How COVID-19 Changed Our Cities: Evidence from a National Survey

Human behavior is notoriously difficult to change, but a disruption of the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to bring about long-term behavioral changes. During the pandemic, people were forced to experience new ways of interacting, working, learning, shopping, traveling, and eating meals. A critical question going forward is how these experiences have actually changed preferences and habits in ways that might persist. We collected a nationally-representative, 3-wave panel survey in the U.S. that aims to shed light on this question. This talk will draw from these data to describe how the pandemic did (and did not) change how we live in cities, what we still don\u27t know, and in which areas urban planners should adjust their assumptions as we look to the future.https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/trec_seminar/1232/thumbnail.jp

Survey of Local Sustainability Practices in California

This report conveys the Round I results of the Strategic Growth Council (SGC) sponsored survey of local governments’ sustainability practices in California. The report is organized in two sections. Part I discusses the development and administration of the survey. Part II reports and examines the survey results. The SGC has an important interest in measuring local government activity to improve environmental sustainability. Captured in Spring 2012, these measurements establish a baseline snapshot of city- and county-level efforts to increase the resource efficiency of both local governments and the communities they serve. These baseline data provide a view of local government sustainability activity across various sectors and the factors that may encourage local governments to enhance their efforts further. When paired with future survey measurements, the data will allow the Council to identify trends in local sustainability efforts over time, as well as to assess the impact on local sustainability of the SGC sponsored Sustainable Communities Learning Network

Appendix H: The Lifecycle of Materials: An Appendix to the Report, “A Lifecycle Emissions Model (LEM): Lifecycle Emissions From Transportation Fuels, Motor Vehicles, Transportation Modes, Electricity Use, Heating and Cooking Fuels, and Materials”

This report is an appendix to the report titled "'A Lifecycle emissions model (LEM): lifecycle emissions from transportation fuels motor vehicles, transportation modes, electricity use, heating and cooking fuels, and materials". This report presents an analysis of the energy and emissions associated with the lifecycle of materials and automobiles. The materials composition of motor vehicles is discussed including descriptions of manufacturing processes, tabulations of energy and emissions data, and data sources. Energy use in and emissions from the assembly of motor vehicles is discussed as well as the transportation of raw materials, semi-fabricated products, and motor vehicles. The report also discusses energy used to make agricultural chemicals, with focus on materials used in automobiles

Can Location Value Capture Pay for Transit? Organizational Challenges of Transforming Theory Into Practice

Successful public transit systems increase the value of locations they serve. Capturing this location value to help fund transit is often sensible, but challenging. This presentation will define location value capture, and synthesize lessons learned from six European and North American transit agencies that have experience with location value capture funding. The opportunities for and barriers to implementing location value capture fall into three categories: (1) agency institutional authority, (2) agency organizational mission, and (3) public support for transit. When any of these factors is incompatible with a location value capture strategy, implementation becomes difficult. In four of the cases studied, dramatic institutional change was critical for success. In five cases, acute crisis was a catalyst for institutional change, value capture implementation, or both. Using value capture strategies to fund transit requires practitioners to both understand agency organizational constraints, and to view transit agencies as institutions that can transform in response to changing situations.https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/trec_seminar/1097/thumbnail.jp

Do Public Transit Investments Promote Urban Economic Development? Evidence from Bogotá, Colombia

In this paper, the authors use a repeated cross-section labor market dataset to assess whether access to the TransMilenio Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system in Bogotá, Colombia, affects the incomes of those who live in station area neighborhoods. Results indicate that the opening of the system was associated with increased income for those living near – but not immediately adjacent to – trunk line stations. This relationship is strongest in the lower and middle-income range. Two possible explanations for this result are that existing residents earn higher wages, or higher income workers relocate to the neighborhood. While available data do not allow the authors to distinguish clearly between these two causes, evidence suggests that much of the effect is likely due to relocation. The results stand in contrast to prior work, which has largely suggested that improvements in public transit will tend to reduce wages in station areas

