hedonic value of transit accessibility an empirical analysis.pdfVIP

Hedonic Value of Transit Accessibility: An Empirical Analysis in a Small Urban Area Xinyu Cao, Ph.D. Jill A. Hough, Ph.D. Small Urban Rural Transit Center Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute North Dakota State University Fargo, North Dakota August 2007 Acknowledgements This research was funded by the Federal Transit Administration. Julie Bommelman, director of the Fargo Metro Area Transit, and Jim Gilmour, planning director of the city of Fargo, provided useful local information. The Advanced Traffic Analysis Center at North Dakota State University offered regional travel demand information. Thanks to Diomo Motuba and Del Peterson for their assistance in calculating land use attributes and drawing the maps. Disclaimer The contents presented in this report are the sole responsibility of the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute and the authors. ii Abstract Urban economic theory suggests that improved accessibility through transportation investments have the potential to drive up the bids for lands. A number of studies have investigated the impact of rail transit on home sales but produced mixed results. Further, few studies have explored how bus transit influences the lease rate of apartments. This question is more relevant than the relationship between rail transit and home prices because the scale of bus transit is regional as opposed to a narrow corridor of rail transit, and apartment dwellers are more likely to be influenced by transit accessibility than home owners. Using about 400 apartment dwellers in Fargo, this study developed a hedonic price model to determine implicit price of proximity to bus routes. The study found a negative impact of bus transit on apartment rent after controlling for o