Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Explore Regional Variation In The Effects Of Built Environment On Driving With High Resolution U.S. Nationwide Data, Liming Wang

PSU Transportation Seminars

There have been numerous studies on the relationship between travel behavior and built environment over the last few decades. Prior studies have mostly focused on producing point estimates of model coefficients and ended up with a wide range of estimates for the built environment elasticity of travel behavior, including household Vehicle Miles Traveled. With few exceptions, previous studies use data from a single region or a small number of regions, and thus are not able to sufficiently investigate the regional variation in built environment elasticity.

On the other hand, a few papers have addressed the heterogeneity of elasticity among different …

The Use And Influence Of Health Indicators In Municipal Transportation Plans​​, Kelly Rodgers

PSU Transportation Seminars

As a social determinant of health, transportation significantly contributes to well-being through several pathways. Researchers and practitioners have called for health indicators as one way to integrate public health concerns into transportation decision-making. However, it is unclear how indicators are used and what their impact is on policy. This case study of five cities explored how health-related indicators are being used in municipal transportation plans, whether they are institutionalized into transportation agency decision-making processes, and what influence they have on administrative decision-making. In addition, this research also explored the conceptual use of indicators as it relates to social learning and …

Webinar: Planning And Development In Gateway Communities, Post Covid, Philip Stoker

TREC Webinar Series

Gateway communities are the small towns outside of national parks, forests, scenic rivers, and ski resorts. This presentation will highlight the housing, transportation, and development challenges that these communities faced in the aftermath of the COVID 19 pandemic. Our study captured the perspectives of over 200 communities using a questionnaire and case study approach. We present these results and highlight the innovative strategies that these communities are using to address their housing and transportation challenges.

Pedestrian Behavior Study To Advance Pedestrian Safety In Smart Transportation Systems Using Innovative Lidar Sensors, Taylor Li, Sirisha M. Kothuri, Katherine L. Keeling, Xianfeng Terry Yang, Farzana R. Chowdhury

TREC Final Reports

Pedestrian safety is critical to improving walkability in cities. Although walking trips have increased in the last decade, pedestrian safety remains a top concern. In 2020, 6,516 pedestrians were killed in traffic crashes, representing the most deaths since 1990 (NHTSA, 2020). Approximately 15% of these occurred at signalized intersections where a variety of modes converge, leading to the increased propensity of conflicts. Current signal timing and detection technologies are heavily biased towards vehicular traffic, often leading to higher delays and insufficient walk times for pedestrians, which could result in risky behaviors such as noncompliance. Current detection systems for pedestrians at …

Rural Gentrification And The Spillover Effect: Integrated Transportation, Housing, And Land Use Challenges And Strategies In Gateway Communities, Danya Rumore, Philip Stoker

TREC Final Reports

Small towns and cities near national parks, public lands, and other natural amenities throughout the West are experiencing rapid growth and increased visitation. These “gateway communities” comprise a significant portion of the rural West, constituting about 31% of all communities and more than 60% of those under 25,000 people. Our prior NITC-funded research shows that growth and increased tourism create a range of “big city challenges” for gateway communities, particularly a significant increase in housing prices, which pushes the local workforce to outlying areas and other rural communities. As a result, despite being small towns, many developed gateway communities have …

Webinar: Improving Recreational Trail Accessibility With A Volcanic Ash Treatment, Charles Riley, Ashton Greer

TREC Webinar Series

Recreational trails serve as valuable transportation corridors and support the health of users. Wheelchair accessibility of recreational trails depends on a variety of conditions, including slope, cross-slope, and surface characteristics. This project focused on improving the firmness and stability of a 0.2-mile section of trail that was otherwise accessible. The existing trail surface consisted of loose ¼” off-specification aggregate on native soil. A volcanic ash-Portland cement binder, studied in prior research, was batched, distributed, mixed, wetted, and compacted on site to improve the firmness and stability of the surface resulting in a smoother surface with less rolling resistance. The webinar …

Transportation Safety Culture: Where We Are And What It Means, Tara Beth Goddard

PSU Transportation Seminars

Like any healthy professional community, the transportation safety community is not homogenous or without constructive conflict. The increased attention on systems thinking – most commonly known, if not necessarily well understood, under the “Vision Zero” approach – has sparked debate among engineers, planners, academics, public health professionals, advocates, and others about where our attention should be focused to reduce the epidemic of traffic violence. The built environment? Drivers? Engineers and planners? Car culture? What IS car culture? Dr. Goddard brings together her research conducted with colleagues on police crash reporting processes, NHTSA crash investigations, attitudes and effects of the language …

