Urban Studies Commons^™

Modeling And Analyzing The Impact Of Advanced Technologies On Livability And Multimodal Transportation Performance Measures In Arterial Corridors: Phase 2, Miguel A. Figliozzi, Chawalit Tipagornwong

TREC Final Reports

Transportation corridors are complex systems. Tradeoffs, particularly in terms of traffic mobility, transit performance, accessibility and pedestrian interactions, are not well understood.When the focus is on motorized vehicle mobility and throughput, high traffic or vehicle speeds are desirable because at high speeds more vehicles can flow per unit of time and roadway section. However, high traffic/vehicles speeds are not desirable for pedestrians who have to cross urban arterials. In particular, pedestrians can be highly vulnerable at unsignalized, marked crosswalks where pedestrians have the right of way but where drivers’ yield rates are significantly lower than at signalized intersections. Pedestrians are …

Estimating Walking And Bicycling At The State Level, Krista Nordback, Mike Sellinger, Taylor Phillips

TREC Final Reports

Estimates of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) drive policy and planning decisions for surface transportation. No similar metric is computed for cycling and walking. What approaches could be used to compute such a metric on the state level? This report discusses three such approaches, identifies the advantages and disadvantages of each, and applies them to Washington State. The first approach employs travel survey data. The second approach is sample-based using pedestrian and bicycle count data. The third approach is an aggregate demand model approach using demographic data combined with count data. Due to data limitations, none of these methods could be …

Making Every Mode Count In Washington State, Krista Nordback

TREC Project Briefs

A NITC report by Krista Nordback of Portland State University offers a step toward establishing a performance metric by which statewide progress with respect to bicycling and walking can be evaluated. The Washington State Pedestrian and Bicycle Miles Traveled Project discusses the relative merits of three different methods which can be used to compute bicycle miles traveled (BMT) and pedestrian miles traveled (PMT).

A Model For Better Crosswalk Safety, Miguel Figliozzi

TREC Project Briefs

NITC researchers from Portland State University developed models to find what factors affected vehicles’ compliance with pedestrian safety laws.

The results suggest that treatments discouraging accelerating toward a crosswalk could help increase pedestrian safety.

Mobile Cities, Modelling Policies: Importing/Exporting The Singapore ‘Model’ Of Development, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

A recent focus of research has been the making, mobility and mutations of urban policy. The global circulation of urban models – or exemplars of best practices and values that are deemed to be desirable and achievable – has gained significant traction. Such models are those that are dislocated from their place of origin, and transplanted to an adopted site. This chapter draws on the case of Singapore: one of the most emblematic examples of an importable/exportable urban model – a prototype for growth-oriented urban development with its normative and technical plans for growth and management – to foreground problems …

Impact Of Bike Facilities On Residential Property Prices, Wei Shi

PSU Transportation Seminars

As many cities are investing in street improvement or transportation infrastructure upgrade projects to provide better bike access or more complete bike networks, the economic value of bike infrastructure and bike facilities remains an area where many practitioners, planners and policy makers are seeking more conclusive evidence. Using residential property values as indicators of consumer preferences for bicycle infrastructure, this study focuses on advanced bike facilities which represent higher levels of bike priority or bike infrastructure investments that have been shown to be more desirable to a larger portion of the population. Estimating ordinary least squares hedonic pricing models and …

Exploring The Positive Utility Of Travel And Mode Choice, Patrick Allen Singleton

PSU Transportation Seminars

Why do people travel? We traditionally assume traveling is a means to an end, travel demand is derived (from the demand for activities), and travel time is to be minimized. Recently, scholars have questioned these axioms, noting that some people may like to travel, use travel time productively, enjoy the experience of traveling, or travel for non-utilitarian reasons. The idea that travel can provide benefits and may be motivated by factors beyond reaching activity destinations is known as “the positive utility of travel” or PUT.

This study presents a conceptual and empirical look at the positive utility of travel and …

Improving Trip Data For Livable Communities, Kelly Clifton

TREC Project Briefs

NITC researchers work to refine a framework for trip generation that includes people walking, biking and riding transit.

