Cars Are The Alternative Transportation

From the Oregonian online (OregonLive.com)….

Survey: Cars are the alternative transportation for PSU students and staff

Published: Friday, January 28, 2011, 1:26 PM     Updated: Friday, January 28, 2011, 2:21 PM

By Joseph Rose, The Oregonian

Photo by The Oregonian

A cyclist makes his way along Portland's first cycle track, which uses parked cars as a buffer between the 7-foot-wide bike lane and moving traffic on Southwest Broadway. City traffic engineers said the experimental cycletrack just took some new paint and moving a few signs.

Let there be no doubt: Portland State University students take the city’s alternative-transportation ethos seriously.

More than 75 percent of students and employees at Oregon’s largest university commute to campus without a car, according to the results of transportation survey released Friday.

Ian Stude, PSU’s transportation options manager, said the study shows significantly more students, faculty and staff are choosing to take public transit, walk, bike and carpool to campus than a decade ago.

Bus, light rail and streetcar are the most popular ways to get to the urban campus.

Together, those modes accounted for 44 percent of staff and faculty trips and 40 percent of student commutes last fall, according to report.

“When you look at these numbers, it’s not alternative transportation for us anymore,” Stude said. “Portland is known as a bicycle-friendly city, and likewise we have one of the best transit systems in the nation. Both of those networks are well connected to the university by design, creating some really attractive and convenient options other than driving.”

Read on here.