Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Peak Pedaling: Has Portland Bicycling Reached The Top Of The Logistic Curve?, Robert Mccullough

PSU Transportation Seminars

The recent City Club report on bicycling provided an opportunity to collect and analyze a number of data sets including the new Hawthorne Bridge data. One question is where Portland bicycling on the logistic curve -- a common tool for judging the maturity of a developing product or activity. Logistic curves are used for marketing, for epidemiology, and even for visits to Indian owned casinos. The preliminary evidence is that we are reaching the horizontal area of the curve. Additional evidence Our further research into future policies indicates a shift to bicycle boulevards in order to attract more risk averse …

The Media Industry In Oregon: Incentive And Impact Analysis, Mike Paruszkiewicz, Emma Willingham, Peter Hulseman

Northwest Economic Research Center Publications and Reports

Oregon’s media industries have become increasingly well-known over the last several years, thanks in large part to successful feature length films and television series produced in the state. It is widely known that such productions offer visibility, tourism interest, and a boost to local merchants during their visits. More economically important, but less immediately obvious, are the impacts of a home grown industry of professionals and businesses that thrive in regions able to maintain a reliable stream of production activity. Numerous states now offer incentives to visiting media productions, some focused on big-ticket features and visiting series. In Oregon, the …

Oregon Manufacturing Extension Partnership: Economic Impact Analysis December 2016 Update, Hieu Nguyen, Emma Willingham, Peter Hulseman

Northwest Economic Research Center Publications and Reports

The Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), founded in 1988, is a network of non-profit agencies staffed by industry professionals and consultants. Historically, MEP has sought to increase the competitiveness of small to mid-size enterprises (which as a group comprise 99% of all U.S. manufacturing firms) by providing expert guidance and access to resources. In recent years, the severe economic recession sparked increased interest in the strength of the manufacturing sector, due to its longtime status as one of the major drivers of the domestic economy. Oregon Manufacturing Extension Partnership (OMEP), the Oregon branch of MEP, works to provide data-driven analysis …

Realistic Or Utopian? Coordinating Transit And Land Use To Achieve Equitable Transit-Oriented Development, Ian Carlton

PSU Transportation Seminars

Equitable transit-oriented development (E-TOD)—the prioritization of social equity as an outcome of TOD implementation—has become a U.S. DOT policy stance, an objective of many other government bodies, and part of many NGOs' missions. But is it feasible to coordinate transit and land use in ways that allow us to achieve these goals, or is this a classic example of a wicked problem?

This talk will use Portland as a case study to explore some of the internal contradictions inherent in E-TOD goals, the systemic challenges that must be considered, and glimmers of hope for delivering E-TOD. Transportation and land use …

Webinar: The Association Between Light Rail Transit, Streetcars And Bus Rapid Transit On Jobs, People And Rents, Arthur C. Nelson

TREC Webinar Series

What are the job, residential development and market rent outcomes of Light Rail Transit (LRT), Streetcar Transit (SCT) and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)?

LRT, SCR and BRT investments are spreading rapidly across the country but there is scant evidence of their effect on where people work and live, and effects on market rents as an indicator of value. This webinar will summarize several years of NITC-sponsored research into development outcomes associated with these transit investments. The webinar will be led by NITC researcher Arthur C. Nelson who was the principal investigator of two projects: Do TODs Make a Difference? and …

Portland Green Loop Economic Analysis, Jenny H. Liu

Northwest Economic Research Center Publications and Reports

The Portland “Green Loop” is a proposed 6-mile linear open space running through the heart of the city, connecting existing and new open spaces, parks, gathering areas, and walking and biking pathways. As envisioned, the Green Loop concept requires significant infrastructure investments, and would result in both short-term and long-term impacts on transportation (for all travel modes), environment and economic development. The goal of this project is to characterize, quantify and analyze these costs, benefits and impacts, particularly focusing on case studies of similar infrastructure investments in active transportation and analyses of property value impacts, economic (input-output) impacts and preliminary …

Smart Cities: Improving The Roadside Environment With Distributed Sensor Systems, Christine M. Kendrick

PSU Transportation Seminars

The City of Portland is exploring how distributed "Internet of Things" (IoT) sensor systems can be used to improve the available data that is usable by city engineers, planners, and the public to help inform transportation operations, enable assessments of public health and equity, advance Portland’s Climate Action Plan goals, and create opportunities for economic development and civic engagement.

