Sustainable City Year Reports 2014-15 (Metro, Gresham, TriMet, Tigard)
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Item Open Access The Eastside Blue Line Manifesto(University of Oregon, 2015-04) Ahrens, NickHow can TriMet better communicate with the people of Gresham and the Eastside with the goal of creating a better user experience? With this question as our starting point, our team agreed on two things to move forward. First, this project would be about the people of Gresham and making life better through connections. Second, we realized this project is bigger than a few students working on a communications system. This project could have real impact on lives and communities. Before we could consider solutions, we had to begin to understand the relationship between TriMet and the people of the Eastside, all the way to Gresham. After preliminary research, our team took trips to Gresham to immerse ourselves. We rode buses, walked streets, ate food, and asked questions. But more importantly, we listened, and we connected the dots. Out of our research and experiences, we recognized that the people of the Eastside are as divided as they are diverse. This divide is to be recognized as an opportunity for TriMet to connect, lead, and unite the people of Gresham Oregon. In this report we share our research, insights, and ideas in the hope of helping TriMet adopt an even stronger, more indispensable stance in the community. This will be the era that tells the enduring story of TriMet, how it worked beyond obligation to make a community stronger and give the city of Portland the gift of a better future. And the Eastside Blue Line is the place to do this. Here is our manifesto.Item Open Access Sandy River to Springwater Multimodal Corridor Feasibility Study(University of Oregon, 2014) Xian Chen, Leona; Ribe, Rob; Eischeid, MarkThe City of Gresham, Metro, Multnomah County and the City of Troutdale collaborated with the U.O. Sustainable Cities Initiative in executing a trail planning and feasibility study reported here. Students of landscape architecture conducted the study. It investigated the problem of “closing Portland’s 40- mile Loop” in its biggest gap along its eastern edge through Gresham and Troutdale. The “40-mile loop” was originally proposed by John Charles Olmstead in 1903. It intended to link Portland’s open spaces and greenways to create a public accessible trail system. That loop has grown to a much more extensive contemporary trail system and the eastern gap is arguably the most challenging part of today’s 40-mile Loop system to complete. Unlike most of the rest of the system, there is no existing right-of-way or river or other landscape corridor to follow. A new trail here must traverse the suburban landscape though parks, along roads, along unused rights-of-way, near creeks, or along the edge of private properties. This report summarizes the planning and urban design processes the students undertook, and the proposed solutions for creating a path from the Sandy River waterfront in Troutdale to the Springwater Trail though southeast Gresham.The class first did regional studies of many potential trail links and their good and bad impacts as candidates to assemble into alternative trail alignments. Proposed better alternative trail alignments were then mapped. The class then developed more detailed designs for segments of alignments selected by city and Metro planners. 7 The project began with field studies of many existing trails in the Portland region and a combination of field and GIS analysis of the study areas. During the field trips that visited trails, students recorded trails’ layout and construction, site furnishings, trail experience, access, and context.Item Open Access Downtown Gresham Walkability Study(University of Oregon, 2015) Horan, Erin; Yang, Yizhao; Eidt, TaylorThe City of Gresham seeks to improve the walkability of its downtown to create a vibrant, pedestrian-oriented city center. Through the University of Oregon’s Sustainable City Year Program, an Advanced GIS class of undergraduate and graduate students from the Community and Regional Planning program and the Planning, Public Policy, and Management department conducted a walkability study analyzing the built and urban design environment for pedestrians and bicyclists. This report synthesizes the research and analysis conducted by five student teams. It contains a description of the class methods, analysis of each study group, overall findings and recommendations. Students used Census data and shapefiles provided by the Regional Land Information System to analyze Downtown Gresham’s land use, transportation infrastructure, and population density in ArcGIS. Students used a network analyst tool to further analyze the level of street connectivity around 17 locations of interest. After this analysis, five student teams conducted on-site walkability assessments of sub-regions in Downtown Gresham. The walkability assessments measured factors for the built environment and urban design and included gathering surveys of pedestrians and bicyclists along the route. To analyze this entire region, five study areas were identified: • Gresham Town Fair • Downtown Gresham • East Powell Boulevard • Main City Park • NE Burnside Road Each team provided analysis and recommendations for each region based on the spatial analysis and walkability assessments. Key recommendations that emerged from the findings include: • Enhance urban design elements with street trees, landscaping, public street art, and outdoor dining to create an interesting and enjoyable pedestrian experience • Increase accessibility and safety with additional wayfinding signage, pedestrian crosswalks, well-marked and continuous bike lanes, and traffic calming techniques to high traffic streets • Improve MAX transit station experiences with additional lighting, landscaping, and wayfinding signage • Encourage mixed land uses/density including additional park or public space in vacant lots This report addresses the findings of the walkability assessments by study area and provides recommendations for specific street improvements to add to pedestrian and bicyclist accessibility. Suggestions for possible next steps for the City of Gresham are provided, however, further analysis would be needed to identify feasibility and priority for the city.Item Open Access City of Tigard: Funding Options for Park Maintenance(University of Oregon, 2015) Ruggeri, Laura; Reeder, MichaelIn November 2010, voters in the City of Tigard passed a $17 million bond to fund parks acquisition and development. The bond, Measure 34-181, did not fund park maintenance, however, and the City of Tigard now needs to identify further funding mechanisms to support ongoing park maintenance. Many other cities in Oregon are also looking for ways to fund park maintenance, as well as looking for other sources of revenue in general, whether to balance the general budget or fund a specific area, such as public safety. In fact, the 2014 League of Oregon Cities conference included a session titled “Creative Revenue Streams for Municipalities.”