National Institute for Transportation and Communities

How can relocating homeless services away from a downtown center change transportation patterns for people experiencing homelessness? Researchers Sarah Canham, Jeff Rose, Shannon Jones, Alannah Clay and Ivis Garcia of the University of Utah (UU) have published an article in the September 2022 issue of Health & Social Care in the Community.

The article, "Community perspectives on how decentralising an emergency shelter influences transportation needs and use for persons experiencing homelessness," offers evidence to support the need for no-cost transportation options for persons experiencing homelessness.

The findings draw on the ongoing project Understanding the Impact of Decentralizing Homeless Services on Transportation and Mobility in Salt Lake County, funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC).

Despite steady increases in homelessness in the U.S., only recently has research on transportation needs for persons experiencing homelessness been the focus of research endeavours. To fill this gap in the literature, the research team conducted a qualitative study in which 24 professionals working in planning, transportation, local government, and the homelessness services sector were engaged in in-depth, semi-structured interviews.

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How can community members become more engaged in transportation decision making?

Individuals and groups can learn to effect powerful change, but success requires some familiarity with how civic processes work. Community Transportation Academies, or CTAs, provide a basic technical understanding of how a city or region’s transportation system operates, along with the decision makers and decision-making processes that determine how the system is shaped.

Supported by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the new Wasatch Transportation Academy (WTA) at the University of Utah was piloted in 2022 in the Salt Lake City region. The research team developed a course vision, topics, and logistics for the WTA by interviewing stakeholders in the Utah Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget, the Utah Department of Transportation, the Utah Transit Authority, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake City, and the Wasatch Front Regional Council. Led by Nathan McNeil of Portland State University and Keith Bartholomew of the University of Utah, the WTA used the established Portland Traffic and Transportation class in Portland, Oregon as a framework. 

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PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

• Video
• Slides
• PDH Certificate

OVERVIEW

This webinar will introduce you to the concept of the Community Transportation Academy (CTA), a model which has been operating in Portland for over 30 years in the form of the Portland Traffic and Transportation (PTT) class. Now catching on in other cities, the project team recently implemented the Wasatch Transportation Academy (WTA) in Salt Lake City. The presenters also include key stakeholders (and guest lecturers) in the WTA, and the PTT instructor. The presentation will include discussions about why CTAs can be good for both community members and transportation agencies/practitioners, and how you can bring a CTA to your city.

KEY LEARNING OUTCOMES

• How to make interactions between community members and transportation agencies more effective
• How to increase human capital and community capacity by teaching community members how and where they can engage in transportation decision-making processes
• Lessons from transportation...

The video begins at 0:48.

View slides

Speaker: Darwin Moosavi, MURP, Portland State University
Topic: Capturing the Ride: Exploring Low-Density Flexible Transit Alternatives in Salem-Keizer

Summary: Current fixed-route transit service provided by Salem-Keizer Transit is inefficient in the low-density neighborhoods of West Salem, South Salem, and Keizer. The lack of sidewalks, non-gridded circuitous streets, and large single-family residential lots all contribute to a lack of ridership. As a result, traditional fixed-route transit service is not cost-effective in these areas. Through a five month planning process, a group of Portland State University graduate students, better known as Paradigm Planning, tackled the task of addressing this problem in each of the three study areas. Paradigm’s planning process explored mode and route options in order to produce a plan that provides innovative and feasible alternatives to current transit service that will better meet the needs of the community. Through an intensive community engagement process, the residents in each neighborhood were given a voice in shaping the future of transit in their neighborhood.

Bio: Darwin Moosavi is a Master in Urban & Regional Planning candidate at Portland State University and Project...