Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Fremont Bridgehead Reclamation Project, Ananda Gordon-Peabody, Meg Grzybowski, Ian Meisner, Grace Dudley, Paul Ahrns

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

The Fremont Bridgehead Reclamation Project aims to promote the redesign of Kerby Avenue I-405 Freeway ramps and the return of ODOT land to community-oriented uses with the hopes of providing economic restitution to displaced community members. It intends to offer an action roadmap to advance the case for ramp redesign and potential alternatives for reclaimed land uses. Collaborating with the Eliot Neighborhood Association, the student team formulated recommendations, actionable steps, and future visions for the site based on stakeholder interviews and engagement feedback. This project intends to address historical and current inequities with the goal of advancing justice, restitution, and …

Repurposing Retail To Bring Downtown Back: A Recovery Plan For Portland's South Downtown, Jamie Arnau, Luis Caro, Matthew Flodin, Amy Ly, Thiery Nanetangar, Valeria Tapia

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

The Revive Collaborative team is creating a plan to revitalize the South Downtown neighborhood and promote economic opportunity for local business owners. PSU’s vacant retail spaces present the opportunity to restructure and reimagine how these spaces might be used to uplift the neighborhood, capitalize on its existing strengths, and increase the district’s livability. Public engagement with business owners, stakeholders, students, and residents combined with current best practices have informed Revive Collaborative’s suite of recommendations for how PSU can help revitalize South Downtown from both a broad policy and granular program perspective.

82nd Avenue Tree Canopy Development, Amber Shackelford, Alvin Dimalanta, Caleb Susuras, Darby O'Brien, Eiji Toda

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

The 82nd Avenue Tree Canopy Development project envisions a climate resilient corridor with abundant tree canopy on 82nd Avenue that contributes to a more sustainable Portland. It aims to develop a community-centered tree canopy plan to mitigate negative impacts caused by the current treeless streetscape. An evidence-based analysis will guide a tree planting framework along 82nd Avenue from I-84 to Foster-Powell. The final report will include policies supporting tree canopy development, strengthening the coalition's Portland Clean Energy Fund application, fostering collaboration between landowners and government agencies, and promoting tree preservation strategies.

NixyáAwii Watikš, Owen Christofferson, Sara Goldstein, Nick Hadfield, Zhuoheng (Brian) Liu, Jenny Mazzella, Victoria Young

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

Nixyáawii Watikš is a proposed multi-use path connecting the City of Pendleton, Oregon, to Mission, a community hub containing tribal institutions and new mixed-use developments in the heart of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. In collaboration with the Tribal Planning Office of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR), the student team conducted research and explored possible trail route options based on physical constraints, stakeholder interests, community priorities, and travel needs. This project aims to propose one recommended trail solution that improves accessibility, connectivity, transportation options, and safety for all trail users.

Prioritizing Land For Housing In Warrenton, Anis Boughanmi, James Dingwell, Maddy Knickerbocker, Jovan Merceron, Miranda Seekins, Amanda Ufheil-Sommers

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

To address future housing needs, this project offers the City of Warrenton’s planning department tools to guide future housing planning and infrastructure investments. The team developed suitability analysis models to identify priority locations for future development based on environmental constraints, current infrastructure, community amenities, and emergency resilience. This process identified a more nuanced picture of developable land than the adopted analyses. The report provides recommendations to guide changes to comprehensive planning policies.

Sustaining Multimodal Choices: Examining Travel Behavior For Non-Work Trips Beyond Covid-19, Yizhao Yang, Rebecca Lewis

TREC Final Reports

Increasing the usage of sustainable travel modes requires changes in both environmental and psychological dimensions. A knowledge gap exists concerning the mechanism via which various factors interact to shape travel decision. Gaining such knowledge requires our ability to examine people’s behavioral adjustment in reaction to environmental and psychological changes or interventions.

