Portland State University

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

• Video recordings:
  • Plenary session
  • Breakout session 1: Creating Safe and Welcoming Places That Resist White Supremacy: Cross Cutting Issues of Equity, Inclusion and Diversity with Julius McGee, Assistant Professor, USP, Portland State University
  • Breakout session 2: Creating Places to Gather: Physical Design Considerations for Year-Round, Multi-Purpose Public Spaces with Todd Ferry, Associate Director, Center for Public Interest Design, SOA, PSU
  • Breakout session 3: Creating the Civic Commons: Fostering Connections Between Local Civic and Cultural Assets with C.N.E. Corbin, Assistant Professor, USP, PSU
  • Breakout session 4: Creative Placemaking: The Role of Art and Culture in Planning, Design and Activation of Public Space with Subashini Ganesan, Portland Creative Laureate
  • Breakout session 5: Creative Placekeeping: Alternative Models for Stewardship and Financing of Public Space, with Hau Hagedorn, Associate Director, TREC at PSU
• TREC Twitter Tread

OVERVIEW

Join us for a conversation about how we can help...

Better Block PSU is a partnership program between the public spaces advocacy nonprofit Better Block PDX and Portland State University. Partnering since 2015, we have developed implementation plans and designs for many community-driven transportation projects. These projects promote equitable placemaking, community building, and active transportation that meet community needs. TREC at PSU has adopted this program under our umbrella of transportation education initiatives, and it is integrated into PSU planning and engineering classes each year. 

If you have a vision for reimagining public space, an intersection, or streetscape to better meet the needs of all people, we encourage you to attend this question & answer session to learn more about what Better Block PSU can do for you! This will also be recorded for those who cannot attend live. Check this page after the event to find the video.

We are seeking proposals for our 2021 round of projects. Download the 2021 Request for Proposals and Better Block PDX Guide to Projects here (PDF).

Want to see what a Better Block PSU project looks like, once it gets going? Read about an in-progress project: Re-Imagining a Safer Route to the...

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

• Watch the video
• View the presentation slides

OVERVIEW

Even though there are tremendous uncertainties in the timing and evolution path of the Autonomous Vehicles (AV) technology, it may become a likely reality within most MPOs' long-range regional transportation plan horizon of twenty years. Yet a recent survey of the largest MPOs in the US indicates only one of them "even mentions driverless, automated, or autonomous vehicles in its most recent RTP". One of the uncertainties in assessing the impacts of AV is their direction: on one hand, self-driving cars could increase VMT by increasing roadway capacity, lowering costs of travel; on the other, they may reduce VMT by enabling more car-sharing, improving access to transit, eliminating the fixed costs of car ownership, and reclaiming parking space. To date, there is no suitable conceptual framework or modeling tools available to MPOs for quantitatively assessing the likely long-term effects of AV or potential policy scenarios.

This project studies the possible impacts on travel and land use of the emerging AV technology and focuses on advancing this innovative mobility option by...

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

• Watch the video
• View the presentation slides

OVERVIEW

A “polycentric” region consists of a network of compact developments connected with each other through high-quality transportation options. Rather than continuing the expanse of low-density development radiating from an urban core, investments can be concentrated on central nodes and transit connections. This development pattern is very popular in Europe and is linked to significant benefits. This presentation is aimed at exploring the academic literature and empirical evidence surrounding polycentric development, analyzing more than 120 regional transportation plans to see how they promote polycentric development, defining types of centers in a hierarchy of centers, quantifying the transportation benefits of polycentric development, examining a case study of best practices, and, finally, outlining context-specific strategies for Salt Lake County and the Wasatch Front region.

KEY LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Regional transportation plans suffer from a lack of consistent indicators to designate centers and guide their developments.
• On average, households living in centers tend to make fewer and shorter automobile trips, take transit more, walk more, and bike less.
• Tours (a sequence of...