Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

The Motivations Of Exurban Commuters Within A Region, Judy Seppanen Davis

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

This case study of the Portland, Oregon, region analyzes and compares the emerging commuting patterns of exurban, small town, and suburban households. The analysis is based on a mail survey of 1408 households who purchased homes in 1987. By examining the types of households moving to exurbia, their reasons for moving, and the impacts of their moves on journey-to-work a picture is drawn of the forces shaping exurban development and the implications of this type of development for transportation planning and policy.

A Preliminary Report On The Implementation Of Health Care Rationing In Oregon, Theresa Julnes, Tom Lee Mason

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

Oregon is now in the process of implementing a first of its kind health care rationing plan. The intent of this new legislation is to expand Medicaid coverage to all citizens at or below the Federal poverty level. Under the proposed system, health care services will be prioritized and will be available only to the extent they can be paid for by presently appropriated funds. This rationing program is an extension of a policy adopted in 1987 whereby Oregon ended public expenditures for organ transplants. The following preliminary report examines the background of the policy, the national significance of the …

Structural Change And Employment Decline In Oregon's Wood Products Industry, James G. Strathman, Anthony M. Rufolo, Lois M. Bronfman

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

Employment in the wood products industry in Oregon has declined over the past decade despite a recent resurgence in demand for the industry's products. Reviewing employment and productivity data over the last decade, it is apparent that wood products employment in the state has been reduced as a result of productivity increases. Thus the industry processed more timber in 1986 than in 1979, but with about fifteen percent fewer workers. Continued reductions in wood products employment pose potentially serious adjustment problems because much of rural Oregon remains heavily dependent economically on the industry. There are also indications that timber supply …

Labor Productivity In Wood Products: Using Interviews To Supplement Statistical Estimates, Anthony M. Rufolo, Lois M. Bronfman, James G. Strathman

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

In 1986 the wood products industry in Oregon was producing more output than in 1979 but with about fifteen percent fewer workers. The employment decline in the wood products industry in Oregon can be traced to a variety of causes, including reductions in timber harvest and changes in output mix between the more labor-intensive plywood production and the less labor-intensive lumber production; but increasing labor productivity in the industry was a major factor. Despite substantial amounts of research regarding such productivity increases, there is still ample room for debate about the specific causes of the observed productivity improvement.

In section …

Sampling Bus Ridership At The Route Level: Initial Results From Efforts To Improve The Precision Of Sample Estimates, James G. Strathman

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

UMTA's Section 15 reporting requirements establish precision standards and corresponding sampling plans for estimating bus ridership at the system level. However, many transit providers are interested in recovering data with sufficient precision to permit ridership analysis at the route level. One outcome of extending a system sampling plan to route level data collection and analysis would be a large increase in the sample sizes required to achieve a reasonable standard of precision. Given the costs involved in expanding the data recovery process beyond what is required for Section 15 reporting, alternative means of improving the precision of route level data …

Challenges Confronting Metropolitan Portland's Transportation Decision-Making Regime, Sheldon Edner, Sy Adler, Peter B. Morris

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

In this paper we discuss the structure and dynamics of this consensus process through an exploration of a series of challenges to the regime. These challenges include: (1) cultivating new sources of project finance, as the federal government reduces its contribution; and (2) integrating transport projects with regional and local land use plans designed to manage urban growth; in the context of (3) intensifying competition between -business centers within the region, as rapidly growing suburban areas seek transport projects that will facilitate locally-oriented economic growth. We first discuss the institutional and normative elements of the regional consensus process in historical …

Site Location Study For An Integrated Traffic Data Collection System: Phase 1 Report, Kenneth Dueker, Richard Ledbetter, Bruce Rex

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

Improved technology for counting, classifying, and weighing vehicles in the highway traffic stream is becoming increasingly available. Research has been undertaken to make effective use of these new technologies, not just to replace current data collection programs of counting, classifying, and weighing with more efficient versions. This reports on the Phase I research, which had three major objectives;

• a literature review to guide the analysis of alternative methods;
• a statement of requirements to modernize and integrate the data collection programs of traffic counting, vehicle classification and truck weights, and to identify the type and use of traffic data for design, …

An Evaluation Of Automatic Passenger Counters: Validation, Sampling, And Statistical Inference, James G. Strathman

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

While automatic passenger counters (APC's) offer the potential for cait effective data recovery and management, they also introduce new complications in the data recovery process. This report addresses three issues associated with the implementation of APC's, based on an evaluation of the recent experiences of the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (Tri-Met). First is the issue of validation, which is concerned with both the recovery and accuracy of APC passenger data. The second issue concerns the development of a sampling methodology for APC's compatible with UMTA's Section 15 reporting requirements. Third is the issue of inferring system-level ridership from …

Analysis Of Westside Bypass Freeway Corridor Using Pcarc/Info And Idrisi Geographic Information Systems, Matt Newman