Network Effects Of Disruptive Traffic Events, Juan Medina, Xiaoyue Cathy Liu

TREC Final Reports

Current traffic management strategies are based on expected conditions caused by recurring congestion (e.g., by time of day, day of week), and can be very effective when provisions are also given for reasonable variations from such expectations. However, traffic variations due to non-recurrent events (e.g., crashes) can be much larger and difficult to predict, making also challenging efforts to identify, measure, and forecast their disruptive effects. This project explores a proactive approach to deploy a tool for managing non-recurrent congestion by identifying and quantifying the effects of disruptive traffic events at a microscopic level using a comprehensive set of data …

New Lidar System Pinpoints Pedestrian Behavior To Improve Eficiency And Safety At Intersections, Taylor Li, Sirisha M. Kothuri, Xianfeng Terry Yang

TREC Project Briefs

Pedestrian safety is critical to improving walkability in cities. To that end, NITC researchers have developed a system for collecting pedestrian behavior data using LiDAR sensors. Tested at two intersections in Texas and soon to be tested at another in Salt Lake City, Utah, the new software created by a multi-university research team is able to reliably observe pedestrian behavior and can help reduce conflicts between pedestrians and vehicles at signalized intersections. The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) is already working on implementing this new LiDAR system to improve data collection at intersections.

Webinar: Individual Wayfinding In The Context Of Visual Impairment, Blindness, And Deafblindness, Amy Parker, Martin Swobodzinski

TREC Webinar Series

In this presentation we will highlight our past research on human indoor-outdoor wayfinding on an urban college campus. Our work is aimed at facilitating independent travel for people with blindness and low vision. Our research was funded by two successive grants from the National Institute for Transportation and Communities/US Department of Transportation. One of the central research questions sought to capture wayfinding preferences, information needs, and lived experiences of blind and low-vision pedestrian travelers. The projects afforded close collaboration with external partners, and foremost the American Printing House for the Blind. Our focus in the presentation will be on the …

The Next Wave Of Abolishing Parking Mandates, Catie Gould, Jeannette Lee

PSU Transportation Seminars

The movement to eliminate parking mandates is having a big moment. This summer, both Oregon and California took statewide action to roll back minimum off-street parking requirements, relegalizing homes and businesses regardless of how many parking spots they have. We’ll take a look at why parking reform is so important, what to expect next in Oregon, and lessons from cities who have already gone all the way to delete this regulation from their zoning code.

Enabling Decision-Making In Battery Electric Bus Deployment Through Interactive Visualization, Xiaoyue Cathy Liu, Gabrielius Kudirka, Biao Kuang, Yirong Zhou, Jianlin Chen

TREC Final Reports

The transit industry is rapidly transitioning to battery-electric fleets because of the direct environmental and financial benefits they could offer, such as zero emissions, less noise, and lower maintenance costs. Yet the unique spatiotemporal characteristics associated with transit system charging requirements, as well as various objectives when prioritizing the fleet electrification, requires the system operators and/or decision-makers to fully understand the status of the transit system and energy/power system in order to make informed deployment decisions. A recently completed NITC project, No. 1222 titled An Electric Bus Deployment Framework for Improved Air Quality and Transit Operational Efficiency, developed a bi-objective …

Resurfacing A Trail In Oregon Using Volcanic Ash, Charles Riley, Ashton Greer

TREC Project Briefs

In the latest instance of taking research to practice, researchers at Oregon Tech have completed a pilot section of trail using a NITC-developed sustainable paving method. A quarter-mile section of the Klamath Geo Trail, just east and up the hill from the Oregon Tech Klamath Falls campus, has been successfully resurfaced using volcanic ash from Mount Mazama.

Applying A Mt. Mazama Volcanic Ash Treatment As A Trail Accessibility Improvement, Charles Riley, Ashton Greer, Matthew D. Sleep

TREC Final Reports

A procedure has been developed for implementing a topically applied Mt. Mazama volcanic ash trail surface amendment for improving trail firmness and stability. This project involved implementation of previously conducted Mt. Mazama volcanic research by applying a Mazama Ash and Portland Cement solution over a 0.2-mile section of the Geo Trail at the Oregon Institute of Technology Klamath Falls campus. Testing was performed to verify ideal Ash-to-Cement-to-Water ratios. A procedure was developed and applied for batching and mixing the dry materials on-site, spreading and integrating the dry material with the existing trail surface, and wetting and compacting the surface. After …

Moving From Probabilistic To Time-Based On-Time Performance (For Practitioners), Miles James Allen Crumley

PSU Transportation Seminars

On-Time Performance (OTP) is a probabilistic measure that tells the customer the likelihood that the trip they are about to take will arrive "on-time." However, this metric forces the customer to think in terms of a probability of trip timeliness and not an actual time value for how timely the trip will be. This presentation will explore a new way to examine on-time performance by quantifying the timeliness of trips. Customers can then use this information to determine which trip would be the best to take based on when they need to arrive at their destination. Using a system science …