Plans And Living Practices For The Green Campus Of Portland State University, Yoon Jung Choi, Minjung Oh, Jihye Kang, Loren Lutzenhiser

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study aims to comprehend Portland State University (PSU)’s green campus strategies, and students’ level of knowledge and living practices relating to green campus. PSU’s sustainable campus plan has been nationally and internationally recognized. A literature review, field investigation, and interviews were conducted to ascertain the PSU green campus strategies. This study also used a survey to understand students’ level of knowledge and practices. The survey results were analyzed by SPSS. Green campus projects at PSU were operated by official organizations and funded according to PSU’s long term plans in 12 multilateral categories: administration, energy, water, climate action, green buildings, …

Improving Trip Generation Methods For Livable Communities, Kelly J. Clifton, Nico Larco, Kristina Marie Currans, Jael Wettach-Glosser

TREC Final Reports

Recent efforts to improve trip generation data available for transportation impact analysis of new development include the collection of multimodal trip generation data, development of models that account for the built environment, and new recommendations for practice. Building on a long line of research on transportation and built environment, many studies have identified important features of the surrounding built environment that most impact trip rates and mode shares, building on a long line of research on transportation and the built environment. Despite these improvements in data and methods, less attention is placed on identifying the conditions of the site itself …

Evaluation Of An Electric Bike Pilot Project At Three Employment Campuses In Portland, Oregon, John Macarthur, Nicholas Kobel, Jennifer Dill, Zakari Mumuni

TREC Final Reports

Oregon, and Portland in particular, is internationally known for its love for bikes. Not only does the region have some of the highest bike ridership but the Oregon bike manufacturing industry is quickly growing. Oregon’s electric bike (e-bike) market is also growing but little data are available on the potential market and e-bike user behavior and interest. Only a limited amount of research has explored the potential new market segments for e-bikes and the economic, operational, safety, and transportation issues surrounding e-bikes in the United States. This report examines the results of an electric bike (e-bike) pilot project, which took …

Could E-Bikes Spur A New Wave Of Biking In America?, John Macarthur

TREC Project Briefs

In this NITC study, researchers provided participants with electric bicycles to use for a ten-week trial period and surveyed them about the experience.

Overpopulation And The Impact On The Environment, Doris Baus

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this research paper, the main focus is on the issue of overpopulation and its impact on the environment. The growing size of the global population is not an issue that appeared within the past couple of decades, but its origins come from the prehistoric time and extend to the very present day. Throughout the history, acknowledged scientists introduced the concept of “overpopulation” and predicted the future consequences if the world follows the same behavioral pattern. According to predictions, scientists invented the birth control pill and set population control through eugenics. Despite that, population continued to increase and fight with …

A Pathway Linking Smart Growth Neighborhoods To Home-Based Pedestrian Travel, Steven R. Gehrke, Kelly J. Clifton

PSU Transportation Seminars

Land development patterns, urban design, and transportation system features are inextricably linked to pedestrian travel. Accordingly, planners and decision-makers have turned to integrated transportation-land use policies and investments to address the pressing need for improvements in physical activity levels via the creation of walkable communities. However, policy questions regarding the identification of smart growth indicators and their connection to walking remain unanswered, because most studies of the built environment determinants of pedestrian travel: (a) represent the built environment with isolated metrics instead of as a multidimensional construct and (b) model this transportation-land use relationship outside of a multidirectional analytic framework. …

Measuring Stress Levels For Real-World On-Road Cyclists: Do Bicycle Facilities, Intersections And Traffic Levels Affect Cyclists' Stress?, Álvaro Caviedes

PSU Transportation Seminars

This research effort presents a novel approach to measure cyclists’ stress: real-world, on-road measurements of physiological stress as cyclists travel across different types of bicycle facilities in various traffic volumes. This study addresses the question of how the characteristics of a bicycle trip affect stress levels using physiological data, specifically GSR. As detailed in the next section, GSR-based studies have been successfully employed for many years in the psychological field to recognize and associate emotions and behaviors to physiological responses. The three research questions examined in this study are: i) Does peak traffic impact cyclists’ stress levels? ii) Do intersections …

State Efforts To Fight Climate Change, Rebecca Lewis, Robert Zako

TREC Project Briefs

NITC Project Brief: A research project examines efforts in four states to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions caused by the transportation sector.

