Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Eagle Point School District Enrollment Forecasts 2014-15 To 2023-24, Portland State University. Population Research Center, Charles Rynerson, Vivian Siu, Kevin Christopher Rancik

School District Enrollment Forecast Reports

This report presents the results of a demographic study conducted by the Portland State University Population Research Center. The study includes analyses of population, housing and enrollment trends affecting the Eagle Point School District (EPSD) in recent years, forecasts of district‐wide enrollment by grade level and total enrollment of individual schools for the 2014‐ 15 to 2023‐24 school years.

Tigard-Tualatin School District Enrollment Forecast Update 2014-15 To 2023-24, Portland State University. Population Research Center, Charles Rynerson, Ryan Dann

School District Enrollment Forecast Reports

This report presents the results of a demographic study conducted by the Portland State University Population Research Center (PRC) for the Tigard‐Tualatin School District (TTSD). The study includes analysis of population, housing and enrollment trends affecting the District in recent years, estimates of the impacts of housing development on TTSD enrollment, and forecasts of district‐wide and individual school enrollments for the 2014‐15 to 2023‐24 school years.

Science Fiction Cities, Carl Abbott

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

This essay argues that cities can also be front and center as vividly imagined worlds whose characteristics play active roles that help to structure the arc of the story, forcing and constraining the choices that the characters make.

Reconstructing Oregon’S Frankentax: Improving The Equity, Financial Sustainability, And Efficiency Of Property Taxes, City Club Of Portland (Portland, Or.)

City Club of Portland

No abstract provided.

From Transit Stop To Urbanity Node: Field Audit For Measuring Livability At The Transit Stop, Deni Ruggeri

TREC Final Reports

This research proposal addresses issues of livability at the transit stop. American transit systems have historically been “shoehorned” into existing street networks designed predominantly for cars and trucks. While much research exists on livability and walkability in the context of urban and suburban streets and blocks, bus stops are greatly understudied. This research focused on bus stops and aimed at analyzing their performance in terms of livability, with particular emphasis on perceptions. Our definition of livability was expanded to include considerations of safety and maintenance, cleanliness, imageability and vitality, which have been shown to affect people’s perceptions of livability and …

Using Indicators Projects As Prompts For Exploring Equity: A Case Study Of Greater Portland Pulse, Meg Merrick, Diane Besser, Shelia A. Martin

Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies Publications

This paper describes the process that the Greater Portland Pulse (GPP) initiated to incorporate the measurement of progress toward social equity into the project. While equity may appear to be a widely accepted priority for communities, the GPP process created a dialogue that was sometimes contentious but also profoundly educational for the participants revealing some of the complexities, not only of the issue of equity, but the challenges (particularly the inadequacy of available data) and trade-offs that are inescapable when using conventional data sets.

Additionally, this paper discusses some of the consequences of a process that, while incorporating equity values …

An Anthropology Of Urbanism: How People Make Places (And What Designers And Planners Might Learn From It), Brooke D. Wortham-Galvin

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

In their word play on what design praxis might succeed the New Urbanism movement in the United States, the July 2013 article “Newest Urbanism” in the Architect introduced to the uninitiated the concept of tactical urbanism. Defining tactical urbanism as "temporary, cheap, and usually grassroots interventions—including so-called guerrilla gardens, pop-up parks, food carts, and 'open streets' projects—that are designed to improve city life on a block-by-block, street-by-street basis," the article claims that it took this approach to shaping the city less than a decade to mainstream into the practices of US cities and firms alike. While Architect used the term …

Durability Assessment Of Recycled Concrete Aggregates For Use In New Concrete: Phase I - Revised, Jason H. Ideker, Matthew P. Adams, Jennifer Tanner, Angela Jones

TREC Final Reports

The primary goal of this research project was to investigate the long-term durability of concrete incorporating recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) through accelerated laboratory testing. Overall it was found that modifications to standard aggregate testing and characterization standards were necessary for testing RCA. This included modifications to standard tests including ASTM C 128, C 305 and C 1260. It was found that the potential for alkalisilica reactivity did exist for new concrete containing RCA. The characteristics of the RCA also had a profound effect on ASR related expansion. RCA with a higher content of reactive coarse or fine aggregate (compared to …

Influence Of Road Cross Section On Access Spacing, Karen K. Dixon, Yanfen Zhou, J. L. Gattis