Pedestrian Wayfinding Under Consideration Of Visual Impairment, Blindness, And Deafblindness: A Mixed-Method Investigation Into Individual Experiences And Supporting Elements, Martin Swobodzinski, Amy T. Parker, Elizabeth Schaller, Denise Snow

TREC Final Reports

In this report we discuss to-date findings of a project that aimed at assessing individual and environmental affordances in the context of human pedestrian wayfinding of visually impaired, blind, and deafblind travelers in public spaces. Our project afforded collaboration, co-design, and co-creation of knowledge between the investigators, partners at the American Printing House of the Blind and GoodMaps, the Portland State University Digital City Testbed Center, and members of the disability community. The objective of the project was to better understand how different wayfinding aids, that is, wayfinding apps, tactile maps, and verbal route descriptions, are employed by visually impaired, …

Webinar: Community Transportation Academies: Rethinking Effective Community Engagement Around Transportation Decision-Making, Nathan Mcneil, Keith Bartholomew, Andrea Olson, Laura Hanson, Thuy Tu

TREC Webinar Series

This webinar will introduce you to the concept of the Community Transportation Academy (CTA), a model which has been operating in Portland for over 30 years in the form of the Portland Traffic and Transportation (PTT) class. Now catching on in other cities, the project team recently implemented the Wasatch Transportation Academy (WTA) in Salt Lake City. The presenters also include key stakeholders (and guest lecturers) in the WTA, and the PTT instructor. The presentation will include discussions about why CTAs can be good for both community members and transportation agencies/practitioners, and how you can bring a CTA to your …

Speed Management And Speed Reduction In Portland, Or, Jason C. Anderson, Clay Veka

PSU Transportation Seminars

In 2015, the Portland City Council unanimously passed a resolution committing Portland to Vision Zero, the goal to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries. An underpinning of Vision Zero is that streets are managed for safe speeds. This presentation will summarize Portland's speed management process, how it relates to achieving Vision Zero, and present two case studies in which speed limits were reduced: (1) a 25 mi/h to 20 mi/h reduction on residential streets and (2) various reductions on arterials and collectors. Reduction sites in which additional treatments were implemented, such as speed humps and fixed speed safety cameras, will …

Accessing Opportunities For Household Provisioning Post-Covid-19, Kelly Clifton, Amanda Howell, Kristina M. Currans, Gabriella Abou-Zeid, Max Nonnamaker, Paula C. Carder

TREC Final Reports

In this project, we used a mixed-methods study to collect critical information to evaluate the extent to which people modified their shopping behavior, either by choice or necessity, to meet their provisioning needs during the COVID-19 crisis and the following recovery. First, four waves of a cross-sectional survey were administered online to a representative sample of households in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Oregon, and Washington. This longitudinal, comparative study responded directly to a critical research gap and advanced behavioral science by providing a rich survey dataset to support and test theories of behavioral change and technology adoption. Second, focus groups were …

Portland State And The Downtown Portland Plan - 50 Years Later With Ethan Seltzer, Ethan Seltzer

PDXPLORES Podcast

Fifty years ago, the City of Portland developed a plan for the downtown corridor with a radical vision of what a central city could be. The downtown we know today is the result of that plan. In this episode of PDXPLORES, Professor Emeritus Ethan Seltzer discusses the 1972 downtown plan and how Portland State evolved into an urban-serving university alongside the downtown corridor.

Click on the "Download" button to access the accompanying article Portland, Portland State, and the Urban University Idea.

Transcript for audio below as additional file.

Link to city archive documents

https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/oscdl_cityarchives/

Statistical Inference For Multimodal Travel Time Reliability, Avinash Unnikrishnan, Miguel Figliozzi, Subhash C. Kochar

TREC Final Reports

Travel time reliability is a key metric of interest to practitioners and researchers because it affects travel choice and the economic competitiveness of urban areas. This research focuses on three travel time reliability metrics – buffer index, modified buffer index, and the relative width of travel time distributions. The key novel contributions of this research include using the multivariate delta method to prove that the sampling distributions of the three travel time reliability metrics are asymptotically normal. The asymptotic standard error for the three reliability metrics is derived. The asymptotic normality and the standard error result are used to arrive …

Community Transportation Academy: Course Curriculum And Implementation Handbook, Nathan Mcneil, Keith Bartholomew

TREC Final Reports

A Community Transportation Academy (CTA) is a course that harnesses the knowledge, technical expertise and passions of practicing transportation professionals in a city to immerse a cohort of interested and dedicated community members in transportation issues over a two to three month curriculum.

