Sustainable City Year Reports 2019-20 (Lane Transit District)
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Item Open Access SCYP LTD Compilation Report(2020) SCYP StaffThis compilation report details the collaborative efforts of the University of Oregon’s Sustainable City Year Program (SCYP) partnership with Lane Transit District (LTD) during the 2019-2020 academic year. Faculty and students from over 20 courses across five schools and colleges studied and made recommendations focused on high priority projects for LTD. The report summarizes student work and media coverage about projects that explored several questions around LTD’s strategic planning efforts, including how to face key uncertainties over the next 20-30 years, the emerging mobility landscape, and strategic choices to adapt to transit and transportation challenges ahead. Student recommendations focused around enhancing LTD’s performance and sustainability through strategic assessments and corridor studies. Students analyzed key performance indicators and proposed recommendations for improving fleet operations, service planning, and risk management. The report also highlights the development of a dynamic financial projection tool to support LTD’s long-term planning and adaptability.Item Open Access Transit-Oriented Development on Historic River Road(University of Oregon, 2019) Wrobel, Olenka; Rich, Margerum; Robert, Parker; Kaarin, KnudsonGraduate students in the University of Oregon’s Community and Regional Planning program worked in four groups to create implementation recommendations for land use and transportation redevelopment for different neighborhoods along River Road. These recommendations focused on the next 20 years. Each group collaborated with their team, other classmates, LTD, and professors to come up with their recommendations. With LTD as a project partner, certain groups formed their vision around transit-oriented development (TOD) occurring over the next 20 years. Others integrated transit options into their recommendations while focusing on community and social services that cater to families in surrounding neighborhoods. In conducting background research, each team utilized US Census information to identify key housing, economic, and education trends in the area. The teams made their conceptual and implementation recommendations in part based on this background information. Students felt it was essential to develop a long-term plan that would satisfy the needs of both current and future residents of each neighborhood. Key themes throughout each group’s conceptual and implementation recommendations include: • Accessible and equitable transit for all ages and mobility levels. • Multi-use buildings with a mix of housing to address “missing middle” housing that River Road currently lacks. • Improved placemaking elements that incorporate the neighborhood’s culture and provide a sense of community. • Increased neighborhood economic development along River Road. Each group approached these concepts in different ways depending on the neighborhood’s demographics and existing built infrastructure, however common themes were evident throughout. The groups aligned their recommendations with the city of Eugene Comprehensive Plan, the Eugene 2035 Transportation Plan, and LTD’s MovingAhead document. Aligning goals and preferences in this way led to more feasible and realistic recommendations should the students’ River Road corridor plans be utilized by LTD or Eugene. This report includes brief summaries of each group project with full reports included in the appendices.Item Open Access Environmental Assessment of the Emerald Express Gateway Corridor(University of Oregon, 2019) Theofield, RJ; Yang, YizhaoThe Emerald Express (EmX) Gateway Corridor is a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line developed and operated by Lane Transit District (LTD) that connects main centers in the cities of Eugene and Springfield. BRT is a high-quality bus-based transit system that delivers fast, comfortable, and cost-effective services. BRT achieves this through the provision of dedicated lanes, off-board fare collection, and more frequent service. LTD’s EmX is one of only a few BRT lines currently available in the United States (Lane Transit District, 2019). In 2011, LTD expanded EmX service by developing and constructing the EmX Gateway line. The EmX Gateway line provides daytime service between Springfield Station, Gateway Station, and Sacred Heart Station. Nearly a decade later, the EmX Gateway Corridor experiences the lowest ridership of LTD’s three EmX system lines. To better understand why, LTD partnered with the University of Oregon’s Sustainable Cities Institute to reexamine the corridor and conduct a multi-scale environmental study. To develop this report, undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in the University of Oregon’s Advanced Geographic Information Systems course collaborated with LTD staff to provide a summary of neighborhood characteristics, accessibility and connectivity, and land use mix for neighborhoods along the EmX Gateway Corridor. Throughout the research, a mix of data collection and analysis methods were used. ArcGIS’s ArcMap software was used extensively to create the maps found within this report and perform spatial analyses. Data for this report were provided by the Lane Council of Governments, collected from the American Community Survey (ACS), or collected by students using the survey instrument Survey123. Students collected these survey data at each station, its walkshed, and connecting street segments on May 17, 2019. Overall, this report finds the EmX Gateway Corridor suffers not from issues of inadequate facilities or amenities, but from incompatible land uses nearby and the absence of a well-connected transportation system. In response to this finding, we recommend LTD consider the following actions outlined in Table X, which are organized by neighborhood, accessibility and connectivity, and land use