Affordability

Bike enthusiasts argue that bikesharing programs can be an important element of sustainable mobility planning in the urban cores of large metropolitan areas. However, the objective longterm impact of bikesharing on reducing auto-dependence is not well-examined, as prior studies have tended to rely on self-reported subjective mode substitution effects. We use a unique longitudinal dataset containing millions of geo-referenced vehicle registrations and odometer readings in Massachusetts over a six-year period - the Massachusetts Vehicle Census - to examine the causal impact of bikesharing on various metrics of auto-dependence in the inner core of Metro Boston.

In 2021, City Council directed PBOT to identify new revenue sources that reflect the City’s policy goals, address the bureau’s structural deficit, and provide maximum flexibility to invest in our transportation system, and to present its recommended revenue proposals to Council during the FY 2022-23 budget development process. POEM is an initiative to raise funds for implementing transportatin options by essentially taxing driving.

Automobile-dependent planning has changed automobiles from a luxury into a necessity. Excessive vehicle costs leave many households without money to purchase essential food, shelter and healthcare. They need more affordable transportation options.

"This memorandum outlines the process, objectives, and findings of an analysis the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS) engaged Economic & Planning Systems (EPS) to undertake regarding whether proposed density bonuses would create sufficient additional residual land value to compensate for newly-established regulatory requirements in Multi-Dwelling Unit zone districts."

This report explores how smart mobility technologies can address the current and future needs of transportation disadvantaged communities. It looks at the barriers different communities experience regarding access to smart mobility technologies, and potential solutions to overcoming these barriers.

This article questions the effects of parking minimums and policies on residential renters in the U.S. by analyzing a sample of rental housing units from the 2011 American Housing Survey.

Parking drives up the cost of development and puts the burden on tenants who purchase or rent housing in these developments. Most zoning codes and practices require generous parking supply, and tenants are forced to pay for parking regardless of if they are using it. This reduces housing affordability which has a disproportionate effect on lower-income households.

Mobile robotics are traditionally designed using complex and expensive hardware, however now there is growing demand for low-cost solutions that are more specific to the given application.

This report gives a detailed analysis of the United States’ housing market, demographic drivers, homeownership, rental housing, and housing challenges for 2019.

This report discusses the varying benefits of carsharing and why individual vehicle ownership causes problems for cities and has a lesser public benefit than carsharing.

This resource includes a comprehensive overview of several types of shared mobility. The key modes reviewed include: car sharing, peer-to-peer carsharing, bike sharing, carpooling/ride sharing, and ride hailing.

This report explores peer-to-peer carsharing, its impacts on travel behavior, and how it can be incorporated with other shared mobility services.

This report outlines the factors contributing to Millennial homeownership, explaining why their preferences differ from previous generations'.

There has been a shift in car buyer demographics over the past several years. Younger generations that were previously most likely to be car buyers often don’t have the need or financial means to own a car.

Portland announced an expansion of its Transportation wallet, now offering the pass to people who live or work in the NW parking district. The pass is intended to encourage walking, taking transit, and bicycling, and to address parking demand and congestion in dense areas of Portland.

This report examines several scenarios of connected and automated vehicle (CAV) adoption rates and studies their potential impacts on fuel efficiency and consumer costs. The results found massive uncertainties in potential long-term energy impacts from fully automated and highly connected vehicles in the high adoption rate scenario and similar uncertainties in the other scenarios. The authors outline the gaps in existing research and suggest routes for further research in order of importance.

This article studies how emerging “smart mobility” systems will affect equity issues in Portland, Oregon. It suggests that affordable and improved public transit, ridesharing and active transportation could address many transportation challenges.

Robin Chase, co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar and cofounder of NUMO, discusses the misconceptions around Mobility as a Service and its potentials for public benefit.

NACTO studied the data from all available sources about docked and dockless bike share systems. They found that docked bike share systems show steady growth, while dockless bike share systems are more volatile.

