News

MIKE DONALD RIDES his bike from his Mt. Tabor home to his job in downtown Portland three or four times a week, depending on what he has planned after work. Weather is rarely a consideration for the 52-year-old software engineer. However, car traffic dictates his time and route.

For a week, Donald volunteered to clip a GPS tracking device on his bike for a bicycling behavior study conducted by Jennifer Dill, director of the Center for Transportation Studies at PSU.

"Mike is fairly typical of the active and regular cyclists who volunteered for the second phase of our study," says Dill.

More than 100 regular cyclists were tracked by satellite, allowing Dill and her researchers to see where they ride, how far, how fast, and for how long. Before each trip the cyclists logged into their GPS device giving a destination category and weather conditions. Another group of cyclists, occasional riders, were tracked in an additional study using the devices. The GPS studies are adding to the information Dill gained about bicycle use from an earlier telephone survey of 566 Portland-area residents.

Dill, a cyclist herself, hopes the project's findings will help Portland further promote biking as a fun, healthy, safe, and environmentally friendly means of transportation. City bike planners could use the data, says Dill, to locate bike paths, bike lanes, and directional signs helping bike riders find their way.