The Freeman Performing Arts Center, Community Design Center

Community Design Center Project Reports

The Freeman Performing Arts Center marks the threshold between prairie and civic life. This small agricultural community of 1,300 has an outsized Anabaptist music tradition recognized nationally. The 37,000 sf hall-type building unifies a miscellaneous collection of public buildings and landscapes at the southwest corner of the town’s one-mile grid. The center’s massing projects an ascending system of familiar gable roofs, which absorb the fly tower into a composition reflective of pragmatic building forms. The principal face of the building is a translucent curtain wall that illuminates interior massing—a beacon on the prairie. A thru-Porch celebrates transitions between the prairie’s …

Improving Walkability Through Control Strategies At Signalized Intersections, Sirisha Murthy Kothuri, Andrew Kading, Edward J. Smaglik, Christopher Sobie

TREC Final Reports

As cities and communities nationwide seek to develop Complete Streets that foster livability and accommodate all modes, signal timing control strategies that include pedestrians in the operational decision process are gaining importance. This research tested several efficiency-focused pedestrian treatments – coordination, actuated-coordination, free operation, short cycle lengths – and safety-focused treatment including leading pedestrian intervals and Barnes Dance. Using a software-in-the-loop simulation, the operational impacts of these treatments on all users (vehicles, heavy vehicles, bicyclists and pedestrians) at an intersection were evaluated. Results showed that among the efficiency-based treatments, free operation was most beneficial for reducing minor-street pedestrian delays. Both …

Women In The Trades: An Interview With Connie Ashbrook And Nora Mullane, Liza Morehead

Metroscape

Liza Morehead interviews Connie Ashbrook and Nora Mullane.

Connie Ashbrook is the Executive Director and founder of Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc., Previous to her years with OTI, she worked in the trades for seventeen years as a dump truck driver, carpenter apprentice, and elevator constructor. She was the first woman in Oregon to become licensed as an elevator mechanic.

Nora Mullane has been a union journey-person carpenter, general contractor, building inspector, and City of Portland Bureau of Developments Services supervisor. Nora says that successfully completing her carpenter’s apprenticeship program has served her well throughout her entire career, and life in general, …

The Landscape: Tualatin, Liza Morehead

Metroscape

This edition of The Landscape takes a brief look at the city of Tualatin, Oregon, located twelve miles south of Portland, and examines its population, growth, and demographics, as well as defining features and points of interest.

Growing Portland: Not Whether, But How, Richard Barringer Phd, Joseph Mcdonnell Phd

Faculty Publications

In the 400 years since European settlement, Portland has survived the ravages of war, invasion, pestilence, conflagration, and economic depression and recession. Once a renowned manufacturing, trade, and shipping center, it now enjoys what might be called a post-industrial renaissance as a vibrant center for the arts, education, entertainment, and banking, legal, and medical services; and is frequently cited as one of America’s best small cities. As a result, Portland is growing today and is positioned for more growth.

The question, then, is not whether Portland will grow, but how well it will grow; or, how best to manage the …

The Economic Impact Of City-County Consolidations: A Synthetic Control Approach, Joshua Hall, Josh Matti, Yang Zhou

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Although more rapid development is a primary motivation behind city-county consolidations, few empirical studies explore the impact of consolidation on economic development. No studies look at government consolidation in the United States using modern causal inference methods. We use the synthetic control method (SCM) to examine the long-term impact of city-county consolidations on per capita income, population, and employment. The results from the three cases explored indicate that consolidation does not guarantee development and actually can have negative effects. Additionally, consolidation can deepen the urban-rural divide by accelerating the decline of rural populations relative to those of urban areas. The …

Visions For Waterville's Future: Perceptions Of Its Residents, Alex Wolansky

Honors Theses

Mills and factories in the United States have steadily been closing down as industry is outsourced in the globalized economy. Cities that were once prosperous face decay and often have no hopeful future outlook. Post-industrial towns face major unemployment and poverty and are not typically places for re-investment. But Rust Belt cities like Baltimore, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Milwaukee and St. Louis are not the only post- industrial hubs that are struggling. Many small towns in rural areas once thrived from manufacturing and are becoming forgotten. Local governments, policy makers, urban planners, developers and scholars are working to figure …

