Moving from Cars to People

The twenty-page comic includes a dialogue, taking place in various urban settings, between characters Kelly and Kristi who are based on National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) researchers Kelly Clifton of the University of British Columbia and Kristina Currans of the University of Arizona. The two have a long history of collaboration around the data, methods, and processes used to plan for multimodal transportation impacts of new development. This short graphic synopsis is an engaging, approachable way for anyone – no matter their level of expertise in this topic – to learn about their findings. Illustrated by PSU Master of Fine Arts student Joaquin Golez, the comic was authored by Clifton and Currans and developed in conjunction with Susan Kirtley, director of the Comic Studies Program at Portland State University (PSU), and Portland, OR-based illustrator Ryan Alexander-Tanner, who has worked on academic comics before and drew on his experience to help guide the collaborative process

Accessing Opportunities for Household Provisioning Post-COVID-19

In this project, we used a mixed-methods study to collect critical information to evaluate the extent to which people modified their shopping behavior, either by choice or necessity, to meet their provisioning needs during the COVID-19 crisis and the following recovery. First, four waves of a cross-sectional survey were administered online to a representative sample of households in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Oregon, and Washington. This longitudinal, comparative study responded directly to a critical research gap and advanced behavioral science by providing a rich survey dataset to support and test theories of behavioral change and technology adoption. Second, focus groups were conducted with older adults in Oregon to discuss their arc of technology adoption for grocery shopping. Focus groups were also conducted with two sets of mentors who provide assistance to family members and friends with online food purchases to understand what kinds of interventions might be necessary to broaden access to e-commerce and delivery platforms for vulnerable populations. This report presents high-level descriptive statistics from these surveys comparing results by wave and/or by state. The findings from the focus groups with older adults and mentors are also described. The findings of this research are critical for emergency planning but also for understanding the ever-changing mechanism used to access retail and service opportunities (whether in-person vs. online), and the opportunities for future interventions to remedy barriers to accessing food that are relevant after the pandemic recovery

Communicating Research Through Comics: Transportation and Land Development

This project created a transportation comic, "Moving From Cars To People," which offers a succinct and fun introduction to a complicated topic: namely, how the built environment in the United States came to be designed for cars and what we can do about it. The comic includes a dialogue, taking place in various urban settings, between characters Kelly and Kristi who are based on the two principal investigators, Kelly Clifton and Kristina Currans. The two have a long history of collaboration around the data, methods, and processes used to plan for multimodal transportation impacts of new development. This short graphic synopsis is an engaging, approachable way for anyone \u2013 no matter their level of expertise in this topic \u2013 to learn about their findings. Illustrated by PSU Master of Fine Arts student Joaquin Golez, the comic was authored by Clifton and Currans and developed in conjunction with Susan Kirtley, director of the Comic Studies Program at Portland State University (PSU), and Portland, OR-based illustrator Ryan Alexander-Tanner, who has worked on academic comics before and drew on his experience to help guide the collaborative process. A Spanish-language version was created with the assistance of Urban Studies PhD student Gabriel Qui\uf1ones-Zambrana

Characterizing the Trip Generation Profiles of Multifamily Housing

Cities are increasingly wanting to assess the impacts new development has on all modes in the transportation system. Many communities are requiring site-level transportation impact analysis to examine travel outcomes. The historical focus on developing data and methods exclusively for the automobile, such as the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Trip Generation Handbook, has left planners with little guidance for these new challenges. This study aims to examine the limitations in the dominant approaches to understand how they may misguide the planning process for multifamily housing development. Specifically, we aim to examine the vehicle and person trip generation rates associated with the land use taxonomies in the ITE Trip Generation Handbook to differentiate between various kinds of residential housing. We ask: Does the built environment vary across the various ITE Land Use Codes for multifamily housing? How do vehicle trip rates and newly established person trip rates vary across urban locations? How well does ITE’s recommended practice of converting their vehicle trip rate data to person trip rates perform? To do this, we conducted a national study of multifamily housing sites that makes use of archived transportation counts and intercept surveys collected on site. The study leveraged several concurrent or recent trip generation studies in Portland, OR; San Francisco, CA; Los Angeles, CA; and Washington, D.C. The data collected from these sites are analyzed using multivariate statistical techniques. This report concludes with a discussion of the implication of these findings for multimodal transportation impact analysis of new development and policies that aim for better coordination between urban land use change and transportation investments

