Effects of Light-Rail Transit on Traffic in a Travel Corridor

The Road Less Traveled: Does Rail Transit Matter?

“…Therefore, the Green Line reduces vehicular traffic of adjacent road segments. This result is consistent with the literature (Bhattacharjee and Goetz 2012; Ewing et al 2014) and the rising transit ridership in the corridor.…”

“…Although they stated that the treatment and control areas are similar, they did not justify their choice and did not control for potential confounding factors in their difference-in-difference models. Ewing et al (2014) represents an improvement. They chose two north-south streets as the control group for the east-west LRT line because these two streets had similar vehicular traffic before the treatment.…”

“…By contrast, Bhattacharjee and Goetz (2012) concluded that LRT in Denver reduced the growth in VMT on the highways in its influenced areas. Ewing et al (2014) compared AADT of road segments before and after the opening of two extensions of the TRAX line at the University of Utah. They found that the extensions reduced AADT.…”

“…However, few studies control for confounding variables when examining the effects of rail transit. It is worth noting that Ewing et al (2014) considered transit supply when studying the short-term effect of the TRAX line on nearby traffic and land use change when studying its medium-term effect. However, they did not consider them simultaneously.…”

“…To evaluate its transportation impact, many scholars have examined the influence of rail transit on road traffic (Bhattacharjee and Goetz 2012; Ewing et al 2014; Giuliano, Chakrabarti, and Rhoads 2016). For example, Bhattacharjee and Goetz (2012) compared VMT on highway road segments before and after the opening of three light rail lines in Denver, CO, from 1992 to 2008.…”