Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Economic And Development Benefits Of Fixed Route Transit Through Denser Housing: A National Assessment, Arthur C. Nelson, Robert Hibberd

TREC Project Briefs

Building upon seven years of research, NITC investigators used economic analysis to determine development outcomes and land use planning implications of different fixed route transit systems (FRT). They have created, analyzed, and shared a nationwide data repository that explores links between transit station proximity and real estate rents, jobs, people, and housing. Earlier research revealed important differences in development outcomes of FRT’s during the 2000’s, but the significantly expanded data repository offers a more representative look at development outcomes after the Great Recession and with 22 new FRT systems added.

The main takeaway from this expanded analysis? Only 5% of …

Data From: Updating And Expanding Lrt/Brt/Sct/Crt Data And Analysis, Robert Hibberd, Arthur C. Nelson, Kristina M. Currans

TREC Datasets and Databases

This data supports the LRT/BRT/SCT/CRT Development Outcomes FINAL PHASE.

The FINAL PHASE will allow us to use factor/cluster analysis to create typologies of station areas to assess the extent to which types of stations (as opposed to transit systems as a whole) make a difference in economic development (based on LEHD data), and people (census data) during the periods before, during and after the Great Recession as appropriate for each system and mode. It will also allow us to refine hedonic regression analysis.

The Link Between Transit Station Proximity And Real Estate Rents, Jobs, People And Housing With Transit And Land Use Planning Implications, Arthur C. Nelson, Robert Hibberd

TREC Final Reports

This report updates and expands prior research in the genre of research that has used economic base analysis (especially shiftshare) and CoStar commercial rent data to estimate the development outcomes to transit. The study period for prior economic base analysis was 2002-2011and census data for 2000 and 2010, as well as CoStar data for 2013. Prior analysis compared development, demographic and housing outcomes associated with those transit systems during the period before the Great Recession (2000 through 2007) and during recession into recovery (2008 through 2011). Though NITC researchers found important differences in outcomes between the study periods of 2000-2007 …

Next Steps For Portland’S Neighborhood Greenways, Scott Cohen

PSU Transportation Seminars

Portland's neighborhood greenways are a key component of the city's transportation system and future. Join PBOT's new neighborhood greenway coordinator to learn how this facility type developed, near-term plans for improvements, and what the future holds for these unique bikeways.

Participants will gain a better understanding of:

• The history of Portland's neighborhood greenways
• PBOT's evaluation process for the neighborhood greenway system
• Where the system is thriving and where PBOT sees deficiencies
• How PBOT plans to address the system's development over the next three to five years

Second‐Order Devolution Or Local Activism?: Local Air Agencies Revisited, Luke Fowler, Bryant Jones

Public Policy and Administration Faculty Publications and Presentations

In response to calls from previous scholarship for further bottom-up examination of local government roles in environmental policy, the authors revisit local air agencies to examine two separate phenomena occurring in environmental federalism: one from the top-down (second- order devolution) and one from the bottom-up (local activism). Using survey data from local air agencies on devolved authorities to set air quality standards and to enforce federal and/or state standards, the authors identify three different types of local agencies: state administrative sub- units (only enforcement authority), fully devolved agencies (authority to both set and enforce standards), and activist agencies (neither authority). …

Marijuana Legalization: Beyond Yes Or No., Keith Humphreys

Center for Policy Research

This paper will first go over some basic terms and concepts, then discuss what’s going on in the world around cannabis with a focus on the United States. I will then offer some policy options to consider if New York chooses to legalize recreational cannabis.

