News Tagged: Transit

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Case studies explore TOD and social equity

Posted on June 9, 2014

Historically, large-scale transportation infrastructure projects have had devastating outcomes in communities of color. With twentieth-century urban renewal efforts often came the displacement of underprivileged communities, the loss of low-income neighborhoods and their replacement with affluent housing and freeways.
 
According to new OTREC research from the University of Oregon, transit-oriented development, or TOD, can offer a different trajectory. Rather than displacing residents, TOD has the potential to improve neighborhoods for the benefit of those who live there.
 
OTREC researcher Gerardo Sandoval grew up near MacArthur park, one of the two sites studied, and has witnessed firsthand the neighborhood’s dramatic change. “I think the coolest thing about MacArthur Park is that now it’s considered a national model for TOD. When I was growing up there … nobody saw it like that. It was thought of more as a low-income area,” Sandoval said.
 
The project examined two California neighborhoods: MacArthur Park, in Los Angeles, and Fruitvale, in Oakland. In both neighborhoods, the majority of residents are recent immigrants from Mexico and Central America, many of whom have significantly lower incomes and rely heavily on public transportation.
 
In the last few decades, both sites have seen TOD coincide with neighborhood revitalization, and gained national and international attention. The secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, Shaun Donovan, referred to the MacArthur park TOD as a “model that the rest of the country should be looking to” after touring it in 2013.
 
A TOD is a high-density mixed-use residential and commercial area built around a transit stop or station. TODs are designed so that those who live and work within a quarter to a half mile of the transit stop have easy access to public transit.

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Tags: otrec, public transportation, research, social equity, tod, transit, university of oregon

Policymakers meet with youth for discussion on transit justice

Posted on May 27, 2014

The Multnomah Youth Commission, or MYC, held its first Youth Summit on Transit Justice on May 17, 2014 at David Douglas High School.
 
The MYC, a group of young people ages 13-21, plays an advisory role for local government in Multnomah County and the City of Portland.
 
The summit held on Saturday the 17th was an entirely youth-led event, with members of the MYC meeting at David Douglas at 11 a.m. After they spent the morning organizing their materials and preparing their arguments, they opened the doors for adults.
 
PSU professor Lisa Bates, who is studying the transit-dependent population for NITC, was in attendance with her capstone students. As part of a capstone course where students are required to conduct research that leads directly into social equity, Bates’ students worked with the youth of the MYC on transit justice. They applied a social science research foundation to their ideas and assisted them with using some best practices in the field. 
 
At 2:30 p.m., transit policymakers and community leaders began to enter the high school. Following a brief introductory presentation, the young people split up the group into breakout sessions.
 
During the sessions, members of the MYC shared with TriMet agents and government officials their firsthand experiences using the transit system and their recommendations for change, to improve service to transit-dependent youth.
 
Their recommendations were divided into three tiers, with areas of highest-priority change first.
 
"This is professional-level work. This is what we do," Dana Lucero, senior public involvement specialist at Metro, said.

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Tags: metro, portland state university, public transportation, social equity, transit, trimet

Rethinking transit-oriented development

Posted on January 10, 2014

Note: In advance of the Transportation Research Board's annual meeting, the biggest forum on the transportation research calendar, OTREC.us is profiling some of the researchers who will present their work.

In transit-oriented development, planners typically focus on the neighborhood within a quarter of a mile of a transit stop.

Housing and commercial developments within this "walkable zone" are thought to be the ones primarily affected by, or dependent on, the transit stop.

New research from the University of Utah expands the traditional one-quarter-mile distance away from transit stops to a broader radius of about one and one-quarter mile from a stop.

The project's principal investigator, Susan Petheram, led a team of researchers who used the Salt Lake County assessor's database to analyze property values surrounding light rail stops. Petheram is a NITC doctoral dissertation fellow and the research stems from her dissertation.

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Tags: hierarchical linear modeling, land use, real estate, susan petheram, transit, transit-oriented development, trax, university of utah

What if the fare isn’t fair? TRB 2014

Posted on January 6, 2014

Note: In advance of the Transportation Research Board's annual meeting, the biggest forum on the transportation research calendar, OTREC.us is profiling some of the researchers who will present their work.
 
Steven Farber, of the University of Utah, is conducting research for the Utah Transit Authority (UTA) surrounding its potential move to a distance-based fare system.
 
Typically, transit fares are a flat fee based on a given window of time: riders may pay $2.50 to ride anywhere they wish within a two-hour period, for example.
 
This system can negatively impact low-income populations, who as a general rule tend to travel shorter distances than people in higher income brackets. In a flat fare system, many low-income riders end up subsidizing the longer trips of wealthier riders.

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Tags: distance-based fares, nitc, steven farber, transit, transportation research board, university of utah, utah transit authority

NITC program awards nearly $1 million for research, education projects

Posted on December 9, 2013

The NITC program's executive committee has selected a new roster of projects for funding under the National Institute for Transportation and Communities, or NITC, program. The committee chose 10 projects, totaling $900,000, under the NITC theme of safe, healthy and sustainable transportation to foster livable communities.

The projects are national in scope and reflect priority areas including transit supply and outcomes, and pedestrian and bicyclist behavior. 

Projects selected include:

  • A bicycle and pedestrian miles traveled project for Washington state.
  • A study that measures the effectiveness on social media on advancing public transit.
  • A look into crowdsourcing the collection of data on transportation behavior.
  • A national study of Bus Rapid Transit outcomes.

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Tags: bicycle infrastructure, complete streets, cycle tracks, e-bikes, green lanes, light rail, national institute for transportation and communities, nitc, otrec, traffic-related pollution, transit, transit equity, transportation safety, university of utah, utah transit authority, walking

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