The City is currently looking at how low-cost air quality sensors can be used to improve and increase real-time understanding of transportation-related pollutants. However, the state of low-cost air quality sensor technology is not usable off the shelf due to sensitivity …

Congestion Modeling And Mitigation In The National Airspace System, David Lovell

PSU Transportation Seminars

Dr. Lovell will talk about three projects funded by NASA and the FAA, addressing congestion in the National Airspace System. Dr. Lovell's team developed diffusion-based queuing models of individual airports that could support better building blocks for network-wide congestion models. The advantage of the new models is their flexibility with respect to input distributions. In a study for the FAA, Dr. Lovell's team developed day-of-operations collaboration "languages" suitable for the FAA and individual carriers in order to collectively manage expected airspace disruptions. Finally, he will discuss a study on predictability in the airspace, with a focus on scheduled block times.

Development Of The Idaho Statewide Travel Demand Model Trip Matrices Using Cell Phone Od Data And Origin Destination Matrix Estimation, Ben Stabler

PSU Transportation Seminars

As part of the initial phase of development for the Idaho Statewide Travel Demand Model, Parsons Brinckerhoff developed a base year auto and truck trip matrix using AirSage cell phone OD data, a statewide network in Cube, traffic counts, and origin-destination matrix estimation (ODME) procedures. To begin, the 4000+ statewide zone system was aggregated into a 700 super zone system for collecting the cell phone OD data. Next, the cell phone data was collected for the month of September 2013 for the following market segments: Average weekday resident HBW, HBO, NHB, and visitor NHB trips. The cell phone trips were …

Planning Transportation For Recreational Areas, Anne Dunning

PSU Transportation Seminars

Population growth and increased accessibility of formerly remote destinations have created new needs for planning mobility to and within recreational areas.

Transportation planners studying recreational travel face unusual travel-demand peaks, travelers who are often unfamiliar with their surroundings, and a uniquely important need for traveler and community communication. Planners must consider what characteristics of an individual area make it attractive to visitors, as well as local goals for the special resources of the area.

This presentation will characterize unique facets of mobility in recreational areas, and pose approaches to planning transportation systems to serve them.

Understanding Where We Live And How We Travel, Kristina Marie Currans

PSU Transportation Seminars

Understanding changing residential preferences—especially as they are represented within land use and travel demand models—is fundamental to understanding the drivers of future housing, land use and transportation policies. As communities struggle to address a rising number of social challenges with increasing economic uncertainty, transportation and land use planning have become increasingly centered on assumptions concerning the market for residential environments and travel choices. In response, an added importance has been placed on the development of toolkits capable of providing a robust and flexible understanding of how differing assumptions contribute to a set of planning scenarios and impact future residential location …

Can Location Value Capture Pay For Transit? Organizational Challenges Of Transforming Theory Into Practice, Deborah Salon

PSU Transportation Seminars

Successful public transit systems increase the value of locations they serve. Capturing this location value to help fund transit is often sensible, but challenging.

This presentation will define location value capture, and synthesize lessons learned from six European and North American transit agencies that have experience with location value capture funding.

The opportunities for and barriers to implementing location value capture fall into three categories: (1) agency institutional authority, (2) agency organizational mission, and (3) public support for transit.

