Rail Transit:
Residential Impacts

Combining my in transportation and housing, my Masters thesis aimed to assess what impact transit development actually has on the surrounding residential land use. Focusing nearby on the Boston metro area, I sought answer the following question:

What effect has the construction of MBTA stations had on the residential land use surrounding the station locations and to what extent is the change in transit accessibility predictive of changes in residential land use for a specific station?

Using time-series regression analysis of changes in the areas surrounding new stations added to the MBTA Red and Orange lines in the 1970s and 1980s, I attempted to determine the extent to which improvements in transit accessibility can predict the future pattern of development at the site, given the differences in initial and current conditions at various station sites.

While I found little evidence of transit impact on housing for the first two decades after a new station was built, I did find a small but statistically significant impact three decades out (which, incidentally, corresponds to the typical residential mortgage and to the depreciable lifespan of a building asset), suggesting that, given time, rail transit does have an impact on the residential built environment.

Thesis available here.

APA 2017 National Planning Conference poster here.