The CTA curriculum was developed by drawing from the Portland Traffic and Transportation (PTT or Portland CTA) course, along with the Wasatch Transportation Academy (WTA or Wasatch CTA, which was inspired by the Portland course). Planning academy courses in cities around the country are also good models to look to for how to structure and operate such …

Launching The Wasatch Transportation Academy, Nathan Mcneil, Keith Bartholomew, Matthew Ryan

TREC Final Reports

The “Community Transportation Academy” model seeks to break down the barriers for community members to participate in transportation decision-making processes. Since 1991, the Portland Traffic and Transportation Course has held at least one course each year, connecting Portland residents with top planners, engineers, and decision-makers from agencies working on transportation in the region, with the goal of conveying the factors professionals consider, ranging from technical considerations, legal and policy mandates, other tradeoffs, and how the community can engage with and influence decisions. This project sought to implement a transportation academy in the Salt Lake City region inspired by the Portland …

Rideshare Practices In Developing Countries Vs Developed Countries, Francis Wambalaba

PSU Transportation Seminars

This project investigated strategies towards development, marketing and implementation of employer programs for reducing single occupancy vehicles to mitigate traffic congestion. It was guided by the following research questions: which socio-economic factors influence carpooling; how do environmental factors influence carpooling; and what are effective traffic management strategies for enhancing carpooling. The presentation will also strive to introduce the US context for purposes of perspective.

Public History Is Now, Sarah E. Dougher

Amplify: A Journal of Writing-as-Activism

A walking tour of downtown Portland in August 2021 raises questions for the writer about the purpose of “memory activism,” its relation to writing-as-activism. Drawing on critiques of urbanist Jane Jacobs and interrogating the concept of “reckoning,” the essay explores ways in which the streetscape and people there can deliver meaning and pose questions about systemic racism and unsheltered existence.

Gis Training In Transportation And Environmental Justice For Promoting Student Success In Steam Education, Joowon Im, Alan Klein, Amruta Sakalker

TREC Final Reports

Transportation land uses have a significant impact on vulnerable ecologies, especially in a rapidly urbanizing region like Dallas-Fort Worth. To study this relationship, the research team will develop a pilot ArcGIS lab course to expose high school students to critical regional tools and technology. This course will demonstrate the connections between transportation planning and design and environmental justice. The College of Architecture Planning and Public Affairs at UT Arlington will partner with CityLab high school in the Dallas Independent School District to develop a four-week lab course curriculum in ArcGIS and other emerging regional mapping technologies.

High school students will …

An Introduction To Gis For Dallas, Texas High Schoolers, Joowon Im, Alan Klein, Amruta Sakalker

TREC Project Briefs

A summary of TREC research project NITC-RR-1468,GIS Training in Transportation And Environmental Justice for Promoting Student Success in STEAM Education.

Mobility For The People: Evaluating Equity Requirements In Shared Micromobility Programs, Anne Brown, Amanda Howell, Hana Creger

TREC Final Reports

Technology-enabled shared micromobility services have expanded mobility for some travelers, but significant barriers to use limit their uptake among certain groups. To address these barriers, cities and professional transportation organizations have undertaken two distinct efforts to operationalize equity in shared micromobility services: 1) drafted equity frameworks in an attempt to clearly define equity within the transportation context and to provide guidelines for what cities should consider when designing equity-based mobility programs; and 2) some cities have attempted to ameliorate access disparities by establishing new requirements for shared micromobility programs. Both equity frameworks and program requirements mark important steps to operationalizing …

Webinar: Scooting To Healthy And Safe Mode Choices, Kristina M. Currans, Nicole Iroz-Elardo, John Macarthur

TREC Webinar Series

Shared electric scooters (e-scooters) are fast becoming a mobility option in cities across the United States. This new micromobility mode has the potential to replace car usage for certain trips, which stands to have a positive impact on public health and sustainability goals. However, many aspects of this emerging mode are not well understood.This webinar explores the findings of three NITC studies examining transportation mode choices, safety, and public health outcomes of electric scooters.

Safety Interventions For Houseless Pedestrians, Peter Domine, Sean Doyle, Asif Haque, Angie Martinez Sulvaran, Nick Meusch, Meisha Whyte

PSU Transportation Seminars

Cities across the U.S. are facing alarming increases in traffic fatalities, especially among the number of pedestrians who are struck and killed by drivers. Last year, 70 percent of all pedestrian fatalities in Portland were of people experiencing houselessness. As the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) is updating the city's Vision Zero Plan, a team of PSU urban and regional planning masters students have been investigating how to reduce the risk of being hit and killed specifically for unhoused people. During this presentation, the Street Perspective team will explain the situation, review their approach, and then share the recommendations they'll …