Abstract

The Impacts of Houston's Light Rail on Residential Property Values
Track: Transportation
Authors: Qisheng Pan

The impacts of rail transit system on residential property values have been examined in many US metropolitan areas. But empirical studies have not reached an agreement on the net effects of rail transit system. This study utilized traditional ordinary linear regression (OLS) with the 2010 InfoUSA household database to examