive a car when they run errands and go to work.
Belanger said the key to making real transportation changes in a community is making pedestrian and bike routes more accessible and more prevalent. In his thesis research, “We looked at developments we thought were well connected, and they walk a lot more there, so I’m coming up with recommendations to change the non-connected communities,” he said.
The conference’s theme fits perfectly with the University, Belanger said, because Eugene is an alterative transportation hub in the Northwest. While other schools’ transportation-related studies are usually offered in engineering departments, students interested in transportation at the University take classes in the environmental studies and planning, public policy and management departments.
“Other schools have engineers and talk about peak traffic times and highways in Portland,” Belanger said. “There’s kind of a unique difference here because people here focus on more pedestrian and bike transport.”
The University’s bike loan program proves the popularity of bicycling at and around campus. Program founder Briana Orr, who will also speak at the conference, said for the second year in a row, the program has surpassed its goal of 25 bike loans by 45 bikes.
“I think we’ve done a lot more than we originally anticipated,” Orr said. The program has received enough funding — last year from ASUO overrealized funds and this year from the Oregon business energy tax credit — to organize two classes in bike maintenance through the outdoor program.
Orr said she’s speaking at the conference in hopes that other schools will become inspired to start their own bike loan programs.
“Students from Portland State are going to be beginning a bike loan program in the near future,” Orr said, and she wants to provide them with information and resources to help get the program started.
Along with Orr, Price Armstrong, a graduate student and head coordinator of University transportation program LiveMove, will present findings from a study on the extent to which the bike loan program encourages people to change their lifestyle. He was inspired to start the study, which will be part of his master’s thesis, when two of last year’s ASUO presidential candidates, Emma Kallaway and Nick Schultz, said they’d support a bike loan program.
“It reduces parking pressures on campus,” Armstrong said. “And I started wondering if that’s what it really does. What are the actual transportation impacts of a bike loan program?”
Belanger said the bike loan program is a step in the right direction for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving air quality and making people less reliant on cars, but bigger steps must be taken for real change.
“We have to convince people that they don’t have to own a car and they’re not at a disadvantage because they don’t own a car,” Belanger said. “Right now, people think they are.”
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