Get out and Bike, Use our Bike Share!

Need to get to campus during the day? Don’t want to drive? The WTI Bike Share is at your service. Bikes are marked with yellow tape on the racks in front of the building. WTI’s Taylor Lonsdale has worked hard to build this fleet equipped with accessories including racks, baskets, and fenders. Helmets are available in the equipment closet across from Rebecca Gleason’s office and Taylor can provide access to a pump and chain lubricant if needed. Please direct questions and feedback to Taylor taylor.lonsdale@coe.montana.edu. Beautiful time of year in Montana to bike!

V.I.P. Guest John West – Founder of WTI

Steve Albert and John West (founder of WTI) stand in front of the WTI officesWTI was honored to have John West, founding father of the Western Transportation Institute, visit for the first time in 15 years. John served as Caltrans Deputy Director as well as the Research and Innovation Division Director. He visited the WTI facilities at MSU last week and caught up with Steve Albert and met with Doug Galarus on the One Stop Shop project and with Kelly Green to discuss the importance and significance of culture on traffic safety. John expressed that WTI had not only achieved, but surpassed, his vision of the Institute in both scope and breadth.

David Kack Leads Livability Webinar

Livability Webinar – Last week, David Kack led a webinar for the Sonoran Institute entitled “Livability and the Connection Between Housing and Transportation.” More than 130 people participated in the webinar, which is part of a series from the Institute’s Community Builders project. David provided an overview of the six principles of livability, with a focus on the interrelationship between housing locations and employment locations, and the cost impacts this can have on a family’s budget. The purpose of the presentation was to initiate a discussion on where to place housing, schools, and infrastructure and how transportation access and commuting costs need to be considered in the decision-making process. For more information and a copy of the presentation, go to: http://communitybuilders.org/webinars/housing-and-transportation/

David Kack Presents to Bozeman Transportation Coordination Committee

David Kack made two presentations at a recent City of Bozeman Transportation Coordination Committee meeting, attended by members of MDT, Gallatin County, City of Bozeman, engineering firms, and local citizens. Kack first presented on the WTI truck study. The Downtown Bozeman Partnership the study, completed in March 2015, provides information on the number of trucks traveling through Downtown, and discusses their impacts, including the increased level of noise due to truck traffic. The study provided information on three potential alternative routes, which can be incorporated into the current Bozeman Area Transportation Management Plan.

The second presentation focused on creating a Transportation Demand Management (TDM) Coordinator position. Leveraging money from the UTC Grant, the Small Urban and Rural Livability Center hopes to partner with Gallatin County, City of Bozeman, and MSU to create a TDM Coordinator position that would focus on strategies to reduce the amount of traffic in the greater Bozeman area. This position would investigate policies and complementary modes such as biking, carpooling, van pooling and transit that could get people out of their single occupancy vehicles.