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 …

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 …

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.

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 …

System-Level Risk Management Of Transportation Structures And Networks, David Y. Yang

PSU Transportation Seminars

Conventional risk assessment approaches in infrastructure management do not fully capture the system-level impact of structural failure or service disruption. As a result, the priorities of preservation projects may be misidentified, leading to suboptimal maintenance schedules and waste of resources. In this presentation, we will first illustrate why conventional risk assessment is not suitable for transportation structures and networks due to interdependency between assets, and then demonstrate how system-level preservation policies can be devised using novel algorithms adapted from the field of deep reinforcement learning. Results from a series of case studies showcase that the system-level risk management is essential …

Bringing Complete Streets To Reality In State Transportation Projects, Celeste Gilman

PSU Transportation Seminars

In order to improve the safety, mobility, and accessibility of state highways, the Washington State legislature directed Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) to incorporate the principles of complete streets in state transportation projects and to plan, design, and construct facilities that provide street access with all users in mind, including pedestrians, bicyclists, and public transportation users. This new requirement was passed as part of the Move Ahead Washington package in the 2022 legislative session and is effective for state transportation projects starting design on or after July 1, 2022 with a project cost of $500,000 or more. This provides …

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 …

Port Of Portland’S Marine Terminal 6 Contribution To Regional Economic Development, Lewison Lem

PSU Transportation Seminars

Container cargo shipping service returned to the Port of Portland in Oregon in January 2020 with the regular weekly SM Line service, following more than three years of no container shipping service. Following the global supply chain changes associated with COVID -19, the number of monthly vessel calls at the Port of Portland’s deep-water berth at Terminal 6 has increased regularly to 12 vessel calls in January of 2022. In March of 2022, the largest containership to transit the Columbia river – at 1,100 feet length with capacity of 8,200 containers – arrived at the Port of Portland.

The return …

Impacts Of City-Level Parking Cash-Out And Commuter Benefits Ordinances, Gabriella Abou-Zeid, Allen Greenberg

PSU Transportation Seminars

For many workers, the decision to drive to work is an economically rational one that minimizes their commute costs. The vast majority of employers offer free workplace parking, with few in comparison offering benefits for transit, walking, biking, or other means of commuting. In effect, employers are incentivizing a behavior that increases roadway congestion, reduces physical activity, and increases emissions. Moreover, since lower-income households are less likely to own and have access to a private vehicle than moderate and higher-income households, free parking is a financial benefit that many lower-income employees cannot access.

Researchers from ICF and the Federal Highway …

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.

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 …

Why Your City Needs A Car Master Plan, Cathy Tuttle

PSU Transportation Seminars

In 2022, cars are ubiquitous and completely embedded into America’s economy and social fabric. American cities don’t make car plans, but all transportation plans – whether they are for people who walk, bike, take transit, run freight or delivery businesses – are all written in response to cars. Transportation planning is all about cars; supporting cars or constraining cars. How did our cities evolve into places where cars dominate, and where can we go from here? To move to a new paradigm, cities need to acknowledge car dominance and focus on cars with the same rigor they do other modal …

Using E-Bike Incentive Programs To Expand The Market – Trends And Best Practices, John Macarthur, Cameron Bennett

PSU Transportation Seminars

John MacArthur and Cameron Bennett of Portland State University will be presenting the findings and recommendations from their recent white paper "Using E-Bike Incentive Programs to Expand the Market – Trends and Best Practices." This will include a review of the 50+ current, past, and proposed e-bike purchase incentive programs in North America, including summary statistics and details from exemplary programs. Best practice gained from review of the programs and discussion with program managers, industry professionals, and other stakeholders will be shared. A discussion of the benefits of promoting e-bike uptake in regard to mode shift, VMT, emissions, and human …

Addressing Gendered Harassment And Women's Travel Needs, Madeline Brozen

PSU Transportation Seminars

This presentation will cover experiences, disparities, and solutions to gendered travel differences. Madeline will discuss research from a worldwide survey of harassment on public transit with specific insights from Los Angeles and research from two agency-led studies in Los Angeles. The talk will cover the large issues that make women's travel needs distinct from their male counter-parts - safety and complex travel patterns and some promising solutions for addressing these disparities.

Webinar: Is Transit-Oriented Development Affordable For Low And Moderate Income Households?, Reid Ewing, Justyna Kaniewska

TREC Webinar Series

Transportation and land use planning, as a field, is shifting away from segregated uses connected by highways and streets to more compact, mixed-use developments connected by high-quality transit. This new paradigm has brought special attention to transit-oriented developments (TOD), which are sometimes touted as being among the most affordable, efficient places to live. But how affordable are they, and who has the power to effect change? This study examines housing costs for households living in TODs.

