Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Mass Timber Building Life Cycle Assessment Methodology For The U.S. Regional Case Studies, Hongmei Gu, Shaobo Liang, Francesca Pierobon, Maureen Puettmann, Indroneil Ganguly, Cindy Chen, Rachel Pasternack, Mark Wishnie, Susan Jones, Ian Maples

Publications, Reports and Presentations

The building industry currently consumes over a third of energy produced and emits 39% of greenhouse gases globally produced by human activities. The manufacturing of building materials and the construction of buildings make up 11% of those emissions within the sector. Whole-building life-cycle assessment is a holistic and scientific tool to assess multiple environmental impacts with internationally accepted inventory databases. A comparison of the building lifecycle assessment results would help to select materials and designs to reduce total environmental impacts at the early planning stage for architects and developers, and to revise the building code to improve environmental performance. The …

Comparative Lcas Of Conventional And Mass Timber Buildings In Regions With Potential For Mass Timber Penetration, Maureen Puettmann, Francesca Pierobon, Indroneil Ganguly, Hongmei Gu, Cindy Chen, Shaobo Liang, Susan Jones, Ian Maples, Mark Wishnie

Publications, Reports and Presentations

Manufacturing of building materials and construction of buildings make up 11% of the global greenhouse gas emission by sector. Mass timber construction has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by moving wood into buildings with designs that have traditionally been dominated by steel and concrete. The environmental impacts of mass timber buildings were compared against those of functionally equivalent conventional buildings. Three pairs of buildings were designed for the Pacific Northwest, Northeast and Southeast regions in the United States to conform to mass timber building types with 8, 12, or 18 stories. Conventional buildings constructed with concrete and steel …

Can Preference Policies Advance Racial Justice?, Amie Thurber, Lisa Bates, Susan Halverson

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Mitigating the harms of gentrification to communities of color is a pressing challenge. One promising approach is preference policies that enable long-term residents to remain in or return to gentrifying neighborhoods. This mixed-methods study evaluates the City of Portland’s “Preference Policy,” which provides targeted affordable rental housing to residents displaced from a historically Black neighborhood. This paper draws on survey, interview, and focus group data to explore resident motivations, changes to well-being, and recommendations for improving the policy. Findings suggest preference policies can enhance well-being, and underscore the need for comprehensive strategies to advance racial justice in gentrifying neighborhoods.

Data From: “Developing Strategies To Enhance Mobility And Accessibility For Community-Dwelling Older Adults”, Kate Hyun, Kathy Lee, Caroline Krejci

TREC Datasets and Databases

This study administered a survey to 146 lower-income adults in Dallas, TX, aged 55 and older, between February and June 2020. As affordable public transportation options target senior citizens age 65 and older, this study focused on older adults as aged 65 and over. However, we also recruited adults aged 55 to 64 to distinguish how emerging seniors differently perceive or perform transportation activities compared to current older adults. In a partnership with a local organization providing resources and information for older adults and family caregivers located in Dallas, we used snowball sampling by recruiting participants from Foster Grandparent Program …

Developing Strategies To Enhance Mobility And Accessibility For Community-Dwelling Older Adults, Kate Hyun, Kathy Lee, Caroline Krejci, Nilufer Oran Gibson, Troyee Saha

TREC Final Reports

Mobility disparities among older adults affect their ability to travel and access services. This project seeks to understand challenges, barriers, and gaps that older adults experience, and develop forms of assistance or educational strategies to fill the varying mobility gaps and meet mobility needs. This study characterizes older adults’ use of existing and potential transportation options, including conventional transit, paratransit, and ride-hailing systems, based on surveys collected from 146 low-income older adults in Dallas, TX. Using the survey data and interview data, we develop two mathematical modeling (a Latent Class Cluster Analysis and agent-based modeling (ABM)) and conduct content analysis …

Development Of Intelligent Multimodal Traffic Monitoring Using Radar Sensor At Intersections, Siyang Cao, Yao-Jan Wu, Feng Jin