An Analysis Of The Association Between Changes In Ambient Temperature, Fuel Economy, And Vehicle Range For Battery Electric And Fuel Cell Electric Buses, Mark Henning, Andrew R. Thomas, Alison Smyth

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

This report evaluates the effects of changes in ambient temperature on the fuel efficiency and range of zero emission buses. The report relies on data that was made available from transit agencies that have deployed hydrogen fuel cell and battery electric zero-emission buses. This analysis shows that the fuel economy and range of electric drive buses may vary significantly with changes in outdoor temperature. In planning zero emission fleet development strategy, it is important for transit agencies to understand how their zero-emission bus’s performance may change with temperature. The effects of temperature change on range may be particularly important in …

Estimating Social Costs For Various Fuel Strategies For Transit Buses, Mark Henning

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

An analysis of the social cost of pollutant emissions for a selection of fuel pathways among heavy duty transit buses using Argonne National Laboratory’s Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Transportation (GREET) model and federal guidelines on the social cost per unit mass for major pollutants.

Interventions To Improve Older Driver Safety, Bernadette A. Fausto

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Increased longevity coupled with age-related declines that compromise driving safety and fragility render older adults as vulnerable road users (Oxley & Whelan, 2008). To address this public health concern, researchers continue to investigate interventions to improve older driver safety. The current dissertation consists of two papers examining: a) the state of the literature on older driver interventions and b) the efficacy of one approach, Useful Field of View cognitive training, to reduce at-fault crash involvement. The first paper sought to identify and quantify the effects of different interventions among older adults on outcomes of crashes, on-road driving performance, self-reported outcomes …

The State Of Rural Northeast Ohio, Iryna Demko, Samuel Owusu-Agyemang

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

This research brief focuses on industries in eight rural NEO counties: Ashland, Ashtabula, Columbiana, Erie, Huron, Richland, Tuscarawas, and Wayne. These counted produced $30 billion of output and employed 300,000 people in 2018. Output growth in rural NEO counties has outperformed urban NEO and Ohio – much of this growth can be attributed to the Utica Shale development. Tuscarawas county surpassed output growth in all other counties in NEO.

Sundaas Story: A Mixed-Methods Study Of Household Sanitation Provisioning In Urban Informal Housing In India, Sarita Vijay Panchang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The aims of this research were to examine sanitation insecurity in urban informal housing through the lens of the built environment, social disparities, and health implications. While the Millennium Development Goals for halving the global proportion of people without access to safe drinking water were met ahead of schedule, progress fell short for sanitation, creating new objectives for the Sustainable Development Goals to be met in 2030. Much research in the Global South is dedicated to community-level sanitation promotion, but often presumes a rural rather than urban setting. Urban informal housing settings constitute a unique challenge due to the range …

Exploring The Equity Performance Of Bike-Sharing Systems With Disaggregated Data: A Story Of Southern Tampa, Zhiwei Chen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The rising adoption of bike-sharing systems brings significant benefits to individuals and society as a whole. However, whether these benefits are distributed throughout society in a fair manner is still an open question. This study presents a methodological framework for assessing the equity performance of bike-sharing systems, with Coast Bike Share system in southern Tampa as a case study. The framework integrates three different datasets: bike-sharing infrastructure, individual travel itineraries and individual sociodemographic attribute data. With these datasets, we model individual accessibility to activity locations using bike-sharing as the mode of transportation by analyzing the “walking-cycling-walking” process of a bike-sharing …

Residential Land Use Change In The Wissahickon Creek Watershed: Profitability And Sustainability?, John Sorrentino, Mahbubur Meenar, Donald Wargo

School of Earth & Environment Departmental Research

The Wissahickon Creek Watershed is one of five major watersheds in the Philadelphia metro region. The main objective of the work in this paper was to determine and compare the energy and environmental impacts of placing housing in the Watershed according to profitability and environmental sustainability criteria, respectively, in the context of increasing urbanization. Future population and employment for the Watershed have been projected by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission. Housing requirements for the projected populations in each municipality were computed, and their location was influenced by the local zoning ordinances. Suitability analysis using ArcGIS 10.6 generated areas for …

Perpetual Affordability Covenants: Can These Land Use Tools Solve The Affordable Housing Crisis?, Elizabeth Elia

