Browsing by Author "Fiorelli, Thomas"

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    Bicycle Transportation in Medford: Connections to the Bear Creek Greenway
    (University of Oregon, 2014) Schlossberg, Marc; Peizer, Ross; Fiorelli, Thomas;
    Under the direction of Professor Marc Schlossberg, 42 students in the University of Oregon Department of Planning, Public Policy, and Management’s Bicycle Transportation course reviewed and examined critical elements of an urban bikeway system and proposed projects that would encourage and increase bicycle ridership and safety in Medford. This course was offered to upper-level undergraduates and graduate students from a variety of academic disciplines. Course projects were generally chosen by surveying elements of Medford’s environment including: • Existing and proposed bike lanes • Automobile traffic volumes on all roads • Residential population density in Medford • Connecting neighborhoods, schools, parks, and destinations. One of the city’s primary goals was to think about ways to build upon and highlight the amenity of the Bear Creek Greenway. The Bear Creek Greenway provides Medford an excellent source for bicycling and walking, but routes connecting to and from the greenway into neighborhoods, business districts, or recreation areas around Medford are lacking. Students focused on various areas surrounding the Bear Creek Greenway and researched potential recommendations for enhancing its use and connections between destinations. Projects developed for this course considered current bicycle parking capacity, average daily traffic (ADT) counts, neighborhood demographics, local economy, and nearby destinations. Students collaborated with city staff to identify locations where the Greenway intersects key Medford streets. This report outlines ways to better utilize this asset. Some students introduce the concept of a neighborhood greenway and different strategies developed to better connect schools and neighborhoods safely. Some present a set of approaches that enable bicycle riders to share the road safely with automobile traffic. Other students focus on non-design bicycle and active transportation related projects including education campaigns, wayfinding and branding, and other forms of encouragement, or programs that can increase community awareness and participation in cycling. Recommendations vary from easily implemented changes that complement existing infrastructure, to more challenging road redesigns and treatments. Consistent across course projects, however, was a focus on connectivity throughout Medford that can provide citizens of all ages and abilities with bicycle access to this source of untapped potential from both arterial and neighborhood streets.
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    Open Home Project: Designing Modular Housing and Landscapes for Resilient Communities
    (Institute for Health in the Built Environment, University of Oregon, 2020) Ward, Paul; Castro, Ivan; Fiorelli, Thomas; Fretz, Mark; Ko, Yekang; Lee, Junhak; Russel, Kory; da Silva Correa Leite, Carolina; Van Den Wymelenberg, Kevin
    Affordable, energy efficient, and healthy housing is a key component of individual, community, and planetary resilience and is increasingly scarce in both rural and urban regions on the West Coast of the US and many other locations globally. To address this issue, we assembled a diverse team including designers, manufacturers, researchers, economic and legal experts, community organizers, and students from many fields to develop complementary systems for modular, affordable housing and supportive site enhancements. By pursuing an ‘open-source’ design process, our research and concepts are shared freely to engage and welcome input from a broad spectrum of perspectives. Our goal is to leverage disruptive new technologies like mass-timber panelized digital manufacturing, distributed energy production/storage, and water reclamation micro-grids to support systems-based approaches to creating affordable housing and resilient communities. Our flexible modular solution is rapidly deployable, reconfigurable, and relocatable. It includes on-board photovoltaic arrays and battery storage and can be positioned as a standalone accessory dwelling unit or as a cluster community. We propose service-based and on-site approaches to water and waste treatment in response to different configurations and contexts. Each unit provides much-needed housing while reinforcing the local utility grid and providing essential services during grid-disrupting events. This paper documents initial results of ongoing research, financial and sociopolitical implementation plans, and site improvement and modular housing system concepts. Moreover, we invite the ACEEE community to contribute their expertise as part of open source knowledge network.
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    Oregon DEQ: Southern Willamette Valley Groundwater Management Area Outreach and Survey
    (2017-06-09) Dales, Sam; Fiorelli, Thomas; Gil, Ryan
    The Southern Willamette Valley Groundwater Management Area (SWV GWMA) is a 230- square mile boundary that begins at the northern edge of the Eugene/Springfield metropolitan area and extends 100 miles north to Corvallis. In 2001, more than twenty percent of five hundred groundwater drinking samples contained nitrate levels that exceeded Oregon’s limit of (7 ppm) of what the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) considers to be safe for consumption; the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a threshold of 10 ppm. Over 21,000 residents in the growing cities of Coburg and Junction City, as well as the rural areas in between, rely on this groundwater as their sole source of drinking water. In 2004, Oregon DEQ designated the SWV GWMA. DEQ formed a stakeholder group known as the Groundwater Management Area Committee, which represents a cross-section of land use sectors in the region. The SWV GWMA Committee makes action and policy recommendations to help guide and inform efforts to reduce nitrate contamination in the SWV GWMA. The Committee partners with many regional associations, city governments, universities, and private landowners. DEQ and another GWMA stakeholder, Lane Council of Governments (LCOG), are the project clients and sponsors funding all research and providing access to information databases. Perceptions regarding contamination of groundwater vary widely. Rural residents within the SWV GWMA who took part in public focus groups strongly associated color, smell, and taste with safe drinking water. The issue with nitrate contamination in groundwater is that it is colorless, odorless, and tasteless. This study’s primary research questions focused on the differences and relationships between knowledge and behaviors. Understanding this relationship is important because encouraging people to make behavioral changes that benefit their health requires that they first have complete information on the potential risks associated with drinking water contaminated with nitrate. In terms of knowledge, the focus is on answering the following questions: 1) how many people know that a problem exists, 2) to what extent are people concerned about the problem, and 3) whether either of the first two factors are associated with demographics. In terms of behavior, interest centers on 1) how many people test their water for nitrate and know the risk level in their household, 2) how many people have installed a treatment system that effectively removes nitrate, and 3) which media sources do different demographics use to connect with the world.