TREC Final Reports

Multimodal traffic monitoring is critical for improving mobility and safety at intersections with potential conflicts among various modes of transportation. Traditional traffic monitoring approaches utilizing cameras cannot work reliably during the night and under hazardous weather conditions. We propose to build a new intelligent multimodal traffic monitoring device using the low-cost mmWave radar. The proposed device can reliably distinguish different modes (such as buses, pedestrians, bicyclists, trucks, motorcycles, etc.), and determine the counts, speed, and moving directions of every single target in an urban environment under various lighting and weather conditions. In the study, a low-cost prototype system will also …

New Radar Sensor Technology For Intelligent Multimodal Traffic Monitoring At Intersections, Siyang Cao, Yao-Jan Wu, Feng Jin

TREC Project Briefs

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) need traffic data to run smoothly. At intersections, where there is the greatest potential for conflicts between road users, being able to reliably and intelligently monitor the different modes of traffic is crucial.

The Federal Highway Administration estimates that more than 50 percent of the combined total of fatal and injury crashes occur at or near intersections. For pedestrians the intersection is a particularly dangerous place: the City of Portland, OR identified that two-thirds of all crashes involving a pedestrian happen at intersections. And when darkness comes earlier in fall and winter, crashes increase dramatically. So …

Improving Mobility And Quality Of Life For Older Adults, Kate Hyun, Caroline Krejci, Kathy Lee

TREC Project Briefs

As we get older, transportation provides a vital link between home and community. Without reliable and easy ways to get around, many older adults (especially those who live alone) have limited access to essentials like groceries and medicine, let alone social interaction. A new report from the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), Developing Strategies To Enhance Mobility And Accessibility For Community-Dwelling Older Adults, looked at the mobility challenges, barriers, and gaps that older adults experience, with an eye toward developing forms of assistance or educational strategies to fill those gaps.

Lifelong Instability And Perceived Risk Of Future Homelessness In Older Adults, Sarah Dys, Anna Steeves-Reece, Paula Carder

Institute on Aging Publications

Housing has long been considered a social determinant of individual and population health. Older adults with low incomes face several challenges to maintaining stable, affordable housing. Using data from a previous explanatory study of older adults waitlisted for housing assistance (n = 267), we explore individual characteristics and themes associated with older adults’ perceived housing instability and risk of future homelessness. This mixed-methods study identifies salient themes of financial insecurity, age discrimination, employment and health, interpersonal relationships, and trauma. Our analysis and findings highlight experiences of instability over the life course related to older adults’ current housing circumstances.

New Mobility For All: Bringing Emerging Transportation Options To Underserved Communities, John Macarthur, Nathan Mcneil

TREC Project Briefs

Low-income residents, immigrants, seniors, and people with disabilities – these are people who stand to gain the most from new tools and services that reduce transportation costs and travel time. However, issues of affordability, technology adoption, banking access or other barriers can limit access to these new mobility opportunities. In the latest project funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), New Mobility For All, Portland State University researchers Nathan McNeil, John MacArthur and Huijun Tan worked with the City of Portland’s Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) to evaluate a local pilot program: the Transportation Wallet for Residents of …

The 2019 Conference On Health And Active Transportation: Research Needs And Opportunities, David Berrigan, Astrid Dannenberg, Michelle Lee, Kelly Rodgers, Janet R. Wojcik, Behram Wali, Calvin P. Tribby, Ralph Buehler, James F. Sallis, Multiple Additional Authors

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Active transportation (AT) is widely viewed as an important target for increasing participation in aerobic physical activity and improving health, while simultaneously addressing pollution and climate change through reductions in motor vehicular emissions. In recent years, progress in increasing AT has stalled in some countries and, furthermore, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has created new AT opportunities while also exposing the barriers and health inequities related to AT for some populations. This paper describes the results of the December 2019 Conference on Health and Active Transportation (CHAT) which brought together leaders from the transportation and health disciplines. Attendees charted a course …

Validating The Resident View In Long-Term Care Settings: Final Report To Oregon Department Of Human Services, Aging & People With Disabilities Division, Diana L. White, Ozcan Tunalilar, Serena Hasworth, Jaclyn Winfree, Institute On Aging, Portland State University