Faculty Scholarship

Approximately 3.8 million privately-owned residential housing units in America today contain affordability covenants recorded in their chains of title. State and local agencies and the District of Columbia use these covenants to ensure that publicly-subsidized properties are actually used to provide affordable housing. With rents at all-time highs and stagnant wages, the affordable housing crisis has reached a fever pitch. House Democrats are proposing billions more in housing subsidy. To the extent those funds subsidize privately-owned housing development they, too, will be secured by affordability covenants. In response to this crisis, a new trend in high cost markets is to …

Walking Research And Opportunities From The National Cancer Institute, David Berrigan

PSU Transportation Seminars

Lack of physical activity is well established as a modifiable risk factor for cancer at multiple sites. Because walking (and rolling) are among the most common forms of physical activity in the United States, the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences of the US National Cancer Institute has supported a range of data resources, methods research and development and funding opportunities related to physical activity and cancer control across the entire cancer control continuum. In this seminar, Dr. Berrigan will share about emerging results from the 2015 National Health Interview Survey Walking and Perceptions of the Walking Environment Module, …

Levin Regional Cooperation Survey, Roland Anglin, Rene Kizys

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

Regionalism is defined in many ways. Some define it by regional tax sharing and consolidating local units of government into a larger city/county statutory governing arrangement that may encourage equity and efficiency. Notable examples of this include Indianapolis and its “Unigov” consolidation with many surrounding towns, municipalities; as well as the City of Nashville and Davidson County in Tennessee. Other consolidations are bilateral city-to-city policy setting arrangements, such as the Metro Council, that determine growth and development policy for the Twin Cities, Minneapolis-Saint Paul. This study proceeds on the belief that regionalism can also be defined in functional terms based …

Snap At The Community Scale: How Neighborhood Characteristics Affect Participation And Food Access, Nevin Cohen

Publications and Research

Cities are spatially diverse, with enclaves of particular demo- graphic groups, clusters of businesses, and pockets of low-income individuals living amid affluence.

This essay presents data from New York City to illustrate the importance of measuring and addressing neighborhood characteristics that affect Sup- plemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participation and the purchasing power of SNAP benefits: pockets of “eligible-but-not-enrolled” in- dividuals, proximity between SNAP participants and jobs, and variations in food prices across neighborhoods.

It concludes with 5 exam- ples of how addressing these community-scale issues can increase SNAP participation and food access.

The Safe System Approach: Considerations For Developing A Multi-Layered System, Offer Grembek

PSU Transportation Seminars

While the overarching objective of the transportation system is to provide mobility, it should be developed and operated under the framework of a safe system with the aspirational goal to establish a system on which no road user can be severely or fatally injured. To accomplish such a safe system, it is necessary to effectively harness all the core protective opportunities provided by the system. This includes the street design and operations, user behavior, vehicle design, protection systems, and EMS. The common thread across these layers is speed. This is directly driven by the quadratic relationship between velocity and kinetic …

Oil And Gas As A Driver Of The Regional Economy: Updates, Iryna Lendel

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

The economic trends in Northeast Ohio (NEO) over the last 20 years are typical of the Midwest region, with a positive increase in output outpaced by the state of Ohio, and the United States. The double recessions of 2001 and 2007-2009 show a deeper output decline in NEO than in comparable Midwest regions and the United States. Traditionally, industries with high regional specialization that have a competitive advantage and drive regional economies are called economic base industries. Groups of Regional Industry Drivers (GRIDs) are part of the economic base of a region. The Oil & Gas GRID accounts for less …

Webinar: Contextual Guidance At Intersections For Protected Bicycle Lanes, Christopher Monsere, Nathan Mcneil

TREC Webinar Series

Separated bike lanes have become increasingly common around the United States as cities seek to attract the new riders, including people who want to ride but limit their riding because they do not feel comfortable riding with motor vehicle traffic. Planners and engineers are working to identify contextually appropriate, safe, and comfortable designs for intersection locations, where bicyclist paths cross the paths of turning vehicles as well as cross-traffic. This research employed a combination of user surveys and simulations to anticipate expected bicyclist and turning vehicle interactions and bicyclist comfort based on design type and volumes. Findings examine which types …