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

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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.
Open Access
Exploring New Mobility Street Designs for a Suburban Downtown in Transition
(University of Oregon, 2019-09) Tamang, Tshewang; Ribe, Rob
The following report documents student work that explores the redesign of several streets and the historic core of Gresham’s downtown. Students in the University of Oregon’s Landscape Architecture 4/589 design studio worked with the City of Gresham as part of the Sustainable City Year Program (SCYP) to investigate how streets and related development could be planned and designed to meet and benefit from the emergence of new mobility options such as autonomous vehicles, ride-sharing, and micro-vehicles. Students were divided into teams and tasked initially with studying their assigned areas and developing a set of deliverables detailing existing current conditions. Students then worked, either in the same teams or independently, to create incremental design options for the near- and long-term. These designs were informed by an initial set of parameters, discussed between the studio instructor and the City of Gresham. The design parameters varied and were specific to the identified study area but were generally concerned with issues such as reducing the amount of on-street parking, delineating traffic lanes and narrowing lane widths, and repurposing any reclaimed space for stormwater management, planters, and other creative spatial uses when viewed through the lens of these emerging modes of transportation.
Open Access
New Mobility in Gresham: Recommendations and Guidelines
(University of Oregon, 2019-09) Dangal, Agraj; Clark, Benjamin
The purpose of this report is to provide an approach for the City of Gresham to evaluate data requirements prior to entering into contracts with emerging technology vendors. Four subgroups of new mobility vendors were identified and evaluated based on case studies and previous data requirements: e-scooters, bike-share programs, transportation network companies (TNCs), and autonomous vehicles. It is recommended that the City move forward with e-scooters, bike-share programs, and autonomous vehicles with robust data procurement strategies and policies. E-scooters and bike-share programs have the potential to be extremely successful in the city of Gresham if the City models potential data procurement standards after the City of Portland’s e-scooter program and the City of Seattle’s bike-share program. The collection of rider datasets and performance measures may be used as descriptive metrics as well as relational to external criteria, such as maintenance records and fleet tracking. These measures are critical to ensuring operationalization and viability of the programs. We recommend not contracting with TNCs until company behavior is more transparent and conducive to a public/private partnership with shared data and community-focused objectives. The City of Gresham does not currently have provisions for TNCs or taxis within the city, meaning drastic changes would need to occur in order for a contract to be developed. Furthermore, if TNCs were to be in place, internal controls and oversight committees are both highly recommended due to the reluctance of TNCs to release passenger datasets and a lack of current regulation. Gresham should consider treating autonomous vehicles the same as TNCs with extra precautions in place regarding passenger and pedestrian safety. Because autonomous vehicles are an emerging technology, we recommend specific regulations be put into place related to liabilities and insurance. Furthermore, if the City of Gresham were to move forward with autonomous vehicle contracts, it is encouraged to include passenger and application programming interface (API) data as a requirement for all private stakeholders involved. Public managers strive to maintain accountability to their constituents even though programs are contracted out, therefore contracts and communication with companies should be clearly outlined. All contracts, prior to beginning a pilot program, should have clear objectives as to how they are contributing to the City’s overarching transportation goals regarding sustainability, safety, and public/private partnerships.
Open Access
Open Data Policies and Management in Eugene
(University of Oregon, 2019-09) Dangal, Agraj; Ault, Sam; Burdette, Eric; Cobb, Arron; Rhodewalt, Amelia; Clark, Benjamin
This report covers the City of Eugene’s current data management process with an emphasis on parking policies, including recommendations to improve the way the City collects, uses, and stores data. Upon interviewing department managers, students discovered that the City currently has no open data plan to engage the public and local businesses in orchestrating the kind of changes the City would like to see. The interview uncovered that City management desires to move into a co-production and citizen science-based process. The City is currently trying something similar to this type of data collection, called Vision Zero. Vision Zero was made available to the public in October 2016, but it has collected only forty-three data points to date. The program was launched without a marketing campaign, and appears to go unused by most citizens. Factors that contributed to the lack of an open data management plan included the overwhelming amount of data being collected monthly, incompatibility between legacyfrom not having a clear way to handle the sharing of data with potential stakeholders, to not having an easy way to respond to public records requests, to not having a clear understanding of what citizens want to see regarding changes in how they navigate and use space within the city. After concluding a literature review, assessing the implementation of Vision Zero, and considering the desire of city management to move toward an open data plan, it is our recommendation that the City consider launching a major marketing campaign highlighting Vision Zero. It is also the opinion of this workgroup that the City move toward a more structured data management system using an informal records request system where data is freely available for download on a City website. This data should be processed to remove any private information prior to being made available for download. Finally, this workgroup recommends that the City consider expanding its workforce to accommodate the needs of this new platform. systems and current systems, and no uniform system or protocol for storing and sharing data in a meaningful way. Problems that have resulted from not having an open data plan varied
Open Access
Transportation Policy Options: New Mobility Services and Autonomous Vehicles
(University of Oregon, 2019-09) Duffey, Stacie; Park, Grace; Thomas, Michael; Clark, Benjamin
The cities of Eugene and Gresham want policy recommendations to prepare for the future of new mobility services and autonomous vehicles (AVs). Both cities hope to integrate these new policies into their Transportation System Plans (TSPs). This report provides practical new mobility policy options for each city to consider from eight priority topics: safety, equity, land use, innovation, environmental impact, congestion and vehicle miles traveled (VMT), active transportation, and data. Policy recommendations were created based on our research findings that included a literature review, analysis of other cities’ TSPs, and interviews we conducted with transportation professionals across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. The data from all three sources helped inform new mobility best practices presented in this report. The literature pointed mostly to concerns with uncertainty and possible unintended consequences of new mobility services and AVs. Some examples include minimal improvements to carbon emissions, public health concerns, and major infrastructure changes needed to accommodate the future of transportation. The findings from our interviews suggest that data requirements and privacy, equity, safety, land use, and innovation were the topics of highest priority in the field. Consequently, we developed more policy recommendations for those areas of interest. We found that many policies nationwide are in pilot stages and have the potential to be changed at any moment. Review of other cities’ TSPs also helped collect information on the feasibility and practical implementation of new mobility policies. While the original intent was to develop unique policy recommendations for each city, we found in our research that new mobility policies that are currently considered best practice are applicable to all cities of different sizes and contexts. Thus, most of our policy recommendations apply to both Gresham and Eugene with some added specifications for each city.