Institute on Aging Publications

In 2015, Portland State University Institute on Aging (PSU/IOA) received a grant from the Quality Care Fund to develop the Resident VIEW (Voicing Importance, Experience, and Well-being), a measure of person-centered care (PCC) from the perspective of residents. Structured open-ended interviews were conducted with residents living in nursing homes (NH), assisted living (AL/RC), and adult foster homes (AFH) settings to learn more about their everyday concerns, values, and preferences. Each interview focused on one of eight domains of PCC. These domains had been identified from the literature and in prior research. Personhood, or as described by residents as being “treated …

Centennial School District Enrollment Forecasts 2021-22 To 2030-31, Portland State University. Population Research Center, Charles Rynerson, Christina Wei

School District Enrollment Forecast Reports

In August 2021 the Portland State University Population Research Center (PRC) prepared high, middle, and low scenarios of district‐wide enrollment forecasts by grade level for the Centennial School District (CSD) for the 10‐year period between 2021‐22 and 2030‐31. Each enrollment forecast scenario is related to population forecasts that incorporate different assumptions about growth within the District, with the primary differences being the contribution of net migration to the District’s population and age distribution. To facilitate the boundary review process, PRC also provided forecasts of CSD students residing within each existing elementary attendance area, consistent with the middle series, to CSD …

Examining The Impact Of Transportation-Related Barriers On Self-Perceived Physical Health Among Adults In The United States, Philip Baiden, Godfred O. Boateng, Stephen Mattingly, Alan Kunz Lomelin

TREC Final Reports

Objective: Drawing from the framework of social determinants of health, the objective of this paper was to investigate the crosssectional association between transportation-related factors and self-perceived physical health among adults in the U.S. while adjusting for known demographic and socioeconomic-related factors.

Methods: Data for this report 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. The outcome variable examined was self perceived physical health and the main explanatory variable was a measure of household vehicle deficit.

Results: Of the 71,235 respondents examined, 8.9% …

New Mobility For All: Evaluation Of A Transportation Incentive Program For Residents Of Affordable Housing In Portland, Or, Nathan Mcneil, John Macarthur, Huijun Tan

TREC Final Reports

Low-income residents, immigrants, seniors, and people with disabilities - people who are often the most transport disadvantaged and thus stand to gain the most from tools that could reduce transportation costs and time – are often poorly served by new transportation tools and services, whether due to issues of affordability, gaps in technology adoption, unbanked populations, social or knowledge gaps, physical access, or other barriers. The research team worked with the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) to evaluate the Transportation Wallet for Residents of Affordable Housing Pilot (TWRAH). The program provided a set of transportation incentives for low-income participants including …

Portland Street Response: Six-Month Evaluation: A Report Prepared For The City Of Portland Bureau Of Fire And Rescue, Greg Townley, Emily Leickly

Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative Publications and Presentations

Overview of the Program:

Portland Street Response (PSR) is a new first responder program for non-emergency calls involving people experiencing homelessness or mental health crisis. The program launched on February 16, 2021 in the Lents neighborhood in Portland, OR and operates Monday to Friday from 10 AM to 6 PM. The pilot is coordinated by Portland Fire & Rescue (PF&R), and the founding team consists of a firefighter paramedic, a licensed mental health crisis therapist, and two community health workers.

Road Work Ahead: Using Deep Neural Networks To Estimate The Impacts Of Work Zones, Abbas Rashidi, Ali Hassandokht Mashhadi

TREC Project Briefs

Roadside construction - be it a detour, a closed lane, or a slow weave past workers and equipment - work zones impact traffic flow and travel times on a system-wide level. The ability to predict exactly what those impacts will be, and plan for them, would be a major help to both transportation agencies and road users. Funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities, the latest Small Starts project led by Abbas Rashidi of the University of Utah introduces a robust, deep neural network model for analyzing the automobile traffic impacts of construction zones.