mix. Specific recommendations for each station can be found later in the report in the Stations and Vicinity section.Item Open Access Environmental Assessment of the Emerald Express Franklin Boulevard Corridor(University of Oregon, 2020) Haefliger, Marie; Hays-Alsin, Bethany; Yang, YizhaoThis technical report describes a multi-scale environmental study of Emerald Express (EmX) in the Franklin Boulevard Corridor. This study is a collaboration between Advanced GIS students at the University of Oregon, Lane Transit District (LTD), and the Sustainable City Year Program. The EmX is a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system that connects downtown Springfield to downtown and west Eugene. The study area contains stops with the highest daily average ridership on the EmX line. This study seeks to explain what makes these stops successful and how ridership, accessibility, and safety can be improved along the Franklin Corridor. This study includes an equity and demographic analysis, a network connectivity analysis, and a land use analysis. Some of the trends that affect ridership included in this study are population density, proximity to facilities, concentration of commercial parcels, and bike share stations. Students surveyed the 13 outbound stations included in the study area. This report includes station highlights and recommendations. The report also addresses specific recommendations for improving facilities and their safety.Item Open Access Applying Business Strategy to Manage Uncertainty(University of Oregon, 2020) Cohen, Rachel; Cabinte, RyanMaster of Business Administration (MBA) students from the UO Center for Sustainable Business Practices were tasked with equipping Lane Transit District with a set of financial and business strategy tools to help the agency adapt to a changing mobility landscape and provide the community with a sustainable level of service for the long-term future. Over the course of six months, the team created and presented to LTD leadership a financial projection model and a scenario planning workbook. The team also had the opportunity to test and implement these tools given real issues LTD faced at the time. Armed with a financial baseline that models future transit tax revenues given past revenue growth and independent economic indicators, the team compared “business as usual” projections with shortfalls caused by the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic in Lane County. The team projects a gap of up to $15 million in payroll and self-employment tax revenues through the end of fiscal year 2021. Additionally, the team deployed its scenario planning tool to envision potential opportunities and challenges LTD might face given the outcomes of uncertainties the agencies is facing, including local and regional land use policy, and the extent to which society and individuals embrace the ‘sharing economy’ over ownership of assets. The team found that while density and reduced ownership of assets (especially personal vehicles) are generally more conducive to the traditional fixed-route transit model, LTD has many opportunities to creatively deploy new services, partnerships, and technologies to thrive and serve the Lane County community in any scenario. While these tools have been handed over to LTD leadership alongside presentations and documentation, this report explores insights and lessons learned from the process. Major recommendations include: 1. LTD should diversify its revenue sources and/or assets in order to build a sustainable funding model. 2. LTD should embed long-term thinking into day-to-day operations, empowering team members from operators to the Board of Directors to think about complex issues, communicate uncertainties, and participate in the process.Item Open Access Current and Future Mobility Needs Assessment for the Cities of Cottage Grove and Creswell(University of Oregon, 2020) Connor, Emily; Brown, AnneThe purpose of this report is to provide recommendations to the cities of Cottage Grove and Creswell based on the current and future transportation needs as informed by professional insight and community input. The first half of the report analyzes results from interviews taken from professionals in the area as well as the results from an online survey given to residents of the communities. Current and future identified needs focused on the following themes: • The perceptions of Route 98 and how that perception varied between LTD, professional insight, community input, and data analysis. • Physical connectedness of the transportation systems in Cottage Grove and Creswell and barriers that might hinder transportation such as bus stop infrastructure. • Programmatic connectedness between transportation systems in Cottage Grove and Creswell and how accessible they are to the communities they serve. • Various technology and financial availabilities of the communities and how they shape the transportation options that can be considered for Cottage Grove and Creswell. The second half of the report discusses new transportation mode options that could be used to address the transportation needs in Creswell and Cottage Grove. Modes such as bike share, paratransit, ride hail partnerships, and mobility on demand (MOD) (including analysis on Cottage Grove’s pilot MOD project) were considered. The various case studies on these modes can be found in the appendix. Between identifying some of the various needs that these two small cities have, students made recommendations for the cities’ current transportation networks as well as some suggestions for what to consider when looking at new modes and how the cities’ needs. Students made several recommendations to help address the current and future needs of these two communities.Item Open Access Expanding the PeaceHealth Rides Bike-share Network(University of Oregon, 2020) Dawson, Heather; Kohler, Nicholas; Kurtz, LindseyStudents in the spring 2020 Advanced GIS course worked together with Lane Transit District to assess how bike-share