Open Access
New Mobility Case Study
(University of Oregon, 2018) Cohen, Rachel; Skov, Joshua
The city of Eugene is interested in learning how its residents might benefit from technology-enabled ‘new mobility’ solutions to differently meet their transportation needs. Student teams analyzed how members of a fictional or real household in Eugene could reduce their reliance on single-occupancy vehicles in daily commutes, local and regional trips, and infrequent travel destinations. For this project, new mobility is defined as a transportation mode that is: • enabled by new technologies, including electric and autonomous vehicles, or; • enabled by new business models or social trends, sometimes referred to as shared-use mobility (a categorization that typically includes bikesharing, carsharing, e-scooters, ridehailing, and even transit at various scales). The implications of shifting a household’s transportation habits created tradeoffs between competing priorities of cost, time, flexibility, and sustainability. In order to understand the financial implications, students were asked to analyze the full—and often overlooked—costs of vehicle ownership. Upon completing this analysis, many teams found significant savings opportunities in adopting active transportation and shared-use mobility. Beyond financial cost, teams discovered opportunities, trade-offs, and barriers to adoption. Teams found that households best served by existing new mobility solutions lived closest to the city center. Feasibility was often complicated by demographic factors including income, age, and occupation. Cultural norms and attitudes toward car ownership played a role in whether households shifted their behavior, both for fictional household members and for the authors. Where currently available options were not feasible, students identified modes in other markets that might benefit Eugene residents. Students also examined emerging and future technologies not currently in existence. While feasibility varied widely based on currently available modes, the city of Eugene can foster a transition to new mobility through partnerships that support multimodal first- and last-mile solutions. The City can also work to educate residents by using tools and messaging to improving awareness, perception, and trust in new mobility options.
Open Access
Future-Proofing Comprehensive Plans in Eugene and Gresham
(University of Oregon, 2019) Kohnke, Jennifer; Lewis, Rebecca
As part of the Sustainable City Year Program, students in Rebecca Lewis’s Growth Management course were asked to assess the comprehensive plans of the cities of Eugene and Gresham, Oregon. Students sought to determine each city’s readiness for the deployment of new mobility services and autonomous vehicle and the continued growth of e-commerce deliveries, along with accompanied changes to warehousing and brick-and-mortar retail. Students analyzed city comprehensive plans, focusing on the cities’ commercial and residential land use patterns. Each group compiled written reports detailing their research, analysis, and findings. In the reports, students noted positive steps that the cities are taking to create pathways for these new technologies and provided recommendations for areas of improvement. In addition to the reports, the teams presented their findings to representatives from both cities. Students were divided into four different teams to analyze the comprehensive plans. Two teams each assessed the comprehensive plans of the cities of Eugene and Gresham. For each city, one group focused on the topic of new mobility and the other analyzed e-commerce. The class evaluated the two cities’ comprehensive plans through initial independent research on e-commerce and new mobility. Students also looked at case studies of other cities and steps they are taking to address the issues. Then, students reviewed Envision Eugene Comprehensive Plan and Gresham Comprehensive Plan for policies and regulations that were conducive to allowing new mobility technologies within their city limits.
Open Access
Planning for a New Mobility Future
(University of Oregon, 2019) Crum, Carol; Brown, Anne
With advances in technology, new forms of mobility are emerging and entering our cities. These new modes are driving the need for plans and policies that direct how they will operate in cities, where they can operate and park, and who can use them. The cities of Eugene and Gresham would like to prepare for these new modes of mobility. Transportation Planning students were tasked with gathering data on current parking and micro-mobility usage and infrastructure, analyzing these data, and issuing recommendations to address new mobility. Students also researched how other U.S. cities are addressing issues such as high parking occupancy, bicycle infrastructure, the emergence of transportation network companies (TNCs) like Lyft and Uber (also known as ride-hailing services), and new forms of micro-mobility such as e-scooters. Taking into consideration research from other U.S. cities and the goals of Eugene and Gresham, students recommended the following policy approaches.
Open Access
Transportation Revenue in the Age of New Mobility
(University of Oregon, 2018) Stark, Michele; Lewis, Rebecca
Significant changes in transportation technology will change the way cities collect revenue and fund infrastructure projects. Forward thinking cities like Eugene, Oregon and Gresham, Oregon are already considering what may happen when residents rely on electric cars, autonomous vehicles (AVs), fleets of shared cars, bikes, and e-scooters. Given cities’ current reliance on revenue from gasoline taxes, parking fees and fines, and vehicle registration fees, cities will face a significant decrease in revenue.

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