TREC Final Reports

This report presents a study on the influences of select cross-sectional-related design elements (specifically median configurations and bicycle lanes) and their impact on crash severity and type, as well as the associated driver gap acceptance for turning maneuvers at midblock driveway locations on urban arterials. The primary goal of this proposed research is to better understand how the median and bicycle lane configurations can influence safety and operations at driveway locations. The research team utilized crash data, traffic data, and roadway information from driveway locations in the U.S. states of Oregon, Arkansas and Oklahoma. The project team supplemented the data …

Making Streets Into Complete Streets: An Evidence-Based Design Manual, Marc Schlossberg, John Rowell

TREC Final Reports

The predominant approach toward street function on major roads in the United States is to emphasize mobility and throughput of vehicles. The “Complete Streets” movement challenges some of this paradigm, emphasizing that streets should accommodate multiple modes of travel and should often be considered destinations themselves. Often, efforts to transform streets into Complete Streets face resistance from both professional communities of traffic engineers and from the public that their design will reduce throughput and vehicle flow..Complete Streets advocates, in some cases, counter that while their designs often create pedestrian and cycling space from areas that were previously occupied by automobiles, …

Data-Driven Illustrations For Climate Smart Communities Scenarios, Nancy Yen-Wen Cheng, Kim Ellis, Molly Vogt, Clint Chiavarini, Justin Houk, Brian Lockyear, Boyce Postma, Peggy Morell

TREC Final Reports

Public investment in transit and streetscape improvements can encourage private development, and subsequently increase transit ridership and reduce pollution. Portland, OR’s Metro regional government has developed investment scenarios designed to reduce light vehicle carbon emissions. Adopting a regional scenario requires public review and consultation with local governments who will implement the comprehensive plans and land-use regulations. Decision makers and residents need to understand potential benefits: ways in which targeted investment could generate more livable urban spaces while reducing greenhouse gases. Illustrations can show how the investments could shape the pedestrian experience through trees, street furniture, buildings, open spaces, etc.

This …

Longview Public Schools Enrollment Forecasts 2013-14 To 2022-23, 2027-28, And 2023-33, Portland State University. Population Research Center, Vivian Siu, Charles Rynerson

School District Enrollment Forecast Reports

The Longview Public Schools (LPS) requested that the Portland State University Population Research Center (PRC) prepare enrollment forecasts for use in the District’s long‐range planning. The current study integrates information about LPS, providing a snapshot of demographic, housing, and school enrollment patterns and trends. This report also presents an extended district‐wide enrollment forecasts for each of the ten year period from 2013‐14 to 2022‐23 and for five year increments beyond the first decade for 2027‐28 and 2032‐33.

Modeling Of Dc Link Capacitor Current Ripple For Electric Vehicle Traction Converter, Lei Jin, Julia Zhang

TREC Final Reports

Contemporary Full Hybrid Electric Vehicle/Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle/Battery Electric Vehicle (FHEV/PHEV/BEV) products use one or more DC/AC power converters, also known as traction inverters, to convert the DC voltage/current provided by the traction battery to the AC voltage/current to drive the traction motor(s). Large and bulky DC link capacitors are used at the input of the traction inverter to provide a smooth DC input voltage. Those DC link capacitors, occupying almost 50% of the space in the whole package, can contribute to more than 20% of the total cost of the traction inverter. They are generally over designed to assure …

Multimodal Data At Signalized Intersections: Strategies For Archiving Existing And New Data Streams To Support Operations And Planning & Fusion And Integration Of Arterial Performance Data, Kristin A. Tufte, Christopher M. Monsere, Sirisha Murthy Kothuri, Carl Scott Olson

TREC Final Reports

There is a growing interest in arterial system management due to the increasing amount of travel on arterials and a growing emphasis on multimodal transportation. The benefits of archiving arterial-related data are numerous. This research report describes our efforts to assemble and develop a multimodal archive for the Portland-Vancouver region. There is coverage of data sources from all modes in the metropolitan region; however, the preliminary nature of the archiving process means that some of the data are incomplete and samples. The arterial data sources available in the Portland-Vancouver region and that are covered in this report include data for …

An Activity-Based Learning Module For Human Factors In The Introductory Transportation Engineering Course, David Hurwitz

TREC Final Reports

This project summary report describes the execution of OTREC Project #517 (An ActivityBased Learning Module for Human Factors in the Introductory Transportation Engineering Course)