A New Approach To Transportation Pricing: Lessons From The Poem Project, Shoshana Cohen, Emma Sagor

PSU Transportation Seminars

In October 2021, Portland City Council accepted the Pricing Options for Equitable Mobility (POEM) report. This was the culmination of 18 months of work by the POEM Task Force, a group of 19 volunteer community members who explored whether pricing tools—or charges related to driving or using road space—could be used to improve mobility, reduce climate impact, and make our transportation system more equitable. More information is available at Portland.gov/POEM.

At this seminar, POEM Project Managers Shoshana Cohen and Emma Sagor from the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) will share how this project took on the topic of …

Economic Impacts Of Street Improvements: Findings From Portland Area, Jennifer Dill, Jenny H. Liu

PSU Transportation Seminars

The Active Transportation Return on Investment (ATROI) study aimed to provide a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the economic benefits of active transportation infrastructure in the Portland, OR region. The study was funded by Portland Metro and conducted by researchers at PSU and Metro.

This seminar will focus on one part of the study--a quantitative assessment of the economic impacts of 12 "catalyst" projects. These projects retrofitted busy commercial streets with pedestrian friendly treatments aimed at catalyzing economic development. The projects were in Beaverton, Cornelius, Forest Grove, Gresham, Milwaukie, Oregon City, Portland, and Tigard. The analysis estimated effects on employment, …

Retention Of A Diverse Construction Workforce, Maura Kelly

PSU Transportation Seminars

Having a strong pipeline of workers will be critical for ongoing efforts to improve transportation infrastructure, such as roads, highways, and bridges. This talk first provides an overview of the recruitment and retention of a diverse construction workforce in Oregon. Next are findings from research studies over the last ten years demonstrating the challenges experienced by workers on construction job sites that lead to low retention levels. The talk concludes with a discussion of several initiatives within the construction trades that have been implemented to address job site culture.

Webinar: The Impact Of Transportation-Related Barriers On Self-Perceived Physical Health Among Adults In The Us, Philip Baiden, Godfred Boateng

TREC Webinar Series

Drawing from the framework of social determinants of health, the objective of this study is to investigate the cross-sectional association between transportation-related factors and self-perceived physical health among adults in the U.S.

Data for this study were derived from the 2017 National Household Travel Survey. An analytic sample of 71,235 respondents aged 18 and 64 years was analyzed using binary logistic regression. Of the 71,235 respondents examined, 8.9% perceived their physical health to be poor. About 36% of the respondents had fewer vehicles per individuals in the household.

Controlling for the effects of other factors, respondents who had fewer vehicles …

An Assessment Of Bicycle Detection Confirmation And Countdown Devices, Christopher Monsere, Sirisha Kothuri, David S. Hurwitz

PSU Transportation Seminars

For a person on a bicycle at intersections, trail crossings, or midblock locations that are signalized, knowing that they have been detected and how long they must wait to receive a green indication is valuable information. This presentation will summarize the findings from the online survey (1,048 responses), observed behaviors (2,428 persons on bicycle), and an intercept survey ( 234 persons) to understand blue light feedback devices and countdown timers at signalized intersections.

Findings suggest that the design where the blue light was embedded in the sign was more visible to cyclists and observed by higher proportions of cyclists in …

Webinar: Data-Driven Mobility Strategies For Multimodal Transportation, Yao-Jan Wu, Abolfazl Karimpour, Xianfeng Terry Yang

TREC Webinar Series

Multimodal transportation systems (e.g., walking, cycling, automobile, public transit, etc.) are effective in increasing people’s travel flexibility, reducing congestion, and improving safety. Therefore, it is critical to understand what factors would affect people’s mode choices. With advanced technology, such as connected and automated vehicles, cities are now facing a transition from traditional urban planning to developing smart cities. To support multimodal transportation management, this study serves as a bridge to connect speed management strategies of conventional corridors to connected vehicle corridors.