When any of these factors is incompatible with a location value capture strategy, implementation becomes difficult. In four of the cases …

Social Learning Through Stakeholder Engagement: New Pathways From Parcipitation To Health Equity In U.S. West Coast Hia, Nicole Iroz-Elardo, Moriah Mcsharry Mcgrath

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

While some contend that extensive public engagement activities are necessary to meet Health Impact Assessment (HIA) practice standards, other work suggests that an HIA of any type hasthe potential to inform decision-making in ways that embody HIA’s value of democracy (Cole & Fielding, 2007; Harris-Roxas et al., 2012; Negev, 2012). These divergent perspectives on how to realize democracy through public participation represents an area of evolving debate in the ongoing development of HIA practice in the US. Looking to the relatively diverse HIA practice on the west coast of the US, we explore the interplay between engagement strategies and HIA …

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 …

Developing A Model For Transit Oriented Development In Latino Immigrant Communities: A National Study Of Equity And Tod, Gerardo Francisco Sandoval

TREC Final Reports

This research project is a continuation of a previous NITC-funded study. The first study compared the MacArthur Park TOD in Los Angeles to the Fruitvale Village TOD in Oakland. The findings from this new study further validate the key findings from the first study. This new comparative case study analyzed the extension of Los Angeles’ Gold Line into Boyle Heights and the revitalization linked to Boyle Heights due to two TODs built in that neighborhood. I conclude from all four cases that TODs can help serve as catalysts for neighborhood revitalization in low-income communities by paying attention and building upon …

Developing High-Resolution Descriptions Of Urban Heat Islands: A Public Health Imperative, Jackson Voelkel, Vivek Shandas, Brendon Haggerty

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Extreme heat events affect the most vulnerable human populations and are a lethal health hazard to urban dwellers globally; in the United States, extreme heat causes more deaths annually than all other weather events and natural hazards combined (1). Previous studies described urban heat islands as isolated, static, monolithic areas of cities. We challenged this contention by hypothesizing that diurnal temperature cycles and diverse landscape features create variation in places that amplify heat (2). A temporal description of urban heat islands would identify populations that are susceptible to heat stress, particularly at night, when most people are asleep and unable …

A City Club Report On Measure 99: Dedicated Lottery Funds For Outdoor School, City Club Of Portland (Portland, Or.)

City Club of Portland

No abstract provided.

A City Club Report On Ip 62: Public Union Fees & Dues, City Club Of Portland (Portland, Or.)

City Club of Portland

No abstract provided.

Utilizing Egocentric Video And Sensors To Conduct Naturalistic Bicycling Studies, Feng Liu, Miguel A. Figliozzi

TREC Final Reports

Existing data collection methods are mostly designed for videos captured by stationary cameras and are not designed to follow cyclists along a route or to integrate other sensor data. The goals of this research are: a) to develop a platform to collect naturalistic video bicycling data, b) to develop a methodology to integrate video data with other sensors that measure cyclists’ position and comfort levels, and c) to apply the platform and data collection methodology to a real-world route. This research effort has successfully integrated video and sensor data to describe cyclists’ comfort levels along a route. It was found …

Integrating High-Resolution Datasets To Target Mitigation Efforts For Improving Air Quality And Public Health In Urban Neighborhoods, Vivek Shandas, Jackson Voelkel, Meenakshi Rao, Linda A. George

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Reducing exposure to degraded air quality is essential for building healthy cities. Although air quality and population vary at fine spatial scales, current regulatory and public health frameworks assess human exposures using county- or city-scales. We build on a spatial analysis technique, dasymetric mapping, for allocating urban populations that, together with emerging fine-scale measurements of air pollution, addresses three objectives: (1) evaluate the role of spatial scale in estimating exposure; (2) identify urban communities that are disproportionately burdened by poor air quality; and (3) estimate reduction in mobile sources of pollutants due to local tree-planting efforts using nitrogen dioxide. Our …

The Landscape: Tiny And Very Small Houses, Andrés Oswill

Metroscape

The article describes one of many approaches to creating more affordable housing choices -- tiny and very small houses. The author explains how the current trend returns to an affordable housing approach used much earlier in Portland's history.

Indicators Of The Metroscape: The Young, The Old, And The Single, Elizabeth Morehead

Metroscape

Elizabeth Morehead focuses on the changing demographic of households in the Portland metropolitan region

Periodic Atlas Of The Of The Metroscape: The Geography Of Publicly Subsidized Affordable Housing, Meg Merrick

Metroscape

Meg Merrick maps publicly subsidized affordable housing units across the region, discusses their geography, and describes their location in relation to two important amenities: schools and libraries.