coverage could be expanded to develop multimodal transit stops and provide greater public transportation opportunities for underserved areas and populations. The students worked independently using spatial datasets that reflected demand for bike-share expansion according to previous reports from the bike-share program and external research. While students based demand on a variety of different factors, the density of residential areas and businesses was a major component in these analyses. Students used map locations of the current LTD bus lines to prioritize the use of the bike-share system in conjunction with the bus system. Additionally, location and route data from bike-share user history was included in many projects in order to reflect actual usage patterns. The result of each analysis was a suitability map that visualized demand for bike-share station placement based on the specific parameters of each individual project. Demand for station placement was assessed both within and outside of the bike-share program’s current operating zone, with some projects putting a focus on specific populations such as low-income and minority residents. The results of these individual analyses show demand for bike-share expansion across a number of different areas, with recommendations including increasing the station density within the current operating zone and adding stations to multiple locations outside of the current operating zone. Areas that were revealed by several different analyses include the student housing areas around Autzen Stadium, the Gateway Mall area, and in west Eugene just beyond the current zone. Student projects covered a wide variety of perspectives within the overall goals, with the inclusion of different datasets demonstrating the scope of geospatial analysis in addressing questions of regional demand.Item Open Access Cycling in Coburg for Recreation, Transportation, and Tourism: A Visioning Process(University of Oregon, 2020) Hart, Nick; Schlossberg, MarcIn collaboration with the Sustainable City Year Program and Lane Transit District (LTD), the city of Coburg set out to examine and explore possible solutions related to bicycle transportation. Students addressed: multi-use paths, ways to make auto-centric streets more bicycle friendly, safe routes to school opportunities, bicycle tourism (within Coburg and extending throughout the region), and marketing materials and campaigns related to bicycling. In response to the topic of multi-use paths and improving auto-centric streets, student groups focused on the Coburg Loop Path, suggesting improvements at critical intersections. Additionally, students suggested developing a series of “bicycle boulevards” to enable path users to connect their destination or departure point to the Loop Path with ease. The network of potential “bicycle boulevards” expanded as students considered ways to improve routes from neighborhoods around Coburg to the Coburg Community Charter School. Students highlighted several streets within Coburg that could receive treatments to encourage walking and biking to school. Suggestions for improving intersections near the school are included in this report. Such improvements could provide safer crossings for students during peak traffic hours. In examining tourism and marketing opportunities for Coburg, student groups focused on the critical location Coburg holds along the Willamette Valley Scenic bikeway. Coburg is three miles from the southern terminus of the 138-mile route that follows the Willamette River from Portland’s outskirts. The bikeway sees many riders every year and is heavily promoted by Travel Oregon, the state’s tourism agency. By capitalizing on Coburg’s location along the route, local businesses could benefit through increased bike traffic. Looking more locally, students outlined plans for a bicycle tour of Coburg’s History, drawing inspiration from the Coburg historical homes tour and the pride residents displayed in their own history throughout visioning documents. As a balance between local and far reaching tourism opportunities, students looked to the Oregon Gran Fondo for inspiration in proposing a similar event centered around Coburg, the Willamette Scenic Bikeway, and neighboring small towns.Item Open Access Reimagining Eugene Station(University of Oregon, 2020) Bonner, Will; Horton, Eyrie; Lorber, Stephen; Parker, CoryThe following report is a compilation of student work exploring designs for Eugene Station and how the station connects to its downtown location. Students worked with Lane Transit District (LTD) as part of the Sustainable City Year Program to explore designs that prepare Eugene Station for projected needs in 2040. Investigative designs centered around emerging trends in autonomous vehicles, ride sharing, densification, micromobility, pedestrian flow, and climate change.Item Open Access Santa Clara Design Studio Report and Findings(University of Oregon, 2020) Soto, Michael; Ribe, RobertThis report provides student designs neighboring LTD’s station at the intersection of Hunsaker Lane and River Road. After gathering information from the community and hosting many meetings and workshops, the City of Eugene and LTD established their goals for the site. The results of a 2019 survey reported that most requested uses from area residents included sustainable development, a farmers market, a public library, affordable housing, a public plaza, neighborhood commercial buildings, a variety of housing types, and allowing taller buildings if amenities are included within them. These survey results established LTD’s initial design goals, which the class refined and employed.Item Open Access Re-imagining River Road for Ecological Equity(University of Oregon, 2020) Urone, Julia; Arroyo, JohnLTD tasked students with identifying concepts to support a more sustainable, equitable transportation system and associated community uses along the River Road corridor in Eugene. Working in groups, students investigated transportation