This project uses COVID-19 as a natural experiment, treating the significant disruption induced by the pandemic as an intervention to study changes in travel behaviors and adoption of different travel choices following the COVID pandemic. This project builds upon a 2020 study conducted by the PI’s. It adopts a …

Climate Change Policies And Older Adults: An Analysis Of States’ Climate Adaptation Plans, Bryant Carlson, Jacklyn N. Kohon, Paula Carder, Dani Himes, Eiji Toda, Katsuya Tanaka

Institute on Aging Publications

Background and Objectives

As climate change drives more frequent and intense weather events, older adults face disproportionate impacts, including having the highest mortality rates from storms, wildfires, flooding, and heat waves. State governments are critical in deploying local resources to help address climate change impacts. This policy study analyzes states’ climate adaptation plans to assess the methods through which they address the impact of climate change on older adults.

Research Design and Methods

This study uses content analysis to analyze available climate change adaptation plans for all U.S. states for strategies designed to increase resilience of older adults to impacts …

Electric Vehicle Charging Stations And Oregon Federal Lands: A Prospective Policy Analysis, Cole P. Grisham

Hatfield Graduate Journal of Public Affairs

In 2022, the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) committed $100M towards expanding electric vehicle (EV) charging stations statewide. The policy goal is to provide EV fast-charging capacity[1] for four vehicles per station over the Interstate 5 and 84 corridors, along with the US 101, 97, 26, and 20 corridors. ODOT’s investment establishes clear statewide EV charging corridors for the traveling public, not only in the most populated corridors but also across the more rural parts of Oregon and connecting to neighboring states. In order for the travelling public to access public lands for recreation, economic, and other purposes by …

Confessions Of A Traffic Engineer: How The Mutcd Impacts Everything, Peter Koonce

PSU Transportation Seminars

Pete Buttigieg, USDOT Secretary of Transportation has described the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) as “notorious”… and for cities, it has been a challenging document to navigate to implement multimodal solutions. This presentation will share upcoming changes to the Manual, ideas for research to inform practice, and ways that cities can interpret data to make positive change in their community.

Webinar: Collecting And Analyzing Pedestrian Behaviors At Intersections Using Lidar Tracking Technologies, Taylor Li, Sirisha Kothuri

TREC Webinar Series

The aim of this research is to investigate pedestrian behavior at signalized intersections using state-of-the-art LIDAR sensing technologies and to use this data, along with vehicular data, to develop a more effective multimodal signal control system. In the presentation, the presenters will describe a novel method of collecting pedestrian crossing behaviors at signalized intersection, discuss the findings and implications of data analytics, and introduce a novel approach to dynamic flashing yellow arrow mechanisms to reduce the conflict between left turn vehicles and crossing pedestrians.

Explore Regional Variation In The Effects Of Built Environment On Driving With High Resolution U.S. Nationwide Data, Liming Wang

PSU Transportation Seminars

There have been numerous studies on the relationship between travel behavior and built environment over the last few decades. Prior studies have mostly focused on producing point estimates of model coefficients and ended up with a wide range of estimates for the built environment elasticity of travel behavior, including household Vehicle Miles Traveled. With few exceptions, previous studies use data from a single region or a small number of regions, and thus are not able to sufficiently investigate the regional variation in built environment elasticity.

On the other hand, a few papers have addressed the heterogeneity of elasticity among different …

Emerging Transformations In Material Use And Waste Practices In The Global South: Plastic-Free And Zerowaste In India, Katie Conlon

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study uses a qualitative approach to address limitations and blockages to current plastics reduction via semi-structured interviews with zero waste business practitioners in India. Although they are nascent, India is home to a budding zero waste community that is grappling with how to reduce plastics—via trial and error—and these stakeholders hold insights from lived experience on how plastic reduction can actualize in the Indian subcontinent. This research involved interviewing zero waste businesses and consultants and makers of plastic alternatives in India to understand their experiences with plastic reduction strategies. The key stakeholder interviews reveal key insights for moving forward …

The Use And Influence Of Health Indicators In Municipal Transportation Plans​​, Kelly Rodgers