Evaluating Mobility Impacts Of Construction Work Zones On Utah Transportation System Using Machine Learning Techniques, Ali Hassandokht Mashhadi, Abbas Rashidi

TREC Final Reports

Construction work zones are inevitable parts of daily operations at roadway systems. They have a significant impact on traffic conditions and the mobility of roadway systems. The traffic impacts of work zones could significantly vary due to several interacting factors such as work zone factors (work zone location and layout, length of the closure, work zone speed, intensity, and daily active hours); traffic factors (percentage of heavy vehicles, highway speed limit, capacity, mobility, flow, density, congestion, and occupancy); road factors (number of total lanes, number of open lanes, and pavement grade and condition); temporal factors (e.g., year, season, month, weekday, …

Data Files: Green Waves, Machine Learning, And Predictive Analytics: Making Streets Better For People On Bikes, Stephen Fickas

TREC Datasets and Databases

The project builds on a prior app that was designed for Green Light Optimized Speed Advisory (GLOSA). This is more colloquially known as keeping a vehicle in the green wave: you are at a location and moving at a speed that will allow you to (theoretically) have a green light at each intersection you encounter along a corridor. Our long-term goal is to extend the FastTrack app described in the Background section to include actuated signals along a corridor. This project takes a first step by evaluating the effectiveness of machine-learning algorithms to predict the next phase of an actuated …

Data-Driven Mobility Strategies For Multimodal Transportation, Yao-Jan Wu, Xianfeng Terry Yang, Sirisha Kothuri, Abolfazl Karimpour, Qinzheng Wang, Jason Anderson

TREC Final Reports

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 will serve as a bridge to connect speed management strategies of conventional corridors to connected vehicle corridors. This study consists of three main components. In the first component, the impact of speed management strategies along …

Green Waves, Machine Learning, And Predictive Analytics: Making Streets Better For People On Bikes, Stephen Fickas

TREC Final Reports

This project focuses on giving bicyclists a safer and more efficient path through a city’s signalized intersections. It builds on a prior NITC project that tested an app for a fixed-time corridor. The goal of this project is to lay the groundwork for extending this earlier app to include actuated signals. Two machine-learning algorithms are introduced that have a good track record with time-series forecasting: LSTM and 1D CNN. The algorithms are tested on data captured from a busy bike corridor on the south end of the University of Oregon campus. A specific actuated intersection is identified on this corridor …

Using Deep Learning Algorithms To Give Bicyclists The “Green Wave” At Traffic Signals, Stephen Fickas

TREC Project Briefs

Led by Dr. Stephen Fickas of the University of Oregon (UO), transportation researchers are working to give bicyclists smoother rides by allowing them to communicate with traffic signals via a mobile app.

Spatial Configuration And Time Of Day Impact The Magnitude Of Urban Tree Canopy Cooling, Miguel Alonzo, Matthew Baker, Yuemeng Gao, Vivek Shandas

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Tree cover is generally associated with cooler air temperatures in urban environments but the roles of canopy configuration, spatial context, and time of day are not well understood. The ability to examine spatiotemporal relationships between trees and urban climate has been hindered by lack of appropriate air temperature data and, perhaps, by overreliance on a single ‘tree canopy’ class, obscuring the mechanisms by which canopy cools. Here, we use >70 000 air temperature measurements collected by car throughout Washington, DC, USA in predawn (pd), afternoon (aft), and evening (eve) campaigns on a hot summer day. We subdivided tree canopy into …

Marine Debris And Human Health: An Exposure Pathway Of Pops?, Katie Conlon

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Although there are not any direct studies linking persistent organic pollutants (POPs) accumulated on marine debris to human health, there are numerous studies showing human health impacts from repeated and high level POP exposure, as well as studies that show POPs accumulate on plastic debris in the marine environment. With this knowledge, there is a need for greater awareness of the risks of POP exposure for those who handle marine debris regularly, especially in contexts of higher exposure such as those working in marine debris concentrated areas. Amongst the scientific community, understanding of the exposure risk might be high, but …

Mopping Up Or Turning Off The Tap? Environmental Injustice And The Ethics Of Plastic Pollution, Katharine A. Owens, Katie Conlon

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Opinion article

Decades of scientific research confirm that plastic pollution poses a threat to many species, to water resources, and to economies around the world (Laist, 1997; Barnes et al., 2009; Gregory, 2009; Teuten et al., 2009; Chen, 2015; Newman et al., 2015; Rochman, 2015). Experts demonstrate that oceanic plastic pollution is increasing at astounding rates (Eriksen et al., 2014; Geyer et al., 2017). Research indicates harmful levels of toxicity in everyday plastic items (SCP/RAC, 2020). Scientists find this issue so important that they have recommended plastics …

