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Title:Hedonic Value of Transit Accessibility: An Empirical Analysis in a Small Urban Area
Authors:Xinyu Cao and Jill Hough
Publication Date:Aug 2007
Report #:DP-191
TRID #:01446286
Keywords:accessibility, apartment buildings, bus routes, bus transit, rent, urban areas
Type:Research Report – Department Publications

Abstract

Urban economic theory suggests that improved accessibility by 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. We found a negative impact of bus transit on apartment rent after controlling for other factors, however. We speculated that this negative relationship could represent spurious relationships from other causal factors as well as nuisance effects of bus transit itself.

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