Title

The timing of land development along bus rapid transit corridors

Time

1:40 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Location

1605 Tilia, Room 1103, West Village

Abstract

Although there is increasing evidence about the effects of bus rapid transit on land development, little is known about when that development occurs. In this presentation I will focus on a joint study that examines the timing of land market changes give the introduction of a BRT line in Bogotá, Colombia.

We use a before-and-after research design with controls to understand parcel-level land use changes along a corridor with the BRT investment relative to a corridor without it. Specifically, we examine separately changes to residential land use and to commercial land use. We use propensity-score weighted hazard regression models to examine the time-until land use changes at the parcel level while controlling for neighborhood and parcel characteristics. The land use change hazard is modeled semi-parametrically using time dummies. Results suggest that parcel conversions to residential uses on corridors with BRT are lower than in corridors without BRT, and increasingly so over time. By contrast, parcel conversions to commercial uses are higher over time and at an increasing rate along the BRT corridor. Despite these overall results, we found significant heterogeneity across corridors, which point to the importance of real estate submarkets. Understanding the timing of land market changes after the introduction of BRT is important for characterizing neighborhood change, for planning development and redevelopment around stops, and for structuring land-based financing mechanisms of transportation investments.

Biographical Sketch

Daniel Rodríguez is Chancellor’s Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Rodríguez received a Master’s in Science in Transportation from MIT and a Ph.D. in Urban Planning from The University of Michigan in 2000. He was in the faculty of UNC Chapel Hill from 2000 to 2016.