Urban Studies Commons^™

Vision Zero Oregon, Marielle Brown, Nick Falbo, Brandy Steffen, Michelle Van Tijen, Ben Weber

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Vision Zero Oregon (VZO) is a street safety philosophy that aims to create streets where no one will be killed or seriously injured. Vision Zero Oregon prioritizes road safety above all else. Every life is worth more than an increase in speeds or road capacity for vehicles. Achieving Vision Zero Oregon goals will require a shift in the focus of policy, laws and enforcement, and the formation of a new relationship between residents and their streets, and revolution in the way transportation departments operate their streets. This project takes on one part of this complex topic, focusing on community interest, …

David Hill Urban Reserve Concept Plan, Joey Shearer, Misty Schymtzik, Lisa Peffer, Ryan Michie, Lindsey Kuipers, Krissy Hostetler

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

As the City of Forest Grove continues to grow, the David Hill Urban Reserve presents opportunities to accommodate development needs for the next 20 to 50 years. While this type of growth is not expected to occur for many years, a concept plan for the area is required by Metro to guide how the area should develop.The Concept Plan for the DHUR begins to create a framework for accommodating future development in an efficient manner, sensitive to natural features, topography, and views. This plan is not intended to be a complete “concept plan” under Metro’s definition and does not meet …

Reimagining Weston, Nathan Emerson, Zach Gustafson, Holly Howell, Carrie Pipinich, Matthew Rohrbach

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Weston was once a prosperous city, home to pioneers, farmers, and an active downtown. Today however, Weston faces many challenges common to communities throughout rural Oregon. The key question for this small city is: How can Weston capitalize on homegrown and regional assets in order to revitalize downtown and maximize the well-being of the community as a whole? Reimagining Weston provides a blueprint for the community to answer this question. This plan is a proactive effort by Weston residents to shape the livability and prosperity of their community over the next 20 years. Reimagining Weston consists of three primary parts: …

Reinventing The Wheel, Amy Hesse, April Cutter, Spencer Williams, Reza Farhoodi

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

The Reinventing the Wheel project is the process of developing a Bicycle Refinement Plan for the City of Redmond. A group of volunteer urban & regional planning graduate students from Portland State University, known as b:spoke Planning & Design, has been charged with developing strategies to increase bicycle ridership and remove barriers to transit options in Redmond. The project is a "refinement plan", as it involves the refinement of and building upon existing City plans such as the Transportation Systems Plan (TSP), Bicycle Master Plan, and Parks & Recreation Trails Master Plan. This project was conducted under the supervision of …

Amplify Pdx, Becky Bodonyi, Julia Crain, Rowan Steele, David West

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

A two-pronged process, AmplifyPDX required managing two parallel and concurrent but mutually informative processes: creation of the Community Assessment Workbook as well as implementation of the Workbook in a particular community. To develop the Workbook, Mosaic Planning Group conducted a literature review, assembled an Advisory Committee and interviewed key informants with expertise on neighborhood planning, community organizing, and the Portland metropolitan region. Finally, in order to develop a user-friendly and effective community assessment workbook, Mosaic Planning Group tested certain elements of the Workbook in the Southeast Portland neighborhoods of Brentwood-Darlington and Woodstock. This project was conducted under the supervision of …

Town Center Vision, Caroline Chapman, Jacqueline Gruber, Neil Riordan

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

In December 2010, City Council passed Resolution 2261 which directed the City’s Committee for Citizen Involvement (CCI) to prepare a more formal action plan for smart growth and sustainability. Emerald Solutions, a team of Portland State Master’s students, was tasked with furthering these efforts by completing a Sustainability and Smart Growth Pilot Plan for the Town Center Pilot Area (TCPA). The plan works to develop a complete concept, structure, and community outreach process that will guide the City in the creation of a broader, citywide plan. This project was conducted under the supervision of Sumner Sharpe and Ellen Bassett.

