Urban Studies Commons^™

Periodic Atlas Of The Metroscape: Seeing The Past In The Present - A Snapshot Of The Relationship Between Urban Growth And Transportation, Meg Merrick

Metroscape

With this edition of the periodic atlas, we explore the waves of growth and changes in urban form that have occurred over the last century in Metro's tri-county region using historic maps and the year-built information provided by Metro's Regional Land Information System (RLIS) for tax lots.

Evaluation Of Transportation Microenvironments Through Assessment Of Cyclysts' Exposure To Traffic-Related Particulate Matter, Linda A. George, Miguel A. Figliozzi, Christopher M. Monsere, Christine M. Kendrick, Alexander Y. Bigazzi, Adam Moore

TREC Final Reports

It is well established that vehicles powered by carbon-based fuels (e.g. gasoline, diesel) have a negative impact on air quality, especially in urban centers. Traditionally, air quality conformity studies analyze the macroenvironmental impact of transportation corridors, as they relate to regional air quality management concerns. Urban residents spend a considerable amount of outdoor time in transportation microenvironments as pedestrians, bicycle commuters, people waiting to use public transport, residents and workers situated along roadways, and commuters within vehicles. An emerging area of research has shown that human health impacts within transport microenvironments can be considerable, but have not been well-characterized. As …

Safety Evaluation Of Curve Warning Speed Signs, Karen K. Dixon, Raul Eduardo Avelar, Ida Schalkwyk

TREC Final Reports

This report presents a review of a research effort to evaluate the safety implications of advisory speeds at horizontal curve locations on Oregon rural two-lane highways. The primary goals of this research effort were to characterize driving operations at rural two-lane highway curve locations where advisory speed signs were present, and to determine to what extent these signs play a role in enhancing safety. Placement of advisory speed signs at horizontal curve locations in the State of Oregon is a practice aided by unique and specific state-level policies and, as such, may vary from nationally accepted procedures. Speed data was …

Rails To Recovery: The Role Of Passenger Rail Transportation In Post-Katrina New Orleans And Louisiana, James R. Amdal

UNOTI Publications

The purpose of this research is: 1) to inform decision makers at both the state and local level on options for successfully implementing a proposed passenger train between New Orleans and Baton Rouge; 2) to evaluate the potential impacts of new streetcar extensions on growth and development within select service corridors within the City of New Orleans. Both of these projects are viewed within the context of a post- Katrina environment. This report also provides a Summer 2010 ‘snapshot in time’ of existing and proposed real estate development along and adjacent to the proposed streetcar extensions in and adjoining the …

How Does Light Rail Transit Affect Urban Land Use?, Needham B. Hurst

Economics Honors Projects

This paper estimates the effect of the Hiawatha Light Rail Transit (LRT) line on land use change in Minneapolis, MN, between 2000 and 2010. I use a binomial logit model and find that within the 1-mile submarket near LRT, the effect of distance to LRT stations on land use change had a different radius and magnitude depending on existing land use. The effect of LRT on conversions of low-density housing to denser uses only extended out to 90 feet from stations after LRT went into operation. Vacant and industrial land were the most likely to experience land use change, especially …

Examination Of Regional Transit Service Under Contracting: A Case Study In The Greater New Orleans Region, Hiroyuki Iseki, Charles Rivasplata, Rebecca Houtman

UNOTI Publications

Many local governments and transit agencies in the United States face financial difficulties in providing adequate public transit service in individual systems, and in providing sufficient regional coordination to accommodate transit trips involving at least one transfer between systems. These difficulties can be attributed to the recent economic downturn, continuing withdrawal of the state and federal funds that help support local transit service, a decline in local funding for transit service in inner cities due to ongoing suburbanization, and a distribution of resources that responds to geographic equity without addressing service needs.

This study examines two main research questions: (1) …

Wireless Data Collection System For Real-Time Arterial Travel Time Estimates, David S. Kim, J. David Porter, Mario E. Magana, Sejoon Park, Amirali Saeedi

TREC Final Reports

This project pursued several objectives conducive to the implementation and testing of a Bluetooth (BT) based system to collect travel time data, including the deployment of a BT-based travel time data collection system to perform comprehensive testing on all the components. Two different BT-based travel time data collection systems were installed. The first system, composed of two DCUs, was installed on a corridor located in Salem, OR. Extensive testing was done on this system, including the collection of travel time samples. A second system composed of five DCUs was installed along 99W in the city of Tigard, OR. Very limited …

Case Study Evaluation Of Dynamic Traffic Assignment Tools, John Gliebe, Åsa Bergman