PSU Transportation Seminars

As a social determinant of health, transportation significantly contributes to well-being through several pathways. Researchers and practitioners have called for health indicators as one way to integrate public health concerns into transportation decision-making. However, it is unclear how indicators are used and what their impact is on policy. This case study of five cities explored how health-related indicators are being used in municipal transportation plans, whether they are institutionalized into transportation agency decision-making processes, and what influence they have on administrative decision-making. In addition, this research also explored the conceptual use of indicators as it relates to social learning and …

2022 Annual Population Report Tables (April 15, 2023), Portland State University. Population Research Center

Oregon Population Estimates and Reports

The population data in the 2022 annual report tables were compiled by the Population Research Center, Portland State University, 4/15/2023.

The tables in this workbook present the 2022 population estimates produced by the Population Research Center, Portland State University. The July 1 estimates of total population for counties and cities and towns were certified December 15, 2022.

Some tables include the U.S. Census Bureau's decennial Census counts and historical population estimates produced by our Center, and other tables include calculations of change since Census 2020. Also included are population estimates for broad age groups and 5-year age groups.

Webinar: Planning And Development In Gateway Communities, Post Covid, Philip Stoker

TREC Webinar Series

Gateway communities are the small towns outside of national parks, forests, scenic rivers, and ski resorts. This presentation will highlight the housing, transportation, and development challenges that these communities faced in the aftermath of the COVID 19 pandemic. Our study captured the perspectives of over 200 communities using a questionnaire and case study approach. We present these results and highlight the innovative strategies that these communities are using to address their housing and transportation challenges.

Preserving Healing: Understanding Historic Preservation Through The Lens Of Restorative Justice In Portland, Oregon, Bri Brady

University Honors Theses

This essay explores historic preservation through a lens of restorative justice focusing on community inclusion practices. Portland, Oregon serves as the case study for the research, and aims to better understand how the past examples of preservation have carried into our preservation practices today. This essay concludes with world building ideas that focus on restoring community impact and voice in preservation practices.

Rural Gentrification And The Spillover Effect: Integrated Transportation, Housing, And Land Use Challenges And Strategies In Gateway Communities, Danya Rumore, Philip Stoker

TREC Final Reports

Small towns and cities near national parks, public lands, and other natural amenities throughout the West are experiencing rapid growth and increased visitation. These “gateway communities” comprise a significant portion of the rural West, constituting about 31% of all communities and more than 60% of those under 25,000 people. Our prior NITC-funded research shows that growth and increased tourism create a range of “big city challenges” for gateway communities, particularly a significant increase in housing prices, which pushes the local workforce to outlying areas and other rural communities. As a result, despite being small towns, many developed gateway communities have …

Pedestrian Behavior Study To Advance Pedestrian Safety In Smart Transportation Systems Using Innovative Lidar Sensors, Taylor Li, Sirisha M. Kothuri, Katherine L. Keeling, Xianfeng Terry Yang, Farzana R. Chowdhury

TREC Final Reports

Pedestrian safety is critical to improving walkability in cities. Although walking trips have increased in the last decade, pedestrian safety remains a top concern. In 2020, 6,516 pedestrians were killed in traffic crashes, representing the most deaths since 1990 (NHTSA, 2020). Approximately 15% of these occurred at signalized intersections where a variety of modes converge, leading to the increased propensity of conflicts. Current signal timing and detection technologies are heavily biased towards vehicular traffic, often leading to higher delays and insufficient walk times for pedestrians, which could result in risky behaviors such as noncompliance. Current detection systems for pedestrians at …

Evaluating Differences Between Ground-Based And Satellite-Derived Measurements Of Urban Heat: The Role Of Land Cover Classes In Portland, Oregon And Washington, D.C., Vivek Shandas, Yasuyo Makido, Aakash Nath Upraity