Portland Mercado: Community Economic Development To Revitalize, Uplift, And Empower, Abigail Cermak, David Ruelas, Bridger Wineman, Ellen Wyoming

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Realizing public goals of an inclusive and vibrant society requires an advocacy approach to urban planning and economic development. Adelante Planning outlines strategies based on research and case studies to successfully implement a Mercado as an economic development and business incubation strategy for Portland’s Latino community. A Mercado is a strategic planning approach targeted toward Latino populations and other minorities, particularly in gentrifying locations of the Portland Metro region.

This project was conducted under the supervision of Ellen Bassett, Lisa Bates, Karen Gibson, Ken Pirie, and Sumner Sharpe.

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 …

Environmental Migrants And The Future Of The Willamette Valley: A Preliminary Exploration, Alison Wicks

Institute of Metropolitan Studies Publications

This report reviews existing data and research on predicted impacts of climate change in the Northwestern United States, and specifically focuses on the level of preparedness to accommodate new population growth due to climate migration in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Climate change impacts in Oregon are predicted to be less severe than in other areas of the country. Generally, models project warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers in the Willamette Valley and other areas west of the Cascade Range. This will likely make the Willamette Valley a more desirable place for environmentally displaced people to locate. This report considers how …

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 …

Cultivating The Commons An Assessment Of The Potential For Urban Agriculture On Oakland’S Public Land, Nathan Mcclintock, Jenny Cooper

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

This is an inventory of open space with potential for agricultural production on land both owned by public agencies and within the city limits of Oakland, California. The inventory was conducted between the summer of 2008 and spring of 2009 and is part of an ongoing movement to develop a more resilient, sustainable, and just food system in Oakland. This project aims to locate Oakland’s "commons"—land that is owned by public agencies and therefore a public resource—and assess the potential for urban agriculture (UA) on this land. We hope that this assessment can be used 1) to inform policy decisions …

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. …

The Hydro-Ecology Of Everyday Life: Assessing The Social And Environmental Determinants Of Water Use In The Portland Region, Vivek Shandas

Systems Science Friday Noon Seminar Series

Driven in part by the imminent threats of population growth and climate destabilization, recent studies suggest that urban areas face severe water scarcity, with some areas in Australia and the United States already instituting moratoria on water use. While water managers traditionally avoid such crises by developing demand forecasts based on population estimates, technological developments, and weather predictions, their analysis are often at a regional scale with aggregate measures of water consumption. To date, there exists limited empirical evidence about how urban spatial structure and concomitant socio-demographic and temperature characteristics mutually interact to affect water demand at the scale of …

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.

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 …

What’S Missing In Theories Of The Residential Energy User, Mithra Moezzi, Loren Lutzenhiser

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

Residential energy use has been envisioned in varied ways, each highlighting different factors and capturing a partial truth. This paper outlines assumptions of core theories about household energy use. It gives an abbreviated list of major empirical findings framed by these theories. It then identifies a new set of "blind spots" created by overly-simple reliance on models and by data shortcomings that in combination may block development of a more sophisticated understanding of energy use. Policies and program strategies, in turn, can become oriented toward simplistic approaches to change. We point to the need for improved interpretation and elaboration of …

Sticky Points In Modeling Household Energy Consumption, Loren Lutzenhiser, Mithra Moezzi, David Hungerford, Rafael Friedmann

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

A variety of approaches have been proposed to explaining individual household energy consumption, its variation, and its potential reduction. Some focus on technology, some on costs, and some on a combination of behaviors, attitudes, intentions, and norms. All try to make sense of a problem that, from a modeling perspective, involves hundreds of potentially important factors, yet is supported by highly inadequate or at best selective data. While there is value in "doing the best one can" with the resources at hand, building a defensible science requires a cold hard look at the quality of theory, research and data. This …