ecosystems, environmentally-oriented community benefits, and dynamic neighborhoods in other jurisdictions and around the globe to identify strategies that could be applied locally. To familiarize themselves with and begin to understand the unique characteristics of the River Road corridor, students conducted site visits and based on these visits, selected a site and topic for group study. These 70 students then divided into 15 groups to develop tangible, sustainable, and potentially implementable recommendations for the River Road area. Final proposals included a diverse inventory of design interventions, land use and transportation improvements, and community engagement plans. Students in the course represented a variety of majors including architecture, business, economics, journalism, planning, general science, environmental studies, and social science. Following ten weeks of research, students presented their transportation and land use ideas to LTD management. Students recommended: • Increased bus routes and infrastructure and more frequent service and wayfinding to increase walkability in the River Road area. These measures could also decrease the need for personal vehicle transportation and increase walking within the city, which would reduce carbon emissions. • Safety improvements and bus stops at community spaces to encourage camaraderie within the community • An array of community and green spaces improvements based in arts and culture as well as food security strategies to increase vitality in the River Road corridor and support a robust transit system.Item Open Access Assessment of MovingAhead’s Potential Funding Options(University of Oregon, 2020) Burdette, Eric; Lewis, RebeccaAs part of Rebecca Lewis’ Public Budget Administration class, LTD tasked student groups to come up with innovative sources to fund a service expansion named MovingAhead. The MovingAhead package is estimated to have $274 million in capital costs, as well as $4.3 million in increased annual operations costs. In response to this challenge, two groups were tasked with developing funding options for capital costs and two student groups were tasked with finding funding options for operations costs. Each group was expected to have at least three funding packages and have a top recommendation based on evaluative criteria. The capital funding groups both had recommendations based on Urban Renewal Districts, among others. Both operations funding groups mentioned Transportation Utility Fees among their recommendations. The four groups recognize that their recommendations should be researched further by LTD or other entities to ensure that they would be able to implement these funding options. This will also ensure stable and resilient long-term funding.Item Open Access Transit-Oriented Development on Historic River Road(University of Oregon, 2020) Wrobel, Olenka; Margerum, Rich; Parker, RobertGraduate students in the University of Oregon’s Community and Regional Planning program worked in four groups to create implementation recommendations for land use and transportation redevelopment for different neighborhoods along River Road. These recommendations focused on the next 20 years. Each group collaborated with their team, other classmates, LTD, and professors to come up with their recommendations. With LTD as a project partner, certain groups formed their vision around transit-oriented development (TOD) occurring over the next 20 years. Others integrated transit options into their recommendations while focusing on community and social services that cater to families in surrounding neighborhoods. In conducting background research, each team utilized US Census information to identify key housing, economic, and education trends in the area. The teams made their conceptual and implementation recommendations in part based on this background information. Students felt it was essential to develop a long-term plan that would satisfy the needs of both current and future residents of each neighborhood. Key themes throughout each group’s conceptual and implementation recommendations include: • Accessible and equitable transit for all ages and mobility levels. • Multi-use buildings with a mix of housing to address “missing middle” housing that River Road currently lacks. • Improved placemaking elements that incorporate the neighborhood’s culture and provide a sense of community. • Increased neighborhood economic development along River Road. Each group approached these concepts in different ways depending on the neighborhood’s demographics and existing built infrastructure, however common themes were evident throughout. The groups aligned their recommendations with the city of Eugene Comprehensive Plan, the Eugene 2035 Transportation Plan, and LTD’s MovingAhead document. Aligning goals and preferences in this way led to more feasible and realistic recommendations should the students’ River Road corridor plans be utilized by LTD or Eugene. This report includes brief summaries of each group project with full reports included in the appendices.Item Open Access LTD Performance Management Strategies(University of Oregon, 2020) Ketchum, Corum; Lall, SaurabhThis report contains recommendations on how LTD could evaluate five of their programs: fleet, operations, service planning, risk management, and sustainability. Each section examines one of these five programs, with recommendations from both the graduate and undergraduate student researchers. Recommendations vary from program to program, but one theme remains constant: managers at LTD could benefit from thinking critically about what program outcomes they want to be held accountable to and use key performance indicators (KPIs) to track their progress in meeting those goals. Full copies of student reports are available in the appendices, discussing the topics covered in this report in greater detail including logic models and more specific recommendations.Item Open Access Promoting Sustainable Transportation in the Coburg Corridor(University