Introduction To Data Science For Transportation Researchers, Planners, And Engineers, Liming Wang

TREC Final Reports

Building on the successful scientific computing training program offered by the Software Carpentry (http://www.software-carpentry.org/), this course exposes students to the best practices in data science through hands-on lab sessions. Using transportation data and examples, it also aims to help students tackle the challenge of “drinking from a hose” when dealing with the overwhelming amount of data that is increasingly common in transportation research and practice.

Although computing is now an integral part of every aspect of science and engineering, transportation research included, most students of science, engineering, and planning are never taught how to build, use, validate, and share software …

The Potential And Limits Of Extended Producer Responsibility: A Comparative Analysis Study, Jessica Bass

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis draws on the concept of product stewardship and its focus on incorporating all of the actors in a product’s lifecycle into steps to take responsibility for waste management. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) recognizes the producer’s distinct potential to consider and drive change in waste management. Producers often serve like mediators between the design and use phases of a product’s lifecycle. Through EPR policies, the producer takes on the costs of ensuring safe end-of-life waste disposal. In this way, EPR can be expected to help relieve the public of some of the costs of waste disposal, and to support …

Do People’S Perceptions Of Neighborhood Bikeability Match “Reality”?, Liang Ma, Jennifer Dill

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Do people perceive the built environment the same as we objectively measure it? If not, what are the relative roles of the objective versus the perceived environment on bicycling behavior? This study, based on data from Portland, Oregon, explored the match or mismatch between the objective and perceived bicycling environment and how it affects people’s bicycling behavior. The descriptive analysis indicated a fair agreement between perceived and objective measures. Older adults, women having children, less-educated and lower-income persons, and those who bicycle less tended to perceive their high-bikeable environment (measured objectively) as being a low-bikeable environment. In addition to the …

The History And Development Of British Tramways And The Impacts That It Had, Noam Schuldenrein

Honors College Theses

The thesis is about the general history of the British tramways and how they developed throughout England in the nineteenth century. It includes their general development; how it affected England economically; how it affected England demographically; and how it affected the surrounding neighborhoods in England.

Brentwood-Darlington: Say Our Name! Neighborhood Assessment And Action Plan, Laura Combs, Samuel Garcia, Olivia Holden, Amanda Howell, Andrea Pastor, Shannon Williams

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

We wrote this plan with two audiences in mind: the city agencies that will be responsible for the large scale capital improvement projects; and engaged neighborhood residents who will be the steadfast advocates driving the direction of Brentwood-Darlington’s evolution. Our hope is the plan serves as a guide and a touchstone—a reminder of where the neighborhood has been, and an arrow pointing the way to the community’s shared vision of the future.

Umatilla Together, Amber Ayers, Belen Herrera, Carlos Callava, Nate Miller, Samuel Roberts, Laura Voss

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Umatilla Together sets the stage for great opportunities and seeks to inspire the residents of Umatilla to imagine what your city could be: a truly desirable place to live, work, learn, and play. Great places are not created by accident. They are the result of a vision, leadership, planning, public investment, unrelenting tenacity on the part of city champions, and strategic, meaningful partnerships.

Summary Umatilla Together plans in English and Spanish are included here as supplemental files.

Cross-Laminated Timber: An Innovative Building Material Takes Hold In Oregon, Andrew Crampton

Metroscape

In a rapidly urbanizing world fueled by the enormous demand to house and shelter billions of people in the upcoming decades, building materials must be utilized that have a lighter climate impact than today’s commonly used energy-intensive building materials.

Is there an alternative to the energy-intensive concrete jungle that is both sustainable and financially viable? How can our built environment enhance, rather than destroy, the natural environment? Part of the solution lies in a recent innovation that uses one of the world’s oldest building materials, wood, with a modern twist: cross-laminated timber, often abbreviated as CLT. These wood-based structures can …