Clinton Max Station Visioning, Adam Bartini, Annie Bergelin, Ben Weber, Dan Englund, Frank Tigges, Hagen Hammons, Jenny Glass, Jon Vetsch, Kellen Smith, Kyle Gallacher-Turner, Marcy Landolfo, Michelle Van Tijen, Nayana Nayak, Nicholas Falbo

Urban Design Workshop

This is the second part of the three-phase study of the Proposed Milwaukie Light Rail (PMLR) Project that was initiated by the Portland State University Urban Design Workshop in 2009. This report builds upon the initial findings that provided urban design analysis and proposals for the area surrounding the Clinton MAX Station. Aiming to achieve a larger vision to revitalize and harmoniously integrate the areas surrounding the Clinton Station, this report expands the 2009 study area to include the following:

• Hosford-Abernethy and Brooklyn neighborhoods;
• Central Eastside Industrial District (CEID);
• Willamette Riverfront; and
• Rhine Street Station area.

This report is intended …

A Brief Portrait Of Multimodal Transportation Planning In Oregon And The Path To Achieving It, 1890-1974, Carl Abbott, Sam Lowry

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

This project was designed to outline transportation chapters of a planned written history of Oregon land use planning, written in ways that would make the transportation planning profession relevant to a popular audience. The writing would focus on stories from the profession, and on historical facts and events in Oregon transportation planning history that would surprise or enlighten popular reading audiences. Technology transfer would occur through publication of one or more written pieces of work.

The result is a topical and historical tale entitled "A Brief Portrait of Multimodal Transportation Planning in Oregon and the Path to Achieving It, 1890-1974." …

The Winners In China’S Urban Housing Reform, John R. Logan, Yiping Fang, Zhanxin Zhang

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Housing reform in China has proceeded on two tracks: privatization of public housing and development of a new private housing sector. During this period of transition, rents have remained relatively low in the remaining public housing, and purchase prices offered to occupants of public housing have been well below market prices. Although these rents and prices are partly based on known formulas, there is considerable variability in how much people pay for similar apartments. This study uses 2000 Census data to estimate the housing subsidy received by the remaining renters in the public sector and purchasers of public housing, based …

Pushing Pedalers: What Drives Bicycling?, Jennifer Dill, John Gliebe

TREC Project Briefs

Using a bicycle instead of a motor vehicle for a portion of regular travel could increase people’s physical activity and help improve the nation’s health. Over 60% of personal trips are five miles or less – a reasonable distance to ride a bike – and nearly 40% are two miles or less. Yet current rates of bicycling for transportation are very low, despite the popularity of recreational cycling. Given the potential of bicycling as a means of everyday travel, why aren’t more people cycling? Very little information has been available on the relationship between different types of infrastructure, such as …

Oak Grove Neighborhood Center Plan, Adam Bartini, Åsa Bergman, Alicia Crain, Carley Francis, Kathryn Mcgovern, Nathan Mcneil

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Foothill Planning worked with the Oak Lodge Community Council and Clackamas County Urban Green to create an Oak Grove Neighborhood Center Plan. The plan sought to foster a more livable and sustainable community by strengthening the Oak Grove historic business district and improving its connections with the planned Park Avenue MAX station via two transportation corridors, McLoughlin Boulevard and the Trolley Trail. The project articulated ways that these corridors can serve as gateways into the Oak Grove neighborhood and help to revitalize the community. Cognizant of neighborhood concerns regarding previous planning process, the project relied on community input to shape …

Willamette Park Assessment And Recommendations, Julia Babcock, Bernadette Le, Maren Murphy, Amy Rossa

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

The vision of the project was to prioritize park improvements that balance the long-term sustainability and viability of the park with growing user demands. As a hybrid park, Willamette Park has a unique set of challenges related to its operations and management, as it is managed for both recreation and natural areas. The final report documents the process QPG undertook to explore opportunities and constraints in Willamette Park, and provides recommendations to guide the future planning of the park.

This project was conducted under the supervision of Sumner Sharpe and Ellen Bassett.