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

A case study was undertaken in order to evaluate the potential use of dynamic traffic assignment (DTA) tools by Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) and its partner agencies. The objectives of this study were to provide insight into the nature of DTA models, to inform the program selection process, and to develop realistic expectations for potential DTA work plans. The overarching goal of this report is to describe the process followed and experiences of the study team in developing and testing DTA network models. Two available DTA programs were selected for in-depth analysis from a preliminary screening of available programs: …

Providing Capacity In Rural Communities: Planning For Alternative Transportation, Megan Smith

TREC Final Reports

This technology transfer proposal linked service learning with rural multimodal transportation planning through a collaborative partnership between University of Oregon (UO) experiential learning programs and three rural Oregon communities. As this planning and technical support to rural communities occurred, lessons learned were gathered and will support future servicelearning projects focused on transportation planning. The primary products for this project are the: (1) Completion of multimodal transportation planning projects that increase rural community capacity; and (2) a website with resources for communities, faculty and students. Three further outcomes were: (1) Increased capacity for transportation planning in rural communities; (2) Increased capacity …

Overlooked Density: Re-Thinking Transportation Options In Suburbia, Phase Ii, Nico Larco

TREC Final Reports

Comprising over 9 million units in this country, suburban multifamily housing is a widespread and overlooked example of density located within walking distance to commercial development in suburbia. This report focuses on resident demographics, attitudes, and perceptions as they relate to mode choice in 14 suburban multifamily sites in Eugene, Oregon. Through site analysis and resident surveys, our study shows that site design and connectivity is a significant predictor of resident mode choice. Residents of more-connected developments walk and bike to their local commercial area for more than 40% of their trips, nearly twice the rate of residents of less-connected …

No More Freeways: Urban Land Use-Transportation Dynamics Without Freeway Capacity Expansion, Lei Zhang, We Xu

TREC Final Reports

Observations of the various limitations of freeway capacity expansion have led to a provocative planning and policy question – What if we completely stop building additional freeway capacity. From a theoretical perspective, as a freeway transportation network matures, there exists a saturation point beyond which any additional freeway capacity would only be counterproductive from a welfare point of view, and worsen the existing urban transportation problems. Traditional benefit/cost analysis of individual freeway capacity expansion projects often ignores long-term induced demand and land use changes and does not represent a systems approach to this important theoretical issue. From a practical perspective, …

Clinton Street Max Urban Vision, Darryl Abe, Allison Duncan, Sheri Fisher, Jay Higgins, Shawn Petch, Susan Rosenthal, Joel Stein, Huifu Xu

Urban Design Workshop

This document is the product of the 2011 Urban Design Workshop at Portland State University which worked to develop an urban design vision for the future Clinton Street MAX Station, part of the Portland- Milwaukie Light Rail line. This project follows two previous years of PSU workshops that investigated the urban design potential of Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail stations within the Hosford-Abernethy and Brooklyn neighborhoods in southeast Portland.

While previous efforts were broad in scope, our project specifically addresses two oversized blocks immediately adjacent to the Clinton Street Station, refered to as the Powell Triangle. The blocks are bordered by 12th …

Evaluation Of Bike Boxes At Signalized Intersections, Jennifer Dill, Christopher M. Monsere, Nathan Mcneil

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

This report presents a before-after study of bike boxes at 10 signalized intersections in Portland, Oregon. The bike boxes, also known as advanced stop lines or advanced stop boxes, were installed to increase visibility of cyclists and reduce conflicts between motor vehicle and cyclists, particularly in potential ?right-hook? situations. Before and after video were analyzed for seven intersections with green bike boxes, three intersections with uncolored bike boxes, and two control intersections. User perceptions were measured through surveys of cyclists passing through five of the bike box intersections and of motorists working downtown, where the boxes were concentrated. Both the …

Freight Distribution Problems In Congested Urban Areas: Fast And Effective Solution Procedures To Time-Dependent Vehicle Routing Problems, Miguel A. Figliozzi

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Congestion is a common phenomenon in all medium to large cities of the world. Reliability of freight movement in urban areas is an important issue to manufacturing or service companies whose operation is based in just-in-time approaches. These companies tend to provide high value or time sensitive products/services. As congestion increases, carriers face increasing challenges to satisfy their time sensitive customers in an economical way. Route designs or schedules which require long computation times or ignore travel time variations will result in inefficient and suboptimal solutions. Poorly designed routes that lead freight vehicles into congested arteries and streets not only …

Grocery Shopping: How Individuals And Built Environments Influence Choice Of Travel Mode, Junfeng Jiao, Anne Vernez Moudon, Adam Drewnowski

