Ten myths about US urban rail systems

Rubin, Thomas A; Moore, James E.; Lee, Shin

doi:10.1016/s0967-070x(98)00032-8

Cited by 42 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…However, the absence of such impacts certainly buttresses the arguments of those who consider rail a wasteful investment (Winston and Maheshri 2007;Rubin, Moore, and Lee 1999;Pickrell 1992). For each OD pair an original estimate was set for the number of homeorigin passengers based on the survey data for that OD pair.…”

Section: Home-origin Passengersmentioning

confidence: 99%

To Park or To Develop: Trade-Off in Rail Transit Passenger Demand

Duncan

2010

Journal of Planning Education and Research

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Rail transit systems often provide park-and-ride facilities as a way for passengers to access stations. Using the land around stations for development rather than parking would allow more passengers to access the system without driving and ostensibly go much further toward reducing dependence on automobiles. However, it is unclear whether ridership levels can be maintained without a park-and-ride option. This research seeks to illuminate this issue with a demand model for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system. Passenger counts are estimated for each origin/destination pair in the BART system based on such variables as parking spaces, housing units, and employment adjacent to stations. Parameters from this model are then used to estimate the amount of development required to replace the riders generated by station parking. Depending on the characteristics of a station and its spatial relationship with other stations, the level of development density required to effectively replace parking is found to be much higher than what is generally feasible.

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Section: Home-origin Passengersmentioning

confidence: 99%

To Park or To Develop: Trade-Off in Rail Transit Passenger Demand

Duncan

2010

Journal of Planning Education and Research

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“…There is also an ongoing debate in policy circles regarding the efficacy of public transit investment as a means of addressing traffic congestion, for example [6][7][8], all display skepticism regarding the congestion-reduction possibilities of public transit, while [9] advocates for transit investment [4]. Although investment in public transit may lead to short-term reductions in congestion due to a "substitution effect," in the long run, it may be less effective due to the "induced demand effect" [4,10,11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effects of Urban Public Transit Investment on Traffic Congestion and Air Quality

Beaudoin¹,

Lawell²

2017

Urban Transport Systems

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Traffic congestion is ubiquitous across urban roadways, and the adverse health effects accompanying deteriorating air quality are an ongoing concern. Beyond these local effects, transportation is also a major contributor of greenhouse gas emissions and is thus a significant element of the climate change debate. A contentious issue currently confronting transportation analysts and policy-makers is what the effects of public transit investment on traffic congestion and on air quality are and therefore what the appropriate level of public transit investment should be. While public transit receives plenty of political support for its "green" reputation and its contribution to sustainability, there have been relatively few studies examining the ex post-effects of public transit investment on traffic congestion or air quality. In this chapter, we review our theoretical and empirical research on the effects of public transit investment on congestion, the demand for automobile travel, and air quality.

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“…The “simple change measure” shows whether ridership increases along the new rail corridor in comparison to baseline bus ridership in that same corridor (prior to rail construction). The “displacement measure” evaluates a common challenge that new light rail lines do not attract new ridership but simply attract ridership from bus routes that were canceled when light rail opened (Rubin et al, 1999; Baum-Snow and Kahn, 2000; Cox, 2000). To address this “displaced bus riders” challenge, we count baseline bus use in the entire quarter mile catchment area (not only along the rail corridor), and ask whether light rail use exceeds the baseline catchment area bus use.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the attractiveness of a new light rail extension: Testing simple change and displacement change hypotheses

et al. 2016

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Many communities in the United States have been adding new light rail to bus-predominant public transit systems. However, there is disagreement as to whether opening light rail lines attracts new ridership or merely draws ridership from existing transit users. We study a new light rail line in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, which is part of a complete street redevelopment. We utilize a pre-test post-test control group quasi-experimental design to test two different measures of ridership change. The first measure is calculated from stops along the light rail route; the second assumes that nearby bus stops might be displaced by the rail and calculates ridership change with those stops included as baseline. Both the simple measure (transit use changes on the complete street light rail corridor) and the “displacement” measure (transit use changes in the one-quarter mile catchment areas around new light rail stops) showed significant (p < .01) and substantial (677%) increases in transit passengers compared to pre-light rail bus users. In particular, the displacement analysis discredits a common challenge that when a new light rail line opens, most passengers are simply former bus riders whose routes were canceled in favor of light rail. The study suggests that light rail services can attract additional ridership to public transit systems. In addition, although pre-post control-group designs require time and effort, this project underscores the benefits of such quasi-experimental designs in terms of the strength of the inferences that can be drawn about the impacts of new transit infrastructure and services.

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Ten myths about US urban rail systems

Cited by 42 publications

References 7 publications

To Park or To Develop: Trade-Off in Rail Transit Passenger Demand

To Park or To Develop: Trade-Off in Rail Transit Passenger Demand

The Effects of Urban Public Transit Investment on Traffic Congestion and Air Quality

Evaluating the attractiveness of a new light rail extension: Testing simple change and displacement change hypotheses

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