01556493

Component

Identifying and measuring the land value uplift (LVU) impacts of rapid transit are important for a number of reasons, including gauging the effects of rapid transit on land use and validating benefits assumptions made during planning. The existence and magnitude of LVU also creates a rationale for land value capture. But despite a general consensus among planners and policymakers that rapid transit does confer positive LVU benefits, the critical review of more than 60 studies completed in North America over the past 40 years finds significant heterogeneity in study results, leaving many significant questions that pertain to these broad rationales unanswered. Beyond methodological, temporal, modal, and geographic differences, the authors argue that a fundamental source of variability is the incomplete theoretical guidance afforded by a singular focus on accessibility in expectations of LVU, which results in debatable assumptions, a lack of comparability, and potentially misleading conclusions. In response, the authors suggest the adoption of better measures of accessibility and the complimentary theoretical guidance of Tiebout’s focus on sorting and self-selection to control for confounding influences in the urban land market and better identify the existence and sources of LVU. Still, true comparability in study results remains limited by the theoretical assumptions informing hedonic prices. Nevertheless, these solutions can help to minimize heterogeneity and ensure future research in this area proceeds in a manner that is more comparable, generalizable, and theoretically sound.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADD30 Transportation and Land Development.

01550057

15-4103

English

29p

2015

Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Accessibility; Externalities; Land use; Land values; Property values; Rail transit; Transit oriented development

North America

Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2015 Paper #15-4103

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 30 2014 1:20PM