From The Frontlines Of The Housing Crisis: Two Vulnerable Tenants Discuss Their Experiences In Portland's Increasingly Brutal Housing Market, Thomas Kerr

Metroscape

Homelessness is the most visible face of Portland's affordable housing crisis, but the numbers of street sleepers and tent campers are nothing compared to the hundreds of thousands of beleaguered tenants. They may be hidden away in their separate apartments, but they are suffering the effects of crisis all the same. Forty percent of the 900,000 households in the Portland Metro area are tenants, and half are paying more than 30 percent of their income on rent. A quarter pay more than 50 percent, and the percentages go higher as the households get poorer. Besides forcing them to impoverish themselves …

Living On The Edge: The Forgotten Tribulations Of Affordable Housing In The Suburbs, Linn Davis

Metroscape

The article describes how the housing crisis is playing out in the region's suburbs.

Pathway 1000 Community Housing Plan, Kaitlin Berger, Anna Dearman, Beth Gilden, Karen Guillén-Chapman, Jasmine Rucker

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Housing prices in the City of Portland have risen dramatically in recent years, and low income and communities of color have been particularly hard hit in the northeast neighborhoods of the city. Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives has embarked on the development of 1000 affordable units over the next 10 years to help meet the needs of displaced residents. The Pathway 1000 Community Housing Plan sets out a strategy for providing those 1000 affordable, stable homes.

This project was conducted under the supervision of Marisa Zapata, Ethan Seltzer, Susam Hartnett, and Lisa Bates.

Lents Strong: Community Action Plan For A Livable, Affordable Neighborhood, Adam Brunelle, Drew Devitis, Carson Groecki, Claire Lust, Katie Sellin, John Todoroff

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

This is a community action and advocacy plan, created in consultation with neighborhood organizations and underrepresented communities most at risk for displacement. It focuses on actions where collaboration and community engagement will have the largest impacts. This is a plan for the next five years.

The overarching goals of the plan are to: Ensure the viability of Livable Lents. Livable Lents should remain a transparent, accountable, accessible, and holistic community engagement process that works collaboratively with nonprofits, city agencies, and community members. This plan serves in part as a collaboration strategy which integrates engagement on a wide range of projects …

The Cycling Gender Gap: What Can We Learn From Girls?, Jennifer Dill

PSU Transportation Seminars

In the U.S., women are far less likely to bicycle for transportation than men. Explanations include, among others, safety concerns (traffic and crime), complex travel patterns related to household responsibilities, time constraints, lack of facilities that feel safe, and attitudes. This talk will explore how this gender gap emerges in childhood, using data from the Family Activity Study. The study collected data from 300 Portland families (parents and children) over two years, allowing us to see how things change over time.

Parking Space Estimation In The City Of Portland, Ashley Colder, Madison Weakley, J. Robert Zoeller

Student Work

This project is a collaboration with Portland Bureau of Transportation, to study city required parking lots spaces, and allowed on-street parking space in Portland. As the city begins to re-evaluate its transportation systems to encourage more travel by buses, trains, and bikes, we want to explore what is the current parking situation by the city of Portland. To understand better about the parking situation in Portland, and how this might affect the parking policies in the future in Portland.

The scope of this project is limited to East Portland. The group was assigned to the Far-Southeast (Far-SE) area. The Far-SE …

Talent On The Move: Migration Patterns Of The Young And College-Educated In Pre And Post-Recession America - Migration Trends Across The 50 Largest U.S. Metros, Jason R. Jurjevich, Greg Schrock, Jihye Kang

Publications, Reports and Presentations

In this brief, we present U.S. Census Bureau data to compare recent migration trends for young and college-educated (YCE) individuals for the largest 50 U.S. metro areas in 2012-2014 relative to the pre-recession (2005-2007) and Great Recession (2008-2010) periods.