Local experts discuss transportation

By Brandon Nicolas STAFF WRITER

The Mineta Transportation Institute hosted the second of a four-part webinar series on Tuesday which explored the transportation challenges rural students face.

The study aims to find solutions to transportation challenges by using transportation-related “educational lesson plans” targeted toward students.

The institute provides training and research regarding the country’s transportation system, according to its webpage.

Christian Wandeler, associate professor in research methods and statistics at California State University, Fresno, was the keynote speaker in the webinar.

He said he uses his Ph.D. in personality and positive psychology to help students in urban areas find safe means of transportation to their school.

Wandeler and his team of Fresno State engineering students centered their research around students in rural areas between Bakersfield and Stockton.

“The goal was, on one hand, to educate students about transportation related topics, but also highlight the career opportunities that come with it,” Wandeler said.

Wandeler and his team utilized university students and faculty, parents of students and local non-profit organizations to help students come up with alternate transportation services.

One of the main issues the webinar covered was how students can make biking to school safer.

In Wandeler’s research, he had prepared eight sessions for students, but had his plans interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.

“While we initially planned to have all the students in a class with their teachers and we Zoom in, now we have all the students at home which made it more complex,” Wandeler said.

Students were challenged with calculating how far they lived from their school, how long it would take them to reach school using different means of transportation and identifying which methods of transportation were available to them.

“We asked students if they can walk to school,” Wandeler said. “Typically, they said it was too far away.”

Session four of the program discussed the advantages and disadvantages of biking to school.

Pros included getting exercise, getting fresh air and being mindful of the environment by not using gas and polluting the air.

Cons included possibly falling off your bike and breaking a bone or getting lost on the way to school.

While biking to school is a popular alternative to walking or driving, Wandeler said he wants students to be mindful of the transportation infrastructure they would be using.

“The university students really teach the kids,” Wandeler said. “They involve them to find positive examples of bike safety online because unfortunately they typically don’t see that directly in their environment.”

Supported by conducting a virtual bike audit, students used Google Maps to find their address and determine where it is safe and unsafe when biking to school.

Students were tasked with determining safe and unsafe environments on their bike route. They then were asked to redesign their schools by developing a prototype of a safer school.

After sharing their model with fellow students, Wandeler hopes they have a better understanding of what makes an environment safe for student transportation.

The final session is a brainstorm for students to discuss the benefits of biking to school, how to make the travel safer and some of the safety challenges they face.

Wandeler said an activity that helped students better understand transportation safety was building a 3D model that redesigned drop-off and pick-up zones at their school.

“These are some ways to engage the students and bring their learning to life,” Wandeler said.

Wandeler said he aligned his program to fit classrooms of all ages and he relied on the expertise of teachers to provide feedback to better their program in the future.