Improving The Representation Of The Pedestrian Environment In Travel Demand Models, Phase I, Kelly J. Clifton, Patrick Allen Singleton, Christopher Devlin Muhs, Robert J. Schneider, Peter Lagerwey

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

There is growing support for improvements to the quality of the walking environment, including more investments to promote pedestrian travel. Metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) are improving regional travel demand forecasting models to better represent walking and bicycling and to expand the evaluative capacity of models to address policy-relevant issues like air quality, public health, and the smart allocation of infrastructure and other resources. This report describes an innovative, spatially disaggregate method to integrate walking activity into trip-based travel models. Using data for the Portland, OR, metropolitan area, the method applies trip generation at a new micro-scale spatial unit: a 264-foot-by-264-foot …

Addressing Homeless Encampments On Public Right-Of-Way: A Knowledge Transfer Project, Andrée Tremoulet

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

This technology transfer project provided practical information about how to address homeless encampments on public right-of-way to transportation professionals, including Federal Highway Administration officials, Oregon public works directors, transportation educators and students.

Through a previous project funded by OTREC and Oregon Department of Transportation, research had been conducted about the extent of the issue among state transportation agencies and how they were addressing it. The prior grant also provided for the development of a Best Practices Guide. The current project enabled staff to present the results of the research to transportation practitioners and policy analysts through multiple forums and media …

Overlooked Destinations: Suburban Nodes, Centers, And Trips To Strips, Nico Larco, Robert Parker

TREC Final Reports

This study looks at travel to typical suburban commercial strips by residents living within one-third of a mile of the strip by focusing on six sites – four in the Portland, OR., metro area and two in the Atlanta, GA., metro area. The study mapped pedsheds around the commercial strips in these sites and found significant increases in network extents when formal and informal pedestrian paths were added to street centerline data. Informal networks such as goat paths through vacant land and cuts in fences were widespread and suggest a pent-up demand for route directness. Travel surveys of residents found …

The Application Of Smart Phone, Weight-Mile Truck Data To Support Freight-Modeling, Performance Measures And Planning, Katherine E. Bell, Miguel A. Figliozzi

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Oregon is one of the few states that currently charge a commercial truck weight-mile tax (WMT). The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) has developed a data-collection system – Truck Road Use Electronics (TRUE) – to simplify WMT collection. The TRUE system includes a smart phone application that collects and records Global Positioning System (GPS) data. The TRUE data has enormous advantages over GPS data used in previous research due to its level of geographic detail and the potential to also integrate trip origin and destination, vehicle class, and commodity-type data. This research evaluates the accuracy of the TRUE data and …

Route Segment Level Analysis Of Bus Safety Incidents, James G. Strathman, Sung Moon Kwon

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper analyzes collision and non-collision incidents that occurred on TriMet’s bus system over a near two-year period. The bus route network was decomposed into stop and line haul segments, and a typology of models was estimated from segment level incident, risk exposure, and roadway feature data. The frequency of non-collision incidents – mainly slips, trips and falls – was estimated to be primarily related to associated risk exposure variables. The frequency of collision incidents was also estimated to be related to risk exposure variables, as well as a number of roadway design variables. The findings serve as an initial …

Contesting Sustainability: Bikes, Race, And Politics In Portlandia, Amy Lubitow, Thaddeus R. Miller

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Despite decade old calls for a "just sustainability," urban sustainability policy and practice remains oriented toward environmental outcomes and eco-lifestyle projects. Notions of equity, justice, and inclusion continue to be marginalized in favor of technological solutions, such as green buildings, that are visible, easy to implement, and help to promote economic development. By examining a controversy over a bikeway development project in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood in Northeast Portland, Oregon, this article explores how despite apolitical appeals to broadly shared values or visions of what a sustainable city ought to look like, sustainability projects can be—and perhaps should be—hotly contested. …

A Comparison Of Bicyclists’ Performance Characteristics At Urban, Suburban, And Dedicated Path Intersections In Oregon, Kirk Paulsen, Christopher M. Monsere, Sam R. Thompson, Miguel A. Figliozzi

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This presentation provides an overview of the following research objectives

• To develop operational guidelines for timing and phasing of bicycle-specific traffic signals or modifications that can be made to existing signals to better accommodate bicycles.
• To develop engineering guidelines for the design of bicycle-specific traffic signals.