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

The purpose of this research project is to examine the functionality and interface of two Geographic Information Systems, and to perform a potential environmental assessment of the Westside Bypass Freeway corridor in suburban Portland. First is a discussion which describes elementary GIS concepts, data format and fundamental GIS operations. Next is a description of pcARC/INFO and IDRIS! and an analysis of their functionality. Following this, a description of the methodologies used to analyze the Westside Bypass Freeway corridor, is presented. The inventory of resource themes and conflicts with the freeway alignments is discussed next, emphasizing some of the more interesting …

Constructing The 1990 Public Transportation Study Process: Reflections Of The 1988 Research Team, Janice Dean, Sheldon Edner

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

The 1988 Oregon Public Transportation Study provided a solid foundation of information about Oregon’s transportation providers. In particular, it furnishes information on which revenue sources members of the industry are utilizing, expenditure patterns, capital and operating revenue needs, the protected increased demands for public transportation, and the ability of provides to makes use of available resources in their strategic planning. The study also substantiated that many members of the industry do not identify themselves as transportation providers, particularly the Special Need Transportation providers. The research process also revealed several additional factors about the process of collecting information that should be …

Augmented Analysis Of Oregon's Special Need Transportation Providers, Janice Dean, Sheldon Edner, Kenneth Dueker, Transportation Northwest (Transnow)

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

This analysis extends the work originally provided in the 1988 Oregon Public Transportation Study by the same authors. The intent is to focus attention on a particularly diverse segment of the public transportation community, special need providers (SNT), in an effort to further specify and define their nature and role in the public transportation system. The results of this analysis are intended to assist the Oregon Department of Transportation, Public Transit Division, with its efforts to implement Oregon's public transportation programs and to provide a basis for further specifying additional research needs in this area.

Dynamics Of The Suburban Activity Center, Rodney Jennings

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

Suburban congestion is a much-discussed phenomenon, although its nature and dimensions are poorly understood. During the Winter term of 1989, several students in the Transportation and Land Use class in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Portland State University, examined in term papers transportation issues related to suburban activity centers, particularly the Washington Square center area of suburban Portland.

This report is a synthesis of work derived from the student's term papers. Four of the students continued their research in a collaborative way and presented their joint finding at a workshop at the University of Washington sponsored by TransNOW, …

The Contribution Of Manager And Organizational Characteristics To Transit Agency Performance: A National Study Of United States Transit Providers, Charles White, Sheldon Edner

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

The primary objective of the report is to relate attitudinal and demographic characteristics of transit management personnel and agency institutional characteristics to agency performance. The purpose of this analysis is to determine the relative contributions of manager and institutional characteristics as explanatory factors in transit agency performance. The study is based upon the responses of 1033 managers from 134 agencies representing the full range of agency size, institutional, and locational characteristics.

Across six basic performance measures (coat efficiency, labor efficiency, service effectiveness, maintenance efficiency (measured in two different ways) and vehicle efficiency) used here, manager characteristics and attitudes do not …

1988 Oregon Public Transportation Study, Sheldon Edner, Kenneth Dueker, Janice Dean

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

Oregon continues to face challenges in public transportation. The lack of a consistent and comprehensive framework of state policy is making local efforts to meet public transportation demands harder and fails to exploit economic and transportation opportunities for improving the vitality of the state. The absence of continuous and stable state financial assistance has weakened the state/local partnership in providing public transportation services and kept mobility for many Oregonians at a minimal level. Finally, as the federal role in funding transportation declines the need for aggressive state leadership increases. The following recommendations for Legislative and Executive action are offered as …

Implementation And Database Issues Involved In Enhanced 9-1-1 Emergency Services And Rural Addressing Systems, Kenneth Dueker, George Mason, Rodney Jennings

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

The purpose of this paper is to explore the transition from the 9-1-1 single number emergency service request system to an enhanced single number system. An enhanced system is one that displays the address of the telephone which is being used to report an emergency and uses that address to identify the correct unit for dispatch. Though the technology has been available for some time now, surprisingly few enhanced systems have been fully installed. Telephone company franchise and jurisdictional boundaries rarely coincide, making it difficult to achieve cooperation in bringing together governments and competitive telephone companies. Outlined below is an …

Land Information System: Strategies For Local Governments In Oregon, Oregon. State Map Advisory Council

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

The purpose of this report is to disseminate the findings and recommendations from the deliberations of the Oregon Land Records Committee (OLRC) of the State Map Advisory Council (SMAC). The OLRC consists of state and local government officials and professionals, and representation from utilities and private sector firms involved in the maintenance and use of land records and geographic information systems (GIS) for the analysis of data about land. These individuals have given freely of their time and experience in furtherance of the mission and goals of the OLRC.

This report is directed to professionals and public officials in local …