Measuring the impacts of local land-use policies on vehicle miles of travel: The case of the first big-box store in Davis, California

JTLU vol. 6, no. 1, pp 25-39 (2013)Concerns over climate change have brought new impetus to the goal of reducing vehicle travel through land-use policy. To determine the degree to which land-use policies are effective in reducing vehicle travel, studies are needed that measure and compare vehicle travel both before and after a land-use policy change. The opening of the first big-box retail store in Davis, California, represented a major change in the retail landscape and an unusual opportunity to study its effect on shopping travel. Surveys of residents' shopping behavior conducted before and after the opening of the store revealed a significant shift in where people shopped and a measurable reduction in overall vehicle miles traveled (VMT) for shopping. Although the observed change in VMT is specific to the Davis context, the findings support the general proposition that bringing retail destinations closer to residences could help reduce vehicle travel, particularly where the comparable alternatives for the newly introduced store are far away. The study also offers important insights into the challenges of conducting before-and-after studies of the impact of local land-use changes

The Role of Transport in How We Choose Where to Live: A Qualitative Investigation of Residential Location Choice in the Phoenix, AZ Region

69A3551747116In the literature on the relationship between transportation and land use, one of the key questions is that of residential self selection. How much does the transportation environment affect households\u2019 choices about where to live? Here, we add to this literature with an interview-based study of the residential choices made by 46 recent homebuyers in the Phoenix, AZ metropolitan region. The study\u2019s main goals were (1) to understand how households make home buying decisions, and (2) to investigate the role of transportation-related factors in these decisions. Overall, we found remarkable diversity in the home buying decision processes and outcomes among households in our sample, even when those households were demographically similar. Focusing on the role of transport, we find that many homebuyers consider proximity to key destinations when choosing their home, but only a small minority prioritize access to modes of transport other than the private car. It may be that the prevailing culture of car dependence in the Phoenix region limits both homebuyers\u2019 actual options as well as their capacity to even imagine multimodal living

Evolution of Mode Use During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States: Implications for the Future of Transit

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about transformative changes in human activity-travel patterns. These lifestyle changes were naturally accompanied by and associated with changes in transportation mode use and work modalities. In the United States, most transit agencies are still grappling with lower ridership levels, thus signifying the onset of a new normal for the future of transit. This paper addresses this challenge using a novel panel survey data set collected from a representative sample of individuals across the United States. The study involved the estimation of a panel multinomial probit model of mode choice to capture both socio-economic effects and period (pre-, during-, and post-COVID) effects that contribute to changes in mode choice. This paper provides rich insights into the evolution of commute mode use as a result of the pandemic, with a particular focus on public transit. Through a rigorous modeling approach, this paper provides a deep understanding of how transit use has evolved, how it is likely to evolve into the future, and the socio-economic and demographic characteristics that affect the evolution (and expected future use) of public transit. Results suggest that transit patronage is likely to remain depressed by about 30% for the foreseeable future, in the absence of substantial changes in service configurations. This study also shows that minority groups and those living in higher density regions are more likely to exhibit a return to transit use in the post-pandemic period

Neighborhoods, Cars, and Commuting in New York City: A Discrete Choice Approach

Cities around the world are trying out a multitude of transportation policy and investment alternatives with the aim of reducing car-induced externalities. However, without a solid understanding of how people make their transportation and residential location choices, it is hard to tell which of these policies and investments are really doing the job and which are wasting precious city resources. The focus of this paper is the determinants of car ownership and car use for commuting. Using survey data from 1997 to 1998 collected in New York City, this paper uses discrete choice econometrics to estimate a model of the choices of car ownership and commute mode while also modeling the related choice of residential location.The main story told by this analysis is that New Yorkers are more sensitive to changes in travel time than they are to changes in travel cost. The model predicts that the most effective ways to reduce both auto ownership and car commuting involve changing the relative travel times for cars and transit, making transit trips faster by increasing both the frequency and the speed of service and making auto trips slower – perhaps simply by allowing traffic congestion. Population density also appears to have a substantial effect on car ownership in New York