The study consists of three main components. In the first component, the impact of speed management strategies along traditional …

Transportation And Gentrification: Impacts On Low-Income Black Households In Portland, Steven Howland

PSU Transportation Seminars

Portland’s Black population has been heavily impacted by gentrification in the historic Albina community. Nearly half of Portland’s Black population lives in the area east of 82nd Ave, known as East Portland. This has had substantial impacts on both Black households that can continue living in Albina and those living in East Portland. The suburban-esque built environment of East Portland makes it difficult to get around and reach basic necessities. Those living in Albina have taken on exorbitant rents. Both groups suffer from a geographic divide that has made it difficult to rely on family and friends for basic needs …

Oregon Walks Pedestrian Crash Report: Causes, Effects, And Recommendations, Ashton Simpson, Scott Kocher, Brandon Summers

PSU Transportation Seminars

Perhaps you’ve seen a public meeting about pedestrian safety (or infrastructure projects) deteriorate into speculation about texting pedestrians or drunk drivers. What do the data say? The Oregon Walks Pedestrian Crash Report reviews police reports and available information for all 48 fatal pedestrian crashes in Portland from 2017-2019. The authors will summarize their most notable findings relating to infrastructure, other systemic factors, equity and the information that the public receives about crashes. Participants may wish to review the report or articles describing it to prepare for a robust discussion: You’re Driving Too Damn Fast, Willamette Week, March 17, 2021 Oregon …

Evaluation Of A Transportation Incentive Program For Affordable Housing Residents, Roshin Kurian, Huijun Tan, Nathan Mcneil, John Macarthur

PSU Transportation Seminars

This seminar presents the results from the Transportation Wallet for Residents of Affordable Housing (TWRAH) pilot program launched by the City of Portland’s Bureau of Transportation (PBOT). The program provided a set of transportation incentives for low-income participants including a $308 pre-paid visa card which could be applied to public transit or other transportation services, a free bike share membership, and access to discounted rates on several services. The researchers conducted a survey with the program’s participants to understand how they used the Transportation Wallet and how the program helped them use different modes to get around. The main findings …

Racial Bias In Driver Yielding Behavior At Crosswalks, Kimberly Kahn, Peter Koonce, George Stern

PSU Transportation Seminars

This seminar discusses how pedestrian race and gender can influence drivers’ behavior in interactions with pedestrians at crosswalks. Three speakers will present different lenses to look at this topic. Kimberly Barsamian Kahn, a researcher at Portland State University, will discuss research exploring how pedestrian race and gender influence drivers’ behavior in interactions with pedestrians at crosswalks. One dangerous potential point of conflict for pedestrians within the transportation system is interactions with drivers at crosswalks, and racial minorities are disproportionately represented in pedestrian fatalities. Research tested the hypothesis that drivers’ would demonstrate unequitable yielding based on pedestrians’ race and gender in …

Forging Equity In Cities: Using Equitable Transit-Oriented Development (Etod) As A Blueprint For Policy And Practice, Roberto Requejo

PSU Transportation Seminars

Racial equity, wealth building, public health and climate resilience goals are only possible through cross sectional engagement that includes city, state, and regional governments, community-based organizations, and private sector partners. Please join us for this jointly sponsored seminar and workshop to learn about models of community engagement for equitable transportation and housing development. In this seminar, Roberto Requejo, Program Director at Elevated Chicago, will discuss their community organizing and empowerment work to create equitable transit oriented development (eTOD) in Chicago. Their efforts to incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion into planning and infrastructure investments center on community-focused benefits such as access …

Multnomah County Reach Transportation Crash And Safety Report: At The Intersection Of Transportation, Health, Race And Justice, Tameka Brazile, Brendon Haggerty, Charlene Mcgee

PSU Transportation Seminars

This seminar will discuss how transportation agencies are in a unique position to reduce health disparities in the African American, African Immigrant & Refugee communities through sustainable policy, systems, and environmental changes. These three speakers from the Multnomah County Health Department will present the findings of their recent Crash and Safety report. They will discuss their data and methodology to connect the dots between chronic disease disparities, leading causes of death in communities, and transportation inequities as determinants to health. They will also present policy recommendations and a call to action.

Webinar: Transportation Benefits Of Polycentric Urban Form, Reid Ewing, Sadegh Sabouri

TREC Webinar Series

A “polycentric” region consists of a network of compact developments connected with each other through high-quality transportation options. Rather than continuing the expanse of low-density development radiating from an urban core, investments can be concentrated on central nodes and transit connections. This development pattern is very popular in Europe and is linked to significant benefits. This presentation is aimed at exploring the academic literature and empirical evidence surrounding polycentric development, analyzing more than 120 regional transportation plans to see how they promote polycentric development, defining types of centers in a hierarchy of centers, quantifying the transportation benefits of polycentric development, …