The Residential Property Value Premium Of The Proximity To Carsharing And Bikesharing Services: Evidence From New York City, Sangwan Lee, Aaron D. Golub

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

While significant existing scholarship has confirmed that accessibility to “macro” transportation systems, such as transit, creates some value for real estate, few studies have examined the capitalized effect of “micro” transportation modes on property values. Even, despite the increased ridership and market shares of carsharing and bikesharing services, empirical evidence on its property value capitalization effects of the emerging transportation services remains far less limited. In this context, this research examines the residential value uplift induced from the proximity to carsharing (Zipcar) and bikesharing (CitiBike) services in New York City by employing Spatial Durbin Models with sales transaction data that …

Genesis At Work: Advancing Inclusive Innovation Through Manufacturing Extension, Nichola Lowe, Greg Schrock, Ranita Jain, Maureen Conway

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

US manufacturing is struggling with both a productivity and job quality challenge. These challenges are interconnected, reinforcing the need for increased coordination of economic and workforce development efforts. This article outlines the evaluation findings of a novel business-facing initiative called the Genesis Movement, to understand its role in reshaping the workforce experience within small- and medium-sized manufacturing businesses in Chicago, Illinois. Spearheaded in 2014 by the Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center (IMEC), Genesis starts with the premise that workforce practices are central to business operations, productivity, and competitiveness—and therefore, manufacturing extension services need to promote improvements to job quality in support …

Coordinated Population Forecast For Benton County, Its Urban Growth Boundaries (Ugb), And Area Outside Ugbs 2021 – 2071, Portland State University. Population Research Center, Cindy Chen, Ethan Sharygin, Paul Runge, Kevin Rancik, Deborah Loftus, Charles Rynerson, Huda Alkitkat

Oregon Population Forecast Program

How to Read this Report

This report should be read with reference to the documents listed below, which are downloadable as supplemental files below.

• Methods and Data for Developing Coordinated Population Forecasts: Provides a detailed description and discussion of the forecast methods employed. This document also describes the assumptions that feed into these methods and determine the forecast output.

• Forecast Tables: Provides complete tables of population forecast numbers by county and all sub‐ areas within each county for each five‐year interval of the forecast period (2021‐2071).

County Summary

Corvallis has a vacancy between 3 and 5%. The city …

Coordinated Population Forecast For Polk County, Its Urban Growth Boundaries (Ugb), And Area Outside Ugbs 2021 – 2071, Portland State University. Population Research Center, Cindy Chen, Ethan Sharygin, Paul Runge, Kevin Rancik, Deborah Loftus, Charles Rynerson, Huda Alkitkat

Oregon Population Forecast Program

How to Read this Report

This report should be read with reference to the documents listed below, which are downloadable on the Forecast Program website (https://www.pdx.edu/population-research/population-forecasts).

• Methods and Data for Developing Coordinated Population Forecasts: Provides a detailed description and discussion of the forecast methods employed. This document also describes the assumptions that feed into these methods and determine the forecast output.

• Forecast Tables: Provides complete tables of population forecast numbers by county and all sub‐areas within each county for each five‐year interval of the forecast period (2021‐2071).

Polk County has roughly 84,000 people in 2020. The economic base …

Coordinated Population Forecast For Marion County, Its Urban Growth Boundaries (Ugb), And Area Outside Ugbs 2021 – 2071, Portland State University. Population Research Center, Cindy Chen, Ethan Sharygin, Paul Runge, Kevin Rancik, Deborah Loftus, Charles Rynerson, Huda Alkitkat

Oregon Population Forecast Program

How to Read this Report

This report should be read with reference to the documents listed below, which are downloadable on the Forecast Program website (https://www.pdx.edu/population-research/population-forecasts).

• Methods and Data for Developing Coordinated Population Forecasts: Provides a detailed description and discussion of the forecast methods employed. This document also describes the assumptions that feed into these methods and determine the forecast output.

• Forecast Tables: Provides complete tables of population forecast numbers by county and all sub‐areas within each county for each five‐year interval of the forecast period (2021‐2071).

County Summary:

Marion county's economic base is government, agriculture, food processing, …