Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Bus Stops Improvements Along Utah Corridor Increase Ridership And Ada Accessibility, Keith Bartholomew

TREC Project Briefs

A bus stop can be anything from a simple signpost stuck in the grass, to a comfortable shelter with seating and paved access to the sidewalk. For many U.S. transit agencies across the country, improving facilities at bus stops is a priority. But how much do these improvements actually affect ridership? A lot, it turns out. A new NITC study, co-funded by the Utah Transit Authority (UTA) and led by Keith Bartholomew of the University of Utah, found a 5.9% increase in boardings after improvements were made to a series of bus stops in Salt Lake City - compared to …

Regional Transportation Goals: Reducing Sprawl Through Interconnected Centers, Reid Ewing

TREC Project Briefs

A “polycentric” region is a network of compact developments (centers) that are connected with each other through high-quality transportation options. As the antidote to sprawling suburbs, compact centers can encourage all the things that sprawl discourages: public health, environmental sustainability, social cohesion, and economic diversity. But how can metropolitan planning organizations ensure that their regional plans will actually meet these goals? Polycentric development has been advocated by urban and transportation planners for more than a decade. However, effective practice must be backed by solid research, and to date there has been little or no research that quantifies the transportation benefits …

The Potential Of Green Infrastructure In Mitigating Flood Impacts On The Mobility Of Low Income And Minority Neighborhoods, Courtney Crosson, Yinan Zhang, Daoqin Tong

TREC Project Briefs

Short-term flooding from extreme storm events poses a serious transportation challenge in U.S. cities. This problem—which is anticipated to grow over the next century with our global climate crisis—is often hardest on vulnerable populations, including low-income and minority neighborhoods. This project advances national research methods for assessing flood vulnerability and prioritizing transportation improvement investments to ensure that no community is left stranded when the next flood occurs.

Will Automated Vehicles Cut Parking Revenue? Not Overnight, But Cities Should Plan Ahead, Benjamin Y. Clark, Anne Brown

TREC Project Briefs

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) will challenge cities in ways that are difficult to fully predict, yet critical to address. A particular challenge is the potential for AVs to upset municipal budgets, as they upend traditional auto-related funding streams like vehicle registration fees and parking revenues. To prepare for this uncertain future, cities should practice scenario planning to understand revenue implications and identify alternative solutions

Steering New Mobility In The Right Direction: Matching The Speed Of Technology With The Speed Of Local Government, Marc Schlossberg, Heather Brinton

TREC Project Briefs

Advances in transportation technology — e-scooters and bike share, Lyft & Uber, and autonomous vehicles — are beginning to have profound impacts on cities. New mobility is changing not only how we travel, but also urban form and development itself. In the near future, we can expect differences in what public transit looks like, the layout of cities, and the places we spend our time. In turn, these changes will likely have additional effects on land use, street design, parking, housing, equity, and municipal finance. Will cities be ready to meet these changes? Rather than be swept along in the …

What Do 15 Years Of Travel Surveys Tell Us About Tod Residents?, Nathan Mcneil, Jennifer Dill

TREC Project Briefs

Does living in a transit-oriented development (TOD) actually change the way people travel? That’s the fundamental question that 15 years of research in Portland, Oregon seeks to answer. Since 2005, Portland State University has worked with Portland’s Metro regional government to survey occupants of buildings for which developers had received funding from Metro’s Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Program. Metro strategically invests in TODs to help more people live, work and shop in neighborhoods served by high-quality transit.

“Revisiting TODs,” the latest installment in this research, is led by Nathan McNeil, a research associate in PSU’s School of Urban Studies & Planning, …

Mount Mazama Ash Offers Sustainable Solution For Ada Accessibility On Unpaved Trails, Matthew D. Sleep, Damian K. Matzen

TREC Project Briefs

National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) researcher Matthew Sleep of Oregon Tech investigated whether Mazama ash could be used in place of portland cement, as a natural pozzolan. Results indicate that it can—and unpaved trail surfaces made with Mazama ash are actually firmer and more durable than those made with portland cement alone. Such trails can provide a reliable surface for wheeled mobility devices.

Understanding Economic And Business Impacts Of Street Improvements For Bicycle And Pedestrian Mobility, Jenny H. Liu, Wei Shi

TREC Project Briefs

This research explored a systematic framework for evaluating the economic development effects of corridor-level bicycle or pedestrian street improvements across a number of corridors in multiple cities.

It is our hope that the results of our research will encourage the application of similar corridor selection processes, data collection efforts and multimethod analyses in additional corridors and cities around the country, and will provide a solid basis for policymakers, planners and other stakeholders considering street improvement infrastructure for pedestrian and bicycle mobility to make evidence-based investment decisions.

Visualizing Statewide Trips: Tools To Leverage Gps Data In Transportation Planning, Nikola Markovic

TREC Project Briefs

The University of Utah has a new data visualization service to offer to state DOTs and other agencies. Using Small Starts funding from the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), researcher Nikola Markovic and his team have developed a suite of visual analysis tools to demonstrate how GPS trajectory data can help accurately model and analyze mobility trends. These data are typically purchased from vendors, which means that transportation agencies must first understand the benefits before they decide to invest in data acquisition.

When Growth Outpaces Infrastructure: Access To Opportunities In Suburban Boomtowns, Jandel Crutchfield, Courtney Cronley, Kate Hyun

TREC Project Briefs

In the last twenty years, the population increased over 100% in Collin County, Texas. The county is projected to have over 2.4 million residents by 2050 -- more than three times its population in 2010. When enough people flock to an area to call it a boomtown, the population tends to grow much faster than the infrastructure to support it. Where does that leave mobility options for residents? Researchers from the University of Texas at Arlington’s (UTA) School of Social Work and College of Engineering partnered with the Collin County Homeless Coalition (CCHC) to investigate gaps in transportation services and …

Emerging Technologies In Mid-Size Cities: Managing New Mobility, Rebecca Steckler, Rebecca Lewis

TREC Project Briefs

This project was led by Becky Steckler and Rebecca Lewis of the University of Oregon. Research was done by eight University of Oregon classes, with participation by 147 students in the 2018/2019 school year, under the Sustainable City Year Program (SCYP) and Urbanism Next.