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This research investigated the influences of socioeconomic characteristics of individual travelers and of the environments where the travelers live and shop on choice of travel mode for grocery shopping. The data on travel for grocery shopping came from 2,001 respondents to the 2009 Seattle Obesity Study survey in King County, Washington. Eighty-eight percent of the respondents drove to their grocery stores, whereas 12% used transit or taxis, walked, biked, or carpooled. The addresses of 1,994 homes and 1,901 primary grocery stores used by respondents were geographically coded. The characteristics of built environments in the neighborhoods around homes and grocery stores …

Travel Behavior, Residential Preference, And Urban Design: A Multi-Disciplinary National Analysis, Jessica Greene, Nico Larco, Yizhao Yang, Marc Schlossberg, Daniel Rodriguez, Noreen Mcdonald, Tabitha Combs

TREC Final Reports

This report summarizes the findings of a national project to examine the travel behavior, social capital, health, and lifestyle preferences of residents of neotraditional developments (NTD) compared to more standard suburban developments. We compare survey results from residents of matched pairs of neighborhoods in seventeen U.S. cities and towns, with each pair comprised of one NTD and one typical suburban neighborhood of similar size, age, and socio-demographic composition. The study addresses salient themes in the transportation, planning and health literatures: a national study, surveying populations of diverse incomes, collecting resident information on preferences for and attitudes towards neighborhood qualities, and …

Performance Enhancement Of Bridge Bracing Under Service And Extreme Loads, Peter Dusicka, Max Taylor Stephens, Kate Fox-Lent

TREC Final Reports

As truck loads continue to get bigger, the demand on many aging bridges increases. Slender steel structural elements widely used in bridge superstructures and braced substructures to resist these loads are built primarily for tension, however, and can buckle under compressive loads. Portland State University associate professor Peter Dusicka set out to develop and demonstrate the concept of retrofitting bridge brace elements with fiber reinforced composites in order to provide restraint against buckling. The advanced materials consisted of a combination of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composite pultruded sections and wet lay-up wraps intended to be applied in the field. This …

Impacts Of Low-Speed Vehicles On Transportation Infrastructure And Safety, Katharine M. Hunter-Zaworski, Linda Cornell

TREC Final Reports

There are increasing numbers of low-speed electric vehicles (LSVs) on public roadways. These vehicles are designed to be used within protected environments and on roadways with a maximum posted speed of 25 mph. Currently these vehicles are not subject to the same federal requirements for occupant protection as passenger cars. This research project investigated safety standards, operating regulations, and LSV manufacturer materials from sources around the world. The purpose of the research was to determine positive and negative impacts that LSVs, including Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEVs) and Medium Speed Electric Vehicles (MSEVs), are likely to have for the Oregon Department …

Analysis And Evaluation Of Safety Impacts Of Median Types And Midblock Left Turn Treatments For Urban Arterials, Timur Mauga

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Urban growth leads to new land-uses abutting arterials requiring driveways for their accessibility. Uncontrolled number and locations of such access points causes safety, mobility and accessibility problems. The solution to these problems is access management (AM) which controls the number and location of the access points. AM techniques are normally documented in the form of guidelines for engineers and planners to follow when implementing the techniques. However, AM guidelines may not cover every technique due to the fact that AM is still growing. For example, the current AM guideline prepared by The Nevada Department of Transportation addresses many AM techniques. …

Analysis Of Bus Collision Incidents Using Transit Its And Other Archived Operations Data, James G. Strathman, Paul Herman Wachana, Steve Callas

TREC Final Reports

This report analyzes factors contributing to bus operations safety incidents at TriMet, the transit provider for the Portland Oregon metropolitan region. The analysis focuses on 4,631 collision and non-collision incidents that occurred between 2006 and 2009. Empirical analysis of these incidents draws on a wide array of operator-level data recovered by transit ITS technologies in combination with information from TriMet’s human resources, scheduling, and customer relations databases. Incident frequencies are estimated in relation to operators’ demographic characteristics, employment status, assigned work characteristics, service delivery and performance indicators, temporal factors, and customer information. Apart from identifying factors that are empirically related …

Making Choice That Change Lives, Yizhao Yang

TREC Project Briefs

Children’s ability to walk or bike to school depends largely on where they live. Surprisingly, we know very little about how families make choices about where to live in relation to school travel. Existing school travel research has generally focused on the effects of environmental characteristics on the likelihood of children walking or biking to school. This project took a more comprehensive approach by examining the relationships between transportation to school, neighborhood walkability and where families choose to live.