"Private Mobility, Public Interest is a report for public-sector leaders committed to making it easy for their citizens to get where they want to go. We identify actionable short-term opportunities for today’s transit agencies and municipalities to work with emerging mobility providers. This report is an independent analysis built on a foundation of more than 100 interviews with industry representatives from the public and private sectors."

Residential Preference: the social, environmental, and physical preferences that affect a person or family’s choice of residential location (for our purposes, in relation to the urban core and other amenities offered as a part of living in density) The introduction of autonomous vehicles and the comprehensive integration of E-commerce into the urban and suburban fabric will have a widespread effect on the factors the influence a resident’s location preference.

"This report represents an important contribution to the emerging understanding of the connections between transportation and public health. It contains 8 chapters entitled: Health effects of transportation policy; Transportation authorization 101: a backgrounder; Public transportation and health; Walking, bicycling, and health; Roadways and health: making the case for collaboration; Breaking down silos: transportation, economic development and health; Sustainable food systems: perspectives on transportation policy; Traffic injury prevention: A 21st-century approach. This report was written for community leaders, policymakers, funders, practitioners, and advocates interested in an overarching strategy to promote active living and to build healthy communities of opportunity."

The New Mobility Playbook is a set of plays, policies, and strategies that will position Seattle to foster new mobility options while prioritizing safety, equity, affordability, and sustainability in the transportation system.

This study presents the emerging trends of Real Estate in 2019, such as firm Profitability prospects, real estate business prospects, housing issue, retail transforms, tax reform, and capital market. It also analyzes the trends for different type of property and different region of US and Canada.

This chapter estimates how minimum parking requirements increase the cost of constructing housing, office buildings, and shopping centers. It also explains proposed legislation to limit how much parking cities can require in transit-rich districts.

The Transportation Authority’s “Emerging Mobility Evaluation Report” provides the first comprehensive look at the rapidly evolving emerging mobility sector in San Francisco. The report outlines the range of services operating in San Francisco, covering everything from ride-hail services to autonomous vehicles and microtransit to scooter sharing. In the report, the Transportation Authority evaluates how these services and technologies align with the city’s 10 Guiding Principles related to collaboration, safety, transit, congestion, sustainability, equitable access, accountability, labor, disabled access, and financial impact.

This framework offers planners and community advocates a step-by-step guide to a more community-centered transportation planning process that focuses on the mobility needs of communities and puts affected communities at the center of decision-making. Offers a process for how to prioritize transportation modes/mobility options that are the most equitable and sustainable.

Is Paris in the position to be able to offer free transit to all? This article breaks down the barriers and examines how it has become reality in other cities.

The rise of renting in the U.S. isn’t just about high housing prices, or preferences for city living, but about the flexibility to compete in today’s economy." This article examines the changes in trends of housing ownership versus renting.

Between 1998 and 2005, employment in the U.S. warehousing industry grew at a compound annual growth rate of 22.23%, and the number of establishments increased at compound annual growth rate of 9.48%. Over this same period of time, the price for transportation fuels increased dramatically and became much more volatile. In this paper we examine the microeconomic and macroeconomic forces that have enabled such rapid growth in the warehousing industry. We also analyze structural change through employment and warehouse construction starts data and show that a new breed of warehouse has emerged – the mega distribution center, or mega DC.

The EV Ecosystem Strategy builds on the City’s experience with electric vehicles, or “EVs”, since 2007; and, formalizes the City’s role in the expansion of charging options until the year 2021. As part of the Renewable City Strategy, the City committed to developing an electric vehicle infrastructure strategy to support the transition to renewably-powered transportation, this is the first five-year strategy to make that a reality.

Nashville faces one of the biggest votes to date, a plan to approve or deny a $5.4 billion plan to overhaul the current transit system.

Amazon can now be used for housing - a build-you-own tiny house kit is available online for $7,250.

This info-graph and write-up display the costs that parking spaces incur and how they are bundled into our lives.

A study was done to see how location to transit impacts the amount you spend on transportation in a year - this article explains the findings.

The Seattle Department of Transportation is currently conducting a study to determine how best to implement congestion pricing equitably. The article mentions other cities as cases and scholars' suggestion to discuss how to make congestion pricing more equitable.

This article explains to us the reasons Amazon bought Whole Foods - working to create a rather seamless day-to-day operation for its customer base.

This study examines the potential changes in residential location choice in a scenario where shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs) are a popular mode of travel in the Atlanta metropolitan area. This hypothetical study is based on an agent-based simulation approach, which integrates residential location choice models with a SAV simulation model. The coupled model simulates future home location choices given current home location preferences and real estate development patterns. The results indicate that commuters may relocate to neighborhoods with better public schools and more amenities due to reductions in commute costs.

This article talks about the Electric Moped as a new mobility launch in Brooklyn. This e-motorcycles can serves as affordable people and provide longer trip distance. How it can integrate with transit, bikeshare and other modes need to be considered.

CityLab is launching Bus to the Future that puts public coaches at the center of the transportation future. It also plan to look at how technology can improve bus fundamentals. Automation (combined TNCs) could also transform surface transit.

Target acquires delivery service Shipt for $550 million, this article explains how its going and how they match up to other delivery options.

"This paper identifies three promising applications of new mobility services by public transit agencies, and presents economic, social, and environmental modeling that illustrate the value of such partnerships to mass transit systems."

This paper models the market potential of a fleet of shared, autonomous, electric vehicles (SAEVs) 20 by employing a multinomial logic mode choice model in an agent-based framework and different 21 fare settings.

"WRI’s research provides initial findings regarding the feasibility and impact of carsharing in emerging markets, though many uncertainties remain. Limitations of the study include a light methodology that only scratched the surface of these important issues, and uncertain transferability from Hangzhou and Bangalore. In addition, the relative absence of carsharing (and research on carsharing) in emerging markets limits the extent to which observations can be interpreted and extrapolated. That said, this study provides important early findings on the current industry, barriers, and service features; and suggests significant potential for carsharing in emerging markets. The results could help inform more in-depth research, operational approaches, and public policy."

"This article intends to advance future research about the travel behavior impacts of SAVs, by identifying the characteristics of users who are likely to adopt SAV services and by eliciting willingness to pay measures for service attributes. The results show that service attributes including travel cost, travel time and waiting time may be critical determinants of the use of SAVs and the acceptance of DRS. Differences in willingness to pay for service attributes indicate that SAVs with DRS and SAVs without DRS are perceived as two distinct mobility options. The results imply that the adoption of SAVs may differ across cohorts, whereby young individuals and individuals with multimodal travel patterns may be more likely to adopt SAVs."

This article explores the history of Amazon's attempts to get into the fresh grocery game, and looks at potential future methods the company may use as it continues to do so.

Between April 18 and May 9, 2014, Davis, Hibbitts & Midghall, Inc. (DHM Research) conducted an online survey of respondents living in Clackamas, Multnomah, Washington and Clark counties about their current and preferred residential and neighborhood preferences. The objective of the survey was to assess general opinions and preferences around housing and neighborhood choices and factors that may influence those choices. Portland State University and Metro developed the questionnaire with input from DHM.

While the U.S. online food-delivery market continues to burn hot, data from KeyBanc suggests growth in restaurants offering the service may be slowing. That could limit the whole sector’s long-term growth, as restaurant selection is key to consumer adoption of delivery apps.

In many countries the revenue from gasoline taxes is used to fund highways and other transportation infrastructure. As the number of electric vehicles on the road increases, this raises questions about the effectiveness and equity of this financing mechanism. In this paper, we ask whether electric vehicle drivers should pay a mileage tax.

Since EV drivers zip past gas taxes, they don’t contribute to the federal fund for road maintenance. A new working paper tries to determine whether plug-ins should pay up.