News Blog: PBOT and PSU partner to bring new and improved Transportation Lunch and Learn Series to Portland and beyond

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(Jan. 31, 2019) Portland is known as a hub of transportation innovation, research and ideas. Over the past 12 years, the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s (PBOT) Bike Lunch and Learn series has helped Portlanders learn about the work of city staff and our partners in the community. This year we are adding more transportation topics and increasing our reach through a partnership with Portland State University’s (PSU) Transportation Research and Education Center’sFriday Transportation Seminar. There will also be a new day and time: Fridays at 11:30 a.m. Meetings will take place about every other month.

The PBOT Bike Lunch and Learn began in 2007 as a response to the huge interest in Portland’s 2006 Bike Summit, hosted by PBOT and PSU. The Lunch and Learn offered topics of interest to bicycle advocates, city staff and the general public. The popularity of the program over the years led to the bureau deciding to widen the range of topics covered and seek out a new space to accommodate the growing number of attendees.

The new Lunch and Learn series is modeled after PSU’s popular Traffic and Transportation Course, which has been sponsored by PBOT for the past 29 years. Each session dives deep into a specific transportation topic PBOT is currently working on and is presented by the bureau staff directly addressing the issue. 

The new collaboration with PSU’s Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) provides the series with a regular home in a beautiful, state-of-the-art meeting space in the Central City.  Even better, TREC will offer online access to the sessions as a webinar – watch from anywhere!  You can even pose questions online for the presenters to answer in real-time.  If you miss a presentation, the video and slides from the talk will be available at TREC’s online archive.

On Friday, Feb. 1, our first session dives into a topic of lively discussion in Portland these days– the Shared E-Scooter Pilot. Briana Orr, PBOT’s E-Scooter Pilot Project Manager and John MacArthur, TREC’s Sustainable Transportation Program Manager will discuss the results of the first 120-day pilot and the city’s plans for a second pilot in 2019. 

Join us at:

PSU Karl Miller Center

615 SW Harrison St., Room 465

Portland, OR 97201

To watch the talk online, register here.

If you come to the event in person feel free to bring your lunch – and a cup.  We’ll have coffee and donuts provided for continued conversation after the presentation, from 12:30 to 1 p.m.

Additional topics to be covered in the coming months include:

Like PBOT’s Facebook page to stay updated on all upcoming events: www.facebook.com/pbotinfo