Sustainable City Year Reports 2018-19 (Eugene and Gresham)

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Browsing Sustainable City Year Reports 2018-19 (Eugene and Gresham) by Author "Theofield, RJ"

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    Community Strategies to Improve Accessibility and Sustainable Transportation in Downtown Eugene
    (University of Oregon, 2019-10) Hoagland, Emerson; Theofield, RJ; Yang, Yizhao
    Located adjacent to the Willamette River and the University of Oregon, downtown Eugene serves as the city’s economic and cultural center. The downtown is home to several major employers, seasonal markets, shops, and restaurants that draw visitors in from surrounding areas throughout the week. The ways in which people travel to and within the downtown have significant environmental, economic, and social implications. Despite the presence of alternative transportation options, single-occupancy vehicles (SOVs) remain a major mode of transportation used to access the downtown. Over the years, this has led to the development of large, costly parking facilities. These conditions are contrary to the City’s complementary goals of tripling the share of trips made by walking, biking, and transit and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Based on current trends, the City of Eugene is concerned that its strategy to manage travel demand may not handle continued growth and will result in parking shortages as more SOVs enter the downtown. For this reason, the city has decided to explore ways to modify its transportation demand management program to promote the city’s sustainability values, while also stimulating commercial activity downtown. In the spring of 2019, the City of Eugene partnered with the University of Oregon’s Sustainable City Year Program (SCYP) to research creative policy and programmatic solutions for its downtown transportation challenge. Students enrolled in the University of Oregon’s Land Use Planning and Policy course collaborated with City staff to identify and conduct case study research on selected cities. Case study cities from within the United States and internationally were selected based on 1) their reputation for employing innovative strategies to address downtown accessibility and mobility issues; and 2) their comparability with the city of Eugene. In total, seven cities were studied. For each case study, a content analysis of relevant plans and policy documents was performed to identify transportation strategies based on three focus areas: 1) sustainable transportation; 2) travel demand management; and 3) parking management.