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

The distinction between satellite-based land surface temperature (LST) and air temperature has become an increasingly important part of managing urban heat islands. While the preponderance of urban heat research relies on LST, the emergence of a growing infrastructure of publicly available consumer oriented, ground-based sensor networks has offered an alternative for characterizing microscale differences in temperatures. Recent evidence suggests large differences between LST and air temperatures, yet discerning the reason for these differences between satellite-derived measurements of urban heat islands (UHI) and ground-based measurements of air temperature remains largely unresolved. In this study, we draw on an unusually robust and …

Webinar: Improving Recreational Trail Accessibility With A Volcanic Ash Treatment, Charles Riley, Ashton Greer

TREC Webinar Series

Recreational trails serve as valuable transportation corridors and support the health of users. Wheelchair accessibility of recreational trails depends on a variety of conditions, including slope, cross-slope, and surface characteristics. This project focused on improving the firmness and stability of a 0.2-mile section of trail that was otherwise accessible. The existing trail surface consisted of loose ¼” off-specification aggregate on native soil. A volcanic ash-Portland cement binder, studied in prior research, was batched, distributed, mixed, wetted, and compacted on site to improve the firmness and stability of the surface resulting in a smoother surface with less rolling resistance. The webinar …

Transportation Safety Culture: Where We Are And What It Means, Tara Beth Goddard

PSU Transportation Seminars

Like any healthy professional community, the transportation safety community is not homogenous or without constructive conflict. The increased attention on systems thinking – most commonly known, if not necessarily well understood, under the “Vision Zero” approach – has sparked debate among engineers, planners, academics, public health professionals, advocates, and others about where our attention should be focused to reduce the epidemic of traffic violence. The built environment? Drivers? Engineers and planners? Car culture? What IS car culture? Dr. Goddard brings together her research conducted with colleagues on police crash reporting processes, NHTSA crash investigations, attitudes and effects of the language …

Defining Dementia-Friendly Communities From The Perspective Of Those Affected, Iris Alexandra Wernher

Dissertations and Theses

More and more communities across the globe are pledging to become more "dementia friendly," yet many initiatives lack direction as to what this pledge might entail. The intent of this qualitative study, conducted in the metropolitan area of Portland and several other cities in Oregon, was to better understand how communities can increase their dementia friendliness – from the perspective of people living with dementia and their care partners. The study further aimed to clarify if and how age- and dementia-friendly efforts can be integrated.

Twenty-five community-dwelling individuals living with dementia and their 25 informal carers participated separately in semi-structured …

Impacts Of Successive Drug Legislation Shifts: Qualitative Observations From Oregon Law Enforcement [Interim Report: Year One], Kelsey S. Henderson, Christopher M. Campbell, Brian Renauer

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

This report provides the initial findings of Year 1 of a multi year project to understand the effects of successive drug policy efforts in Oregon, with special focus given to Ballot Measure 110 (M110).

Related Reports:
Key Points in Preparation for Oregon Legislative Session (2024): Examining the Multifaceted Impacts of Drug Decriminalization on Public Safety, Law Enforcement, and Prosecutorial Discretion (December 2023)

An Additive Model of Engagement: Considering The Role of Front-End Criminal Justice Agencies in Treatment Provisions [Interim Report: Year Two]

Network Effects Of Disruptive Traffic Events, Juan Medina, Xiaoyue Cathy Liu

TREC Final Reports

Current traffic management strategies are based on expected conditions caused by recurring congestion (e.g., by time of day, day of week), and can be very effective when provisions are also given for reasonable variations from such expectations. However, traffic variations due to non-recurrent events (e.g., crashes) can be much larger and difficult to predict, making also challenging efforts to identify, measure, and forecast their disruptive effects. This project explores a proactive approach to deploy a tool for managing non-recurrent congestion by identifying and quantifying the effects of disruptive traffic events at a microscopic level using a comprehensive set of data …

Perspectives From Frontline Organizations In The Portland Metro Region On Addressing Food Insecurity During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Megan Horst, Meg Grzybowski, Huijun Tan

Institute of Metropolitan Studies Publications

See video of related event: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/metropolitianstudies/155/

