Aging in Place and Access to Natural Areas: New Research Offers Policy Recommendations

Life-Space Mobility: Transportation and Policy can Support Aging in Place for Older Adults

Research on older adults frequently explores the notion of "aging in place"—providing older adults the opportunity to continue living in their own homes and communities. Accessible neighborhoods that prioritize mobility help residents meet basic needs like goods, services and social activities. This life-space mobility perspective is rarely applied in urban planning and architecture. New research from Ivis Garcia Zambrana of University of Utah and Alan DeLaTorre of Portland State University seeks to operationalize this concept and draw policy implications for the architecture and planning fields for home modifications, the built environment, and access to transit.

Small Towns with Big City Problems: Mobility Challenges and Solutions in Our Natural Areas

Living near natural amenities are small GNAR (Gateway and Natural Amenity Region) communities which are growing, sometimes rapidly, and with dramatic increases in visitation. They experience a wide range of "big-city problems": housing affordability, income disparity, parking challenges, and severe traffic congestion. Despite often having few, if any, planners or other paid public officials, they are trying an array of innovative solutions. NITC researchers Danya Rumore of University of Utah and Philip Stoker of University of Arizona have studied the challenges and developed a new online community toolkit that is open for collaboration and new resources.

New Workshops Added to the 11th Annual Transportation and Communities Summit 2019

Sept. 19 - 20, 2019 at Portland State University

We've just added a new slate of half-day workshops:

** Two-Part Workshop on Applying the VisionEval Framework

** Cultivating Leadership Skills through the Power of Improv

** Design Thinking Tactics for Urban Development

** How to Connect a Racial Equity Plan to an Infrastructure Plan

** QPED Toolkit - Qualitative Pedestrian Environments Data for better, more equitable transportation decision-making

Early bird ends July 15th! $20 off for members of Community Partners (OAPA, WTS Portland, ITE Oregon, & more)

Student Spotlight: Daniel Iwicki, Oregon Tech

Daniel Iwicki is a civil engineering student and Oregon Tech's ASCE-AGC Student Chapter President. His primary research interest is in autonomous vehicles and their effects on future life. He won a nationwide essay competition in 2018 with the paper "The Effects of Autonomous Vehicles on Rural Areas," and was invited to present his work at the National Conference on Rural Public and Intercity Bus Transportation. Dan has been a NITC Scholar and has represented Oregon Tech and NITC at several events including the TRB Annual Meeting. He has also worked as a research assistant and was co-author on a NITC-funded study on vibration modal analysis of bridges. After graduation, he will be working at Kimley-Horn in Tucson, Arizona.

NITC Research Updates

NITC Research Leads HUD to Rethink the Location Affordability Index: Research by Joanna Ganning, Keith Bartholomew and J. Rosie Tighe informed Version 3 of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)'s LAI.
University of Oregon Students Present in Oregon Policy Lab: UO students worked on projects for Lane County and presented their work on May 31 and June 5 as part of a new initiative, the Oregon Policy Lab. See this year's projects.
Study of Sidewalk Autonomous Delivery Robots and Their Potential Impacts on Freight Efficiency and Travel: New paper by Miguel Figliozzi and Dylan Jennings of Portland State University published in Transportation Research Record.
Urbanism Next Blog—Uber Vs. Lyft Round 2: The Bikeshare Showdown: Did you know the University of Oregon's Urbanism Next program has a blog? Check out their June 5, 2019 story on bike share, and give them a subscribe!

The National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), is a program of the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University. NITC is one of five U.S. Department of Transportation national university transportation centers. The NITC program is a Portland State-led partnership with the University of Oregon, Oregon Institute of Technology, University of Utah and new partners University of Arizona and University of Texas at Arlington. We pursue our theme, improving mobility of people and goods to build strong communities, through research, education and technology transfer.