Poultry And The Press: Urban Chickens And The National Stage, Nicole Iroz-Elardo

Metroscape

After a 2010 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) conference bus erupted into chatter from a tour guide’s passing comment about a new ordinance allowing chickens into Minneapolis backyards, I wondered about the magnitude of the urban chicken movement. Legalizing urban chickens is, in fact, occurring more often. A Lexus-Nexus Power Search of the term ‘chicken ordinance’ does not even register a hit in 2000. Yet in 2010, 141 articles discussed potential changes to urban chicken ordinances. Such an explosion of national news coverage suggests urban chicken keeping reaches beyond Portland’s borders.

What is driving this interest in urban …

Indicators Of The Metroscape: Low And Very Low Birthweight Babies, Elizabeth Morehead

Metroscape

A brief look at the incidence of low and very low birthweight babies in the Portland Metropoltan region, probable causes, and emerging trends.

Oregon City School District Enrollment Forecasts 2013-14 To 2022-23, Portland State University. Population Research Center, Charles Rynerson, Vivian Siu, Ryan Dann

School District Enrollment Forecast Reports

This report presents a range of three scenarios of district‐wide enrollment forecasts by grade level for the Oregon City School District (OCSD) for the 10 year period between 2013‐14 and 2022‐23. Each enrollment forecast scenario is related to population forecasts that incorporate different assumptions about growth within the District, with the primary differences being the contribution of net migration to the District’s population and age distribution. Individual school forecasts consistent with the middle range forecast scenario are also presented for the 10 year period.

Community Breeders: Animal Husbandry In Portlandia, Kurt Spickerman

Metroscape

A brief exploration of animal husbandry within the city limits of Portland, Oregon, covering residents' experiences with raising chickens, goats, bees and other farm animals. Touches on new concerns relating to local sources for food, community building, and drawbacks faced by some residents.

On The Edge Of Agriculture: An Interview With Narendra Varma And Gianna Banducci Of Our Table Cooperative, Mike Simpson

Metroscape

One mile outside Portland’s urban growth boundary near Sherwood OR, a new farm business is modeling innovative practices that could become the future of Oregon agriculture. The Our Table Cooperative brings stakeholders from all levels of the food system together as member-owners within the same organizational structure. By sharing costs and infrastructure, the cooperative seeks to show that small and medium scale agricultural production can be economically viable. The farm also emphasizes diversity of crops over industrial efficiency, and its management is based on dynamic governance.. Recently, Metroscape sat down with two members of the cooperative to discuss their vision, …

Stafford Triangle, Jeremy R. Young

Metroscape

This year, the Portland metro area recognizes the 40th anniversary of Senate Bill 100’s signing into law by the late Governor Tom McCall. This landmark legislation paved the way for Oregon’s renowned land use planning system and pioneering urban growth boundaries. Since the implementation of the state’s first urban growth boundary (UGB) in the 1970s, the UGB has become a model for anti-urban sprawl efforts nationwide and has helped to preserve vast areas of agricultural and forest lands statewide. Since its inception, however, the UGB has excited controversy, especially in the state’s most populous area: Portland metro. This year, as …

The Landscape Of Food Production, Nathan Mcclintock, Jeremy R. Young, Taren Evans, Mike Simpson, Jacinto Santos

Metroscape

The celebration of the 40th anniversary of Senate Bill 100 provides us with an excellent opportunity to reflect on metropolitan Portland’s agricultural landscape. The landmark legislation passed in 1973 has helped to protect countless acres of the region’s precious agricultural soils—some of the richest known in the world—from development. Perhaps most importantly, however, the legislation has helped to preserve the important bond between the region’s urban areas and their hinterland, and to secure the region’s local food system. A renewed interest in growing food in one’s own backyard, however, has shown in recent years that urban dwellers need not rely …

Relocation Of Homeless People From Odot Rights-Of-Way, Ellen M. Bassett, Andrée Tremoulet, Allison Moe

TREC Final Reports

This research project consists of an investigation of responses to homeless encampments on rights-of-way owned by Departments of Transportation (DOTs). While DOTs are not housing or social service agencies, their role as major public landowners involves them in dealing with the consequences of homelessness. The research goals included analyzing the prevalence of the problem, documenting how DOTs are responding, and culling from this data information that could be used as a basis for creating a best practices guide. The research included a single mixed-methods, in-depth case study, electronic surveys of practitioners and follow-up interviews. Products consist of two reports (included …