Empirical Observation Of The Impact Of Traffic Oscillations On Freeway Safety, Christopher M. Monsere, Soyoung Ahn

TREC Final Reports

Traffic oscillations are typical features of congested traffic flow that are characterized by recurring decelerations followed by accelerations (stop-and-go driving). The negative environmental impacts of these oscillations are widely accepted, but their impact on traffic safety has been debated. This report describes the impact of freeway traffic oscillations on traffic safety. This study employs a matched case-control design using high resolution traffic and crash data from a freeway segment. Traffic conditions prior to each crash were taken as cases, while traffic conditions during the same periods on days without crashes were taken as controls. These were also matched by presence …

The Boulevard Study: From Arterial To Asset -- Examining The Role Of The Multi-Way Boulevard In Coordinated Transportation And Land Use Planning, Mark L. Gillem

TREC Final Reports

Cities that were once considered the most-desired places to live or for businesses to locate are now seeking ways to unclog their increasingly congested roadways and regain their quality of life. U.S. Department of Transportation Strategic Plan Background Cities across the U.S. that are struggling with congestion resort to remedies that are increasingly difficult to implement. Adding capacity is a more challenging proposition given limited land availability, greater environmental constraints, and fiscal barriers. Replacing individual trips with transit has seen limited success and can typically only be justified at greater levels of density than many communities currently support. Multiway boulevards …

Regional Travel Options 2007-08 Program Evaluation, Jennifer Dill, Stephan Brown

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

To help implement the Growth Concept, Metro’s Regional Travel Options (RTO) Program works to increase awareness of non-SOV alternatives and increase the provision of those alternatives. The program complements other strategies, including land use policies and infrastructure investment. The most comprehensive data available for this evaluation come from commute surveys of employees at work sites that participate in outreach programs offered by TriMet. All of the RTO evaluations have used these data as a benchmark for overall progress, though the data only captures commute travel. The 2008 data reflect the commute patterns of about 120,000 employees commuting to 549 worksites. …

Road Pricing, Anthony M. Rufolo

Systems Science Friday Noon Seminar Series

Fuel taxes are an important source of funds for roads. However, increasing fuel efficiency and the potential for alternative fueled vehicles have raised questions about the long-term viability of this revenue source. Oregon conducted an experiment to evaluate the potential to replace fuel taxes with mileage fees. The findings from that experiment will be presented along with some discussion of current research on the cost associated with implementing different types of mileage fees.

Evaluation Of Safety Impact Of Access Management In Urban Areas, Xuecai Xu

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The access provided by streets and highways to adjacent lands are managed by controlling the spacings between the access points including signals, driveways, and media openings on mid-block segments, and setting the limit on the corner clearances around intersections. There have been studies on evaluating the impact of access management techniques on safety and mobility in urban areas. Samples of mid-block segments and intersections can be collected from selected arterials. Because the mid-block segments or intersections in the same arterials share the same missing information, safety and mobility on them show unique features that should be taken into account when …

Financing Mechanisms For Capacity Improvements At Interchanges, James G. Strathman, Elizabeth Simmons

TREC Final Reports

This report examines the use of alternative local financing mechanisms for interchange and interchange area infrastructure improvements. The financing mechanisms covered include transportation impact fees, tax increment financing, value capture financing, local improvement districts, transportation corporations, state infrastructure banks, local option transportation taxes, fair share mitigation, and transportation concurrency. The financing alternatives are assessed in the context of Interchange Area Management Plans, which are required by the Oregon Transportation Commission, as well as in the context of the Oregon Department of Transportation’s responsibilities under the state’s Transportation Planning Rule.

Overlooked Density: Re-Thinking Transportation Options In Suburbia, Nico Larco

TREC Final Reports

Suburban multifamily housing is an often overlooked housing typology that is the fasted growing housing market in the country and holds strong potential for achieving smart growth goals in suburbia. This housing type is ubiquitous throughout all regions in the nation, is a widespread example of density in suburbia, and is typically located next to commercial uses. The proximity between suburban multifamily housing and commercial uses creates the potential for nodes of concentrated activity, mixed use, and the possibility of substantial non-auto transport in suburbia. While this potential exists, the design of this housing type often follows an enclaved pattern …

Roads: Leading Indicators Show Ramp-Up In Activity, Shishir Mathur, Kunal Katara

Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning

No abstract provided.

Sustainability Initiatives In East Bayside Neighborhood Portland, Maine, Garvan Donegan, Henry Heyburn, Caitlyn Horose, Matt Klebes, Jennifer Riley, Damon Yakovleff, New England Environmental Finance Center

Planning

This is a bundle containing research on sustainability initiatives that could be implemented in the East Bayside neighborhood of Portland, ME. These six essays were prepared by the Spring, 2010 Sustainable Communities Class known as CPD 602 at the University of Southern Maine. The class is part of the core curriculum of the Community Planning and Development program of the Muskie School of Public Service at the university. The instructor for the class was Samuel Merrill, Ph. D. who is also director of the New England Environmental Finance Center at the University. These papers were prepared in conjunction with Alan …