Data From: Updating and Expanding LRT/BRT/SCT/CRT Data and Analysis

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

Detransformation Bias in Nonlinear Trip Generation Models

In recent years, there have been substantial efforts from researchers and practitioners to improve site-level trip generation estimation methods to address some of the pitfalls of conventional approaches for applications such as traffic impact analyses. These new trip generation models often adopt sophisticated nonlinear model forms to utilize new information and incorporate new factors influencing trip generation. However, if sufficient caution is not taken in their application, these new predictive models may introduce severe bias. This paper focuses on a typical source of biases in the applications of such models arising from detransformation of predictions from models with a nonlinearly transformed dependent variable in the prediction process (for example, predicting from a semilog model). While such biases are well known and corrections have been proposed in other disciplines, they have not been adopted in site-level trip generation models to the authors' knowledge. The detransformation bias is described and demonstratedfocusing on log-transformed modelswith numeric simulations and empirical studies of trip generation models, before discussing their implications for trip generation applications and research.National Institute of Transportation and Communities [881, 1000]; D. D. Eisenhower Graduate Transportation Fellowship Program [DTFH6416G00057]This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

Are Traffic Studies “Junk Science” That Don’t Belong in Court?

Jurisdictions rely heavily on traffic impact analyses (TIAs) to predict the traffic impacts of projects and calibrate appropriate mitigations. But TIAs are also litigation tools: Jurisdictions use them to satisfy courts that their land use decisions are supported by substantial evidence, or evidence that is credible and reliable. The problem, as we discuss in this Viewpoint, is that TIAs are not consistently credible and reliable. We explore some common criticisms—and provide a brief overview of a growing literature—regarding underlying vehicle estimation methods in practice that demonstrates the ways in which TIAs are widely flawed. Historically, courts have not expected much from TIAs, but our analysis shows a tipping point in which courts may begin to question whether conventional TIA methods constitute substantial evidence, suggesting an important need to innovate and adopt new data and methods in practice.18 month embargo; first published 10 February 2023This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

A Framework to Operationalize a Deep and Vast Literature for Practice: Translating Land Value Uplift Literature to Estimate Economic Impacts of Multimodal Transportation System Projects

Traditional methods for evaluating transportation system investments typically rely heavily on one or two metrics of evaluations, such as vehicle travel time delay and level-of-service measures. Transportation projects often have substantial and significant impacts on many other aspects of society, including the economic vitality of our communities. The focus of this study was a practical one: operationalize a vast literature exploring the theories and findings that describe positive and negative economic impacts of transportation investments, in this case focused on the impacts on real estate value. It was completed with sponsorship from Smart Growth America to develop a pilot application for Washington DOT. The framework described in this manuscript allows analysts to estimate and compare changes in real estate value, and therefore changes in economic vitality, resulting from different investment decisions. The economic impacts estimated in change in U.S. dollar value of single-family residential, multifamily residential, and commercial real estate can be used in combination with other performance measures (e.g., travel time savings, environmental impacts) to evaluate a more comprehensive picture of the impacts of transportation infrastructure. Because this framework was spatially developed, the analyst will be able to more readily identify which neighborhoods and corresponding populations may see the largest impacts on the cost of housing resulting from specific transportation projects. This, in combination with housing expertise and tools developed to understand the displacement of vulnerable populations, could also help agencies anticipate where there would be increased pressure in relation to cost of housing caused by specific transportation projects.Smart Growth America (SGA)This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

Webinar: Scooting to Healthy and Safe Mode Choices

Shared electric scooters (e-scooters) are fast becoming a mobility option in cities across the United States. This new micromobility mode has the potential to replace car usage for certain trips, which stands to have a positive impact on public health and sustainability goals. However, many aspects of this emerging mode are not well understood.This webinar explores the findings of three NITC studies examining transportation mode choices, safety, and public health outcomes of electric scooters.https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/trec_webinar/1070/thumbnail.jp

Assessing the Importance of Housing, Accessibility, and Transportation Characteristics on Stated Neighbourhood Preference

Beyond socioeconomic circumstance, residential location decisions are also predicated on many housing, transportation, and accessibility characteristics. Consequently, greater insight is needed on how these myriad characteristics are valued by individuals and connected to their neighbourhood preference to inform planners and decision makers concerned with urban growth patterns. Unfortunately, forecasting methods commonly lack the specificity needed to recognize how residential environment preferences influence future housing, land use, and transportation decisions. Often, these policy instruments rely exclusively on a set of observed socioeconomic characteristics to measure heterogeneity in revealed location decisions. Using stated preference data collected in Portland, Oregon, this study employed structural equation modelling techniques to examine the influence of these socioeconomic measures and latent constructs of rated single-family dwelling and non-automotive access importance on stated neighbourhood preference. Our study\u27s findings suggest the importance placed on certain bundles of housing, transportation, and accessibility attributes, and not socioeconomic circumstance, directly affected neighbourhood preference