Does Bus Rapid Transit Influence Urban Land Development and Property Values: A Review of the Literature

Abstract

Despite the proliferation of bus rapid transit (BRT) systems over the past few decades across developed and developing world cities, the impacts across these systems on the urban spatial development and property markets have not been comprehensively studied. The current paper attempts to fill this gap in the literature by reviewing the methodologies, underlying theories, and findings presented in the individual academic studies on BRT land-use and price impacts, mostly drawing on those that have focused on Latin American and Asian systems. The review shows that the land-use and value impacts have been less uniform across systems compared to such operational performance metrics as speed and travel time improvements. While predominantly relying on cross-sectional modeling techniques, the approaches used to evaluate land-use changes induced by the transit systems are not uniform either, with only some studies explicitly measuring changes in types of land use as opposed to simply land or rental price. The study also concludes that more rigorous evaluation is needed as to whether the BRT systems have improved accessibility for the populations that inhabited the corridors previously or whether, instead, the desired land value increases have in fact resulted in significant population displacement.

Keywords:

• bus rapid transit
• land use
• land value
• public transport
• performance
• developing countries

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Daniel Chatman at University of California, Berkeley, for valuable comments and suggestions on earlier drafts.