of Oregon, 2020) Grover, Alison; Schlossberg, MarcAs part of the Sustainable City Year Program (SCYP) at the University of Oregon, this fall 2019 course asked students to come up with creative ways to implement a variety of mobility hubs in a specific area in Eugene, Oregon. With Lane Transit District (LTD) as our community partner, students proposed mobility hubs along Coburg Road. Coburg Road is one of five key corridors identified in Moving Ahead, a transportation plan put forth by the city of Eugene, LTD, and other regional partners. Along with Highway 99, River Road, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and 30th Avenue, Coburg Road is the focus of transportation improvements such as compact urban development, densification, increased frequency bus lines, and enhanced pedestrian corridors. A mobility hub is an area where multiple forms of transportation are concentrated to facilitate convenience, efficiency, and to increase multi-modal transportation among travelers. Mobility hubs typically incorporate sustainable modes of transportation such as pedestrian access, transit hubs, and bicycle infrastructure. They also provide all the necessities to make these trips possible, including secure bicycle parking, parking spaces for park and ride, electric vehicle charging stations, bikeshare and scooter share stations, and covered seating for people between trips. The overarching goal of a mobility hub is to reduce reliance on personal vehicles. This benefits the environment by improving air quality, conserving resources, reducing the emission of greenhouse gases present in car exhaust, reducing congestion by limiting the number of vehicles on the road, and increasing equity by enabling carless households to thrive. A mobility hub on Coburg Road has the potential to function not only as a transportation connection, but also as a welcoming, social space for people to meet up and relax. Teams proposed seven mobility hubs at different locations along Coburg Road ranging from Oakway Center to Crescent Avenue.Item Open Access The Future of Transit(University of Oregon, 2020) Cohen, Rachel; Skov, JoshLane Transit District (LTD) asked graduate students in Joshua Skov’s Industrial Ecology course to help envision how it might provide safe, affordable, and low-carbon mobility options to the community in the face of a changing urban mobility ecosystem. Students applied corporate sustainability strategy principles to assess potential opportunities and threats created by global trends in transportation. Students analyzed potential impacts of new modes, technologies, and business models, as well as the resulting shifts in consumer behavior in six areas: 1. Micromobility as a first-last mile solution 2. Cases of smartphone apps for transit 3. Partnerships and policies for ride-hailing 4. Travel behavior, mode choice, and perceptions of transit 5. Privacy and security in the age of big data 6. Collection of consumer insights through survey instruments Ultimately, students recommend that LTD leverage pilot projects and partnerships to explore new opportunities while adapting emerging trends to community needs in order to foster positive outcomes.Item Open Access ARCH 683 Studio Report(University of Oregon, 2020) Arroyo, Amy; Cartwright, VirginiaStudents planned and designed a new downtown “Enoteca,” Italian for a local and regional agricultural library, in Downtown Eugene, Oregon. The Enoteca is a space to educate the public about southern Willamette Valley wine production. In addition to the Enoteca, the program includes a ballroom and a restaurant providing farm-to-table cuisine. In addition to the program, students had the freedom to incorporate any other use they believed would enhance the city of Eugene lifestyle and needs. The location, on Willamette Street, would help enhance the LTD’s Eugene Station environment and expand an active part of Downtown Eugene. The city of Eugene and LTD envision the site ideally including a housing component to increase housing density in Downtown Eugene. Currently, downtown is an “eight to five” business district; increased housing could help improve activity after business hours. Sustainable design solutions were proposed, beginning with: a) Setting a budget and a program. b) Establishing a rule for the design solutions to include the AIA Cote Ten Measures. c) Create a project schedule. A budget is an architect’s road map. The measures are the soul of the project. The schedule is the “road map + soul = profit.”Item Open Access Bus Stops as Community Gateways(University of Oregon, 2020) Del Rosario, EJ; Williams, DaisyThis report summarizes the design proposals for conceptual bus stops that are responses to the current environments at two existing Lane Transit District (LTD) sites. This 10-week course led students with little to no formal design experience in understanding the connection and process of designing a functional and replicative structure. General requirements of the project included design of a bus stop that matched LTD’s considerations such as rider amenities and security. Additional design possibilities included creating unique structures that would improve the experience of users. Through practical experience, a class of fourteen students built on their ability to communicate their proposals through drawing, 3D modeling, and Photoshop, software that allows users to create visualizations. Students also learned traditional forms of architectural communication through drafting, elevations, and site plans. Through site visits, the class learned common strategies to study space and observed the environment that commuters experience while using the buses and stations. Four student proposals were chosen to provide a range of designs. The completed designs offered different and unique elements, such as introducing unique amenities, technology, and designed environmental responses to the bus stops. Each design emphasized the common themes of increased user interaction and sustainability.