The main goal of this project was to contribute to an understanding of how frontline-serving food security organizations in the Portland region adapted during the COVID-19 pandemic and other emergencies in 2020-2022 and how they addressed increased rates of food insecurity among the region’s residents. We discuss the experiences of these organizations in serving the region’s food insecure residents, the many adaptations they made in the past few years, barriers experienced, and positive and critical reflections on local government. We identify lessons learned and promising ideas for how to better prepare our region, in …

Food For All In Clackamas County, Jean Dahlquist, Katie Stringer, Alexander Scott Morgan, Marwa Zidi, Kim Hack-Davidson

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

In partnership with OSU Extension Service and Clackamas County Public Health Division, this project used data and narrative research for planning community-based strategies to improve availability and access to culturally relevant, healthy food resources in Clackamas County. The student team updated demographic and health data from the past Blueprints for a Healthy Clackamas County and visualized the information through maps. Through community engagement in the Molalla area, the project helped determine food preferences, assess gaps, and provide recommendations for healthy, culturally preferred food resource availability specific to Molalla.

New Lidar System Pinpoints Pedestrian Behavior To Improve Eficiency And Safety At Intersections, Taylor Li, Sirisha M. Kothuri, Xianfeng Terry Yang

TREC Project Briefs

Pedestrian safety is critical to improving walkability in cities. To that end, NITC researchers have developed a system for collecting pedestrian behavior data using LiDAR sensors. Tested at two intersections in Texas and soon to be tested at another in Salt Lake City, Utah, the new software created by a multi-university research team is able to reliably observe pedestrian behavior and can help reduce conflicts between pedestrians and vehicles at signalized intersections. The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) is already working on implementing this new LiDAR system to improve data collection at intersections.

2023 Adult Foster Home: Resident And Community Characteristics Report On Adult Foster Homes, Ozcan Tunalilar, Sarah Dys, Paula Carder, Diana Jacoby, Sheryl Elliott, Minju Kim, Nathan Finch Parsons, Wafi Albalawi

Institute on Aging Publications

This report is the ninth installment of the Oregon Community-Based Care Study: Resident and Community Characteristics Report on Adult Foster Homes. Each year, the Institute on Aging at Portland State University (IOA/PSU) collects and reports information that can inform and advise policymakers, state and county agency staff, advocates for older adults and people with physical disabilities, and AFH owners and providers about the AFH landscape in Oregon. The results covered in this report include home and owner characteristics, staff positions, wages, and hiring challenges, consumer payer sources, additional fees and services, resident demographics, health conditions, personal care, health services use, …

Encountering Berlant Part 1: Concepts Otherwise, Ben Anderson, Stuart Aitken, Felicity Callard, Kwang Dae (Misty) Chung, Jana Bacevic, Kathryn S. Coleman, Robert F. Hayden Jr, Stephen Marotta, Multiple Additional Authors

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

In Part 1 of ‘Encountering Berlant’, we encounter the promise and provocation of Lauren Berlant's work. In 1000-word contributions, geographers and others stay with what Berlant's thought offers contemporary human geography. They amplify an encounter with their work, demonstrating how a concept, idea, or style disrupts something, opens up a new possibility, or simply invites thinking otherwise. The encounters range across the incredible body of work Berlant left us with, from the ‘national sentimentality’ trilogy through to recent work on negativity. Varying in form and tone, the encounters exemplify and enact the inexhaustible plenitude of Berlant's thought: fantasy, the case, …

Webinar: Individual Wayfinding In The Context Of Visual Impairment, Blindness, And Deafblindness, Amy Parker, Martin Swobodzinski

TREC Webinar Series

In this presentation we will highlight our past research on human indoor-outdoor wayfinding on an urban college campus. Our work is aimed at facilitating independent travel for people with blindness and low vision. Our research was funded by two successive grants from the National Institute for Transportation and Communities/US Department of Transportation. One of the central research questions sought to capture wayfinding preferences, information needs, and lived experiences of blind and low-vision pedestrian travelers. The projects afforded close collaboration with external partners, and foremost the American Printing House for the Blind. Our focus in the presentation will be on the …