Transportation Problems and Policy (2020)

Throughout the quarter, we have discussed congestion and new era of transportation. I want to bring in a piece of research I conducted for my GIS class that looks at the contested area of the sidewalk and the impact of the built environment on e-scooter parking compliance. As the sidewalk becomes increasingly crowded with pedestrians, bike racks, trees, parking meters, and public art, adding dockless e-scooters creates a new conflict over space. The City of Portland went to great lengths when e-scooters were introduced to legislate a confined area where they could be legally parked. The research we conducted looks at the built environment and whether it impacts parking compliance rates. The research utilized data provided by the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC), in which researchers conducted walking surveys of three different areas of downtown Portland and observed every parked scooter. Each scooter was assessed for either being compliant or non-compliant in parki...

As a person fascinated with the impact technology or systems can have on society, I am deeply curious about what new technologies in transportation will harbor. The printing press helped create the nation state , the streetcar created business corridors , and the automobile enabled sprawl. If the era of new freeways are over and we enter a so-called fifth era of transportation, I would argue the technology that will guide this era is not new, not sexy, but critical to understanding the choices we make: math. Math will guide this era because, while math is at the core of the impacts of previous eras (the automobile decreases travel time, enabling sprawl), math is actually driving the choices of the fifth era. To demonstrate, I am going to look at a couple key areas in which math is changing the transportation choices we are making. Pedestrians As cities strive to create walkable communities, the layout and design of our streets and neighborhoods makes a difference in whether the city is...