Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Webinar: Economic And Business Outcomes Of Bicycle And Pedestrian Improvements, Jenny H. Liu

TREC Webinar Series

The National Street Improvements Study, conducted by PSU in conjunction with PeopleForBikes and consulting firm Bennett Midland, researched the economic effects of bicycle infrastructure on 14 corridors across six cities — Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Memphis, Minneapolis and Indianapolis. The study found that improvements such as bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure had either positive or non-significant impacts on the local economy as measured through sales and employment. In this webinar, lead researcher Jenny Liu will share the results of the investigation and the unique methodology for investigating these economic outcomes.

This webinar is based on a study funded by the …

That Bike Is Too Heavy: Merging Bicycling Physics, Human Physiology And Travel Behavior, Alexander Y. Bigazzi

PSU Transportation Seminars

Are the Biketown bikes too heavy? Does better gear motivate people to cycle more? How much faster will someone go on an e-bike?

Although urban cycling is widely known as physically active transportation, the actual physics of cycling have been given little attention in transportation engineering and planning. In contrast, the field of sports science has developed detailed data and models of road bicycle performance, but only for sport and racing cyclists.

What can we learn about utilitarian cycling by integrating knowledge of the physical attributes of bicycles and cyclists?

This seminar examines the ways in which bicycle physics, and …

Trec/Oapa Webinar: Authentic Community Engagement, Eryn Kehe, Wendy Serrano

TREC Webinar Series

This webinar will provide practical tools for designing effective and authentic community engagement for transportation projects. Too often, we can forget to ask ourselves who, what and why for our engagement processes. Authentic community engagement requires us to think through exactly why we need to involve the public, how they can influence project decisions and who the most impacted people may be. This session will walk you through the steps to plan a unique engagement approach for each project and share examples of what can happen when these tools are used correctly and what can go wrong when they are …

California's Paradigm Shift From Los To Vmt As A Transportation Impact Metric: Policies, Politics, And Possibilities, Robert Liberty, Lynn Peterson

PSU Transportation Seminars

As part of California's effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the state has passed a law leading to a radical shift in how it analyzes the traffic impacts of new land use developments and transportation projects. SB 743's goal is to "more appropriately balance the needs of congestion management with statewide goals related to infill development, promotion of public health through active transportation, and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions."

The new measure of transportation impacts will be based on vehicle miles traveled (VMT) instead of level of service (LOS). This ground shift has broad implications for lead agencies, planners, MPOs, …

Dynamic Assignment Models And Their Application In The Portland Metro Region, Peter G. Bosa

PSU Transportation Seminars

Metro's Research and Modeling Services Program is responsible for the development, maintenance, and application of travel demand models for application in long-range planning efforts in the Portland metropolitan region.

Representation of traffic—both vehicular and transit—plays an integral role in the travel demand modeling process. Complex software is required to assign vehicles and transit users to transportation networks to determine viable options available to travelers, costs associated with those options, and sets of routes by which travelers might navigate their trips.

Metro's current static assignment model has traditionally sufficed for use with Metro's four-step travel demand model. However, static assignments have …

Exploring The Positive Utility Of Travel And Mode Choice, Patrick Allen Singleton

PSU Transportation Seminars

Why do people travel? We traditionally assume traveling is a means to an end, travel demand is derived (from the demand for activities), and travel time is to be minimized. Recently, scholars have questioned these axioms, noting that some people may like to travel, use travel time productively, enjoy the experience of traveling, or travel for non-utilitarian reasons. The idea that travel can provide benefits and may be motivated by factors beyond reaching activity destinations is known as “the positive utility of travel” or PUT.

This study presents a conceptual and empirical look at the positive utility of travel and …

Integrative Public Transport In A Segmented City: Reflections From Jerusalem, Galit Cohen-Blankshtain

PSU Transportation Seminars

Jerusalem is perhaps an extreme case of residential and travel market segmentation. It is comprised of four different 'cities', which partially overlap in space: The Jewish-Zionist city; the Palestinian city; the Jewish ultra-orthodox city and the global-tourist city. While the specific delineation of these cities is unique, Jerusalem can be seen as representative of other cities where ethnic and religious tensions create highly segmented urban spaces and travel markets.

In recent years particular emphasis has been placed on integrating transport systems, both across modes and with land use, in order to facilitate and encourage the use of public transport. Spatial …

Evaluation Of A Shared Space Alternative In Morgantown, Wv, Avinash Unnikrishnan

PSU Transportation Seminars

Pedestrian and vehicle movement conflicts and the associated safety and efficiency issues have always been addressed in traffic engineering based on the principle of separation through bridges, tunnels, or signals. Pioneered by Hans Monderman, shared space is a new approach in transportation design which inverts this paradigm of separation and designs streets with no demarcations or access restrictions. Shared space has been implemented in a number of cases in Europe with improved efficiency and safety. This research focuses on a specific case study for analyzing the possible implementation of shared space in the United States on the West Virginia University …

New Fhwa Vmt Forecasts Implications For Local Planning, Andrew Mortensen

PSU Transportation Seminars

A summary of FHWA’s new national traffic trends assessment will be presented, including discussion of varied factors influencing forward-thinking forecasts. Examples of Oregon statewide vehicle miles travelled (VMT) and historic traffic trends from ATR stations in the Portland urban region and greater Willamette Valley will be highlighted. VMT, population and income data will be noted with implications on local transportation planning.

Active Transportation Research At Northern Arizona University, Edward J. Smaglik

PSU Transportation Seminars

Dr. Smaglik is currently working on three separate transportation research projects at Northern Arizona University. This talk will touch briefly on each of the three projects, the concepts behind them, workplans, and expected deliverables. The projects include work with the Oregon DOT on the impact of less than optimal vehicle detection on adaptive control algorithms, development of a ped priority algorithm through a NITC project (as a Portland State subcontractor), and internally funded work on a power harvesting traffic sensor.

The Theory Of Travel Decision-Making: A Conceptual Framework Of Active Travel Behavior, Patrick Allen Singleton

PSU Transportation Seminars

We present a unifying conceptual framework of active travel behavior called the theory of travel decision-making. It integrates seminal travel-related concepts from economics, geography, and psychology with active travel behavior theories and empirical research. The framework abstracts an individual’s thought process around short-term travel decisions and explains the roles of activities, built environment factors, socio-demographics, attitudes and perceptions, and habit. Our primary objective is to inform travel behavior research by meeting the need for a theoretical framework capable of guiding studies on active transportation. The framework could also support active transportation planning and analysis methods by informing the development of …

Clouds, Crowds, And Traffic: What 10 Emerging Megatrends Mean For The Future Of Transportation, Ted Trepanier

PSU Transportation Seminars

Ten new megatrends will be presented with a discussion on the resulting shifts on the transportation industry. Details will include a look on broken trends and the new challenges introduced for transportation planning. Thoughts will also be presented introducing a pivot to the current model being pursued by the Connected Vehicle program. Finally, planners will be challenged to consider a new question for the future of our connected communities, you have to come to hear it.

Transportation Analysis Informing Transportation Planning And Policy At Odot, Alexander Bettinardi

PSU Transportation Seminars

The Transportation Planning Analysis Unit (TPAU) at ODOT helps to provide information to a large variety of transportation plans, projects, and policy questions. This allows customers to make better informed decisions and to maximize limited resources. In order to fill this role TPAU and the Oregon modeling community have a fairly large "toolbox" of models and analysis tools and procedures. This transportation seminar will give an overview of the role and services that TPAU provides and the different tools and processes used to fulfill that role.