Courtney Crosson and UA architecture students facilitate a mapping activity to identify current flooding challenges at a neighborhood meeting.

The Potential of Green Infrastructure in Mitigating Flood Impacts on the Mobility of Low Income and Minority Neighborhoods

Sep 02, 2020
Photo by Eugene Lee
Courtney Crosson, University of Arizona

Short-term flooding from extreme storm events poses a serious transportation challenge in U.S. cities. This problem—which is anticipated to grow over the next century with our global climate crisis—is often hardest on vulnerable populations, including low-income and minority neighborhoods. The latest report from the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), led by Courtney Crosson of University of Arizona (UA), advances national research methods for assessing flood vulnerability and prioritizing transportation improvement investments to ensure that no community is left stranded when the next flood occurs.

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View of North MLK Boulevard in Portland, Oregon with a pedestrian crossing near a mural.

The Impacts of Gentrification on Transportation and Social Support for Black Working-Poor Families in Portland, Oregon

Aug 18, 2020
MLK Boulevard in Portland, OR. Photo by Cait McCusker
Steven Howland, Portland State University

The historically Black district of Albina in Portland, Oregon, due to racist real estate practices, faced multiple displacement events between 1960 and 1990 with the construction of Interstate 5 through the heart of the neighborhood as well as wholesale destruction of hundreds of homes to make room for the Memorial Coliseum and various other urban renewal projects. Gentrification in Portland saw a mass displacement of Black households from Albina, largely to East Portland, a suburban area that was unincorporated county land...

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Webinar: A National Scan of Bike Share Equity Programs. Image shows three young women biking away from the camera.

Webinar: A National Scan of Bike Share Equity Programs: Best Practices and Lessons Learned

Jul 21, 2020

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

OVERVIEW

Connecting with cities and bike share operators from across the United States, Portland State University conducted a nationwide scan on what programs and initiatives were running to address equity in bike share. The report “National Scan of Bike Share Equity Programs” documents responses from over 70 bike share systems. This resource will help cities and operators navigate the range of actions that have been implemented to make bike share systems more equitable, examine successful strategies employed across the U.S., and understand how those successes (and challenges) are being measured and articulated. In doing so, we hope the report helps bike share systems learn from the experiences of others, innovate, and more quickly move toward greater equity. The research team will be joined by a bike share operator to discuss what they learned, best practices, and where they see the future of bike share equity programs headed.

THE RESEARCH

This webinar is based on a study funded by the Better Bike Share Partnership and the National Institute for Transportation and...

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The Hidden Costs of Removing the Option to Pay for Transit With Cash?

Apr 15, 2020

Image by Luije/iStock

Authored by Aaron Golub Director and Associate Professor, Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University. Join Aaron and John MacArthur on May 22nd for a PSU Friday Transportation Seminar sharing early results from the research presented here.

With many transit agencies across the country1 eliminating cash handling at ticket counters and on-board vehicles for obvious health and virus transmission reasons, one may wonder: who will be negatively impacted by this? 

Some riders can still use cash at ticket vending machines or at certain retail outlets, but for many, depending on where they live and which parts of the transit system they ride, this will be inconvenient. National data2 show clear disparities3 in access to alternatives to cash (credit and debit accounts) as well as the other tools needed to pay for things electronically (smartphones, cell data plans and internet at home and work). What these national data don't capture are the specific issues...

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Pedestrians walk along a four-lane road with no sidewalk in Texas.

When Growth Outpaces Infrastructure: Access to Opportunities in Suburban Boomtowns

Feb 05, 2020
Image: Google Streetview (US-380 in McKinney, Texas; Dec 2018)
Jandel Crutchfield, Courtney Cronley and Kate Hyun, University of Texas at Arlington

In the last twenty years, the population increased over 100% in Collin County...

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Bicycling Toward Equity: Opportunities, Barriers & Policies for Vulnerable Groups

Friday Transportation Seminar: Bicycling Toward Equity: Opportunities, Barriers, and Policies for Vulnerable Groups

Jan 02, 2020

Friday Transportation Seminars at Portland State University have been a tradition since 2000. You can join us in person at 11:30 AM, or you can also watch online.

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

THE TOPIC

This seminar will include two papers that will be presented earlier in the week at the Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board in Washington, DC. 

Adaptive Bikeshare: Expanding Bikeshare to People with Disabilities and Older Adults

John MacArthur, Portland State University
Nathan McNeil, Portland State University
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An older woman helps an older man out of a car into a wheelchair

Visiting Loved Ones In Nursing Homes: Transportation Access and Barriers

Oct 09, 2019
Photo by kali9
Vivian J. Miller, University of Texas at Arlington

Older adults who live in nursing homes are at an increased risk for depression and anxiety, and research has shown that social...

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A light rail train on tracks

Benchmarking Social Equity in Transit Performance: Economic Justice in Practice

Sep 11, 2019
Photo by jferrer

Torrey Lyons, University of Utah

Transit agencies often focus on ridership as a primary measure of performance: If enough people are riding transit, then the system is a success. But who are those riders, and why is volume the benchmark?

This viewpoint can skip over an important aspect of a transit agency’s function; that is, providing opportunity to...

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Three people stand waiting for a train

Advancing Transportation Equity through Inclusive Travel Survey Data Methods

Sep 11, 2019
Photo by santypan

Amy Lubitow and Julius McGee, Portland State University;  Raoul Liévanos, University of Oregon

What is the quality of travel data for underrepresented, marginalized populations? The issues go deeper than creating slicker algorithms: In a world with...

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Portland State University Releases Evaluation Of Bike Share Equity Programs

Jul 25, 2019
Photo credit: Ian Sane
John MacArthur and Nathan McNeil, Portland State University

This article was authored by Stefani Cox of the Better Bike Share Partnership (BBSP), and cross-posted from BBSP News.

This week, Portland State University’s Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) releases a new research report comparing equity-oriented programs across several U.S. bike share systems. The research finds a variety of methods in place, ranging from affordability to internal hiring practices and beyond. The report is assisted by Toole Design...

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