Browsing by Author "Garcia, Nicolas"

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    Lane County Local Food Market Analysis
    (2010-09) University of Oregon. Dept. of Planning, Public Policy and Management. Community Planning Workshop; Parker, Bob; Tom Osdoba, Tom; MacFarland, Kate; Becker, Brie; Bryant, Hannah; Garcia, Nicolas; Hobson, Benjamin; Mizejewski, Sarah; Warren, Schuyler; Richey, David
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    Lane County Local Food Market Analysis
    (University of Oregon, 2010-09) University of Oregon. Dept. of Planning, Public Policy and Management. Community Planning Workshop; MacFarland, Kate; Becker, Brie; Bryant, Hannah; Garcia, Nicolas; Hobson, Benjamin; Mizejewski, Sarah; Schuler, Warren; Richey, David; Parker, Robert
    This report presents a market analysis of the local food system in Lane County with the core objective of identifying the opportunities to expand local markets for locally produced food.
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    Lane County Local Food Market Analysis Executive Summary
    (2010-09) Parker, Bob; MacFarland, Kate; Becker, Brie; Bryant, Hannah; Garcia, Nicolas; Hobson, Benjamin; Mizejewski, Sarah; Warren, Schuyler; University of Oregon. Dept. of Planning, Public Policy and Management. Community Planning Workshop
    This report presents a market analysis of the local food system in Lane County with the core objective of identifying the opportunities to expand local markets for locally produced food. In short, we are seeking approaches to “re‐localize” the food system. While we identified many challenges to achieving this objective, significant opportunities exist. To capitalize on the opportunities, we propose a set of implementation strategies that the private sector, local governments, and nonprofits should consider to achieve the goal of increasing local production and consumption of food products. This project was sponsored by the U.S. Economic Development Administration (as part of the EDA’s University Center program), the City of Eugene, Lane County, and the Eugene Water and Electric Board. It aims to promote economic development by analyzing the market for local food and identifying barriers and opportunities for growth. The study specifically focuses on potential to capture local demand from institutions and chain grocers—organizations that have enough purchasing power to create significant markets. This project investigates the potential for expanding the local food economy in the short‐term: the next one to five years. For the purpose of this study, local food is defined as that grown and consumed within Lane County.
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    LEAP: Salem Local Energy Assurance Plan
    (2012-05-09) Lewis, Terry; Parker, Robert; Kato, Ken; Bruce, Josh; Phillips, Madeline; Garcia, Nicolas
    The City of Salem relies on a range of energy sources to support and protect local residents, businesses, and government facilities. Accordingly, secure supplies of energy (e.g., electricity, gasoline, diesel fuel, natural gas, propane) to critical facilities/infrastructure, especially during emergency events, is of crucial importance to all segments of the community. An energy assurance plan is essentially a plan for how the City will recover and restore energy services to critical functions and facilities/infrastructure within a predetermined time after a partial or complete energy supply interruption. The Plan identifies critical facilities and critical infrastructure needing back-up power generation capacity to ensure continued operation during emergency events. The Plan establishes short-term communication protocols, actions and priorities by which critical facilities/infrastructure will be re‐energized after a disruption, as well as long-term strategies for making critical facilities and critical infrastructure less vulnerable to disruptions of mainline energy sources.
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    Vanpooling in the Mid-Columbia River Gorge: A Feasibility Assessment and Investigation of Employer Preferences
    (Department of Planning, Public Policy & Management, University of Oregon, 2011-06) Garcia, Nicolas
    Vanpooling provides an opportunity to save commuters money and diminish the external costs of an automobile‐dominated transportation system. Vanpooling’s effectiveness in urban and suburban areas has been established, but its success in rural areas is less well researched. Furthermore, employer support is important to the success of vanpooling, but there is little research showing how agencies and non‐profits can encourage that support. This study uses a survey of major employers in the Mid‐Columbia River Gorge to examine these issues. Results indicate that the potential for vanpooling in the Gorge is significant but limited to a small percentage of the region’s commuters and that vanpooling would be cost‐effective but unlikely to yield major changes in travel patterns. Furthermore, employer survey responses indicate a primary concern with minimizing costs and avoiding new responsibilities. Strategies for effectively promoting vanpooling in the Gorge are identified and discussed. This report begins with a literature review which discusses the challenges facing the U.S. transportation system, describes the study area, and reviews the existing research about vanpooling. Following the literature review is a detailed description of the methods used, including an employer survey and several forms of quantitative analysis. Next it presents the findings, broken down into the vanpool feasibility assessment and the employer preferences survey. Finally, the Discussion section examines the implications of the findings, acknowledges this study’s limitations, identifies avenues for further research, and outlines recommendations for improving transportation in the Gorge.