Incorporating Bicycle and Pedestrian Topics in University Transportation Courses

The focus on context-sensitive design in roadway planning, increased support for addressing public health objectives through transportation and land use planning, and concerns about oil dependence and global warming are growing. Combined, these factors have raised expectations for transportation engineering and planning practitioners to possess more knowledge and skills related to pedestrian and bicycle planning and design. This demand requires more education on these topics. This paper reports on the findings of a survey of 86 university faculty members about the inclusion of bicycle and pedestrian topics in their transportation courses. Of the 134 transportation courses taught by respondents, 59% included bicycle or pedestrian topics, or both. However, because of potential response bias, the findings might be an optimistic assessment of the coverage of bicycle and pedestrian topics in current curricula. Just over half (52%) of the civil engineering courses included only 1 to 2 h of class time on the topics, whereas all of the courses in planning programs offered at least 3 h on the topics. The topics covered most often were pedestrian safety, pedestrian and bicycle planning, and pedestrian and bicycle facility design. At least 43% of the faculty were interested in course materials on pedestrian and bicycle topics that they could incorporate into existing courses. PowerPoint and lecture materials were the most commonly requested types of materials.