PDX Lounge Partner Charrette

COC is excited to be a new PDX Lounge partner! The PDX Lounge is a highly collaborative intersection of local government, businesses and non-profit organizations seeking to help create a profitable new business model for sustainable industries. To kick-start this relationship and help the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability and Portland Development Commission’s goals of establishing a dynamic permanent space and program, COC donated in-kind services to plan and facilitate a partner charrette on January 9, 2009. Kirstin Greene and Ellie Fiore worked closely with City staff and other partners to design this event to be interactive, engaging and productive.  Charrette exercises were designed to generate ideas for the PDX Lounge program and space design. About 30 participants shared their ideas about how PDX Lounge can most effectively support Oregon’s sustainable industries by participating in exercises that included mapping and identifying superhero powers for the future PDX Lounge. These ideas will feed into future Lounge design and development. Photos of this event are available on Flickr.

Snowapalooza 2008

We realize this post is a little late, but we still wanted to share.  Blame it on the snow.

Notoriously known as the “Arctic Blast,”  the recent snowstorm was hands down one of the craziest snowstorms Portland has seen in a long time.  Despite the freezing cold temperatures, several inches of snow and thick layers of ice, it was business as usual.  Well, sort of.  The few brave souls who could safely make it to work did so, while others opted to work from home or at a nearby coffee shop (free Wifi anyone?).  Of course there were the usual trials and tribulations that often come with extreme weather conditions, such as:

• Getting the car stuck in the snow only blocks from making it home.
• Shoveling the driveway for hours only for it to snow again. Repeat.
• Introducing your taste buds to new and interesting flavors because you are out of food and snowed in.
• Getting snowballs thrown at you by random people for absolutely no reason at all.
• Fighting off the sniffles because why else would it be called cold weather without a cold?
• Waiting for what seemed like hours to catch a bus only for the bus to keep on going without you.
• Walking 20 miles uphill barefoot in the snow … errr… wait..

We thought it would be fun to hold a photo contest as an excuse to get COCers out in the snow. [Note we said fun. We don't promote cruel or unusual punishment in any way.]  Below is the winning photo and a few honorable mentions.  More photos documenting this event are available on Flickr.

Best Overall Photo

Fine Frigid Dining by Nancy Marshall

Honorable Mentions

Snowy Downtown Portland by Erin Atkinson

Ice Serpent by Alisha Dishaw

Teak with Laptop by Teak Wall

Erin Making a Snow Angel by Erin Atkinson

Paw Print in the Snow by Crystal Jackson

Flexible Carpooling Workshop January 26

We received an invitation from Paul Minett, Managing Director of Trip Convergence Ltd, to attend a flexible carpooling workshop. The invite is open to all, so let us know if you are going.

Flexible Carpooling Workshop

This is to invite you to the following no cost event:

What: A workshop to explore ‘flexible car pooling’ for the Portland Region (read more below)

Where: Metro Council Chambers, Metro Center, 600 N. E. Grand, Portland

When: 3 pm to 5:30 pm, 26 January 2009 (Refreshments on arrival and at the end of the session compliments of Trip Convergence Ltd).

Who: All Portland and Region (including Vancouver, WA, and Salem) transportation agencies, and other interested parties. RSVP to Paul Minett.

Why:
In November the Oregon Transportation Commission heard a presentation from Paul Minett of Trip Convergence. Paul is seeking a regional location to carry out beta trials of ‘flexible carpooling’. Paul has a hypothesis that what is needed for (much) greater levels of car pooling is ‘meeting places’, rather than ‘databases’. Swimming against the flow of conventional wisdom, Paul thinks that people would share rides without pre-arrangement, in high volumes, if we could make it easy for them to do so, and that this could reduce the levels of congestion in urban areas. He says that enabling greater ride sharing is an ‘assembly problem’, not an ‘information problem’.

If Paul is right, then flexible carpooling could be a good way to reduce the levels of traffic over the CRC, and to reduce demand for parking in Salem. It could help on busy routes all around the region. The evidence that Paul could be right is found in the ‘slug lines’ in Washington DC, and the ‘casual carpooling’ in San Francisco. Between these two locations as many as 6,000 three person, single use carpools are formed every day at almost no cost. Paul believes that a more formal version of these casual systems could make car pooling much more common. The main difference between this and other carpooling approaches is the removal of the need for pre-arrangement by enabling meeting places. He notes that no-one has initiated such a system, the casual ones mentioned above grew up of their own accord, so research is needed to determine what it would take to get one started.

Paul is returning to Oregon in late January to follow up on the meetings that he had in November. He has offered his time to do a workshop with transportation agencies from around the region, to see if the initial interest that was expressed can be converted into a project. He is hoping to work collaboratively with all relevant agencies, as it is his belief that through collaboration we will achieve the best result. Metro has agreed to provide the venue for the workshop.

The workshop would be a great opportunity to network with your regional colleagues while hearing more about this new opportunity. The proposed agenda is set out below. Note that attendance doesn’t represent a commitment to doing flexible carpooling, but that by the end of the workshop Paul is hoping to find out if the regional organisations are interested in moving forward with the idea.

The proposed agenda:

Part 1: If we wanted to do it…

1. What is flexible carpooling
2. Why would we want to have flexible carpooling
3. How might it work

Part 2: Where would we do it?

1. What defines a good route (agree criteria)
2. Suggestions of routes based on local knowledge
3. Apply criteria and rank suggestions

Part 3: How would we do it?

1. Governance
2. Operating Model
3. Revenue Model

Part 4: What would be the barriers?

1. Critical Issues
2. Deal breakers
3. Implementation Sequence

Part 5: What would be the next steps?

1. Is there a will to proceed?
2. Who will do what?

PSU Forums Winter Term 2009

ANNOUNCEMENT OF WINTER TERM, 2009
FORUMS ON THE ROLE FOR PLANNING
IN THE FUTURE OF OREGON

Presented by Arnold Cogan, FAICP, Planner-in-Residence in the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning

Three forums will be held from 10 to 11:30 am in room 204 in the Learning Center wing of the Urban Center Building at the corner of SW 6th and Mill.  Specific dates, topics and speakers are as follows:

January 30—President Wim Wiewel: Issues confronting PSU.
Join us to meet the new President of PSU and discuss issues confronting the University as it undertakes a new sustainability program and expands its relationships with the larger community.

February 27—What’s happening with the Big Look?
Guest speaker: John Evans, Oregon Big Look Manager with the state Department of Land Conservation and Development.  He will discuss the current status of the Big Look program and action that can be expected from the current session of the Oregon Legislature.

April 3—How what people think affects Planners?
Adam Davis, a pollster with the firm of Davis, Hibbits and Midgdall will discuss attitudes of Oregonians on issues that affect planners and public policy.

All forums will be webcast live and archived for future viewing.  As in previous sessions, each event is expected to stimulate spirited conversation, focus our expectations on the role of planning in the future and provide students, faculty and others with new insights.

For more information, please contact Arnold Cogan at: 503-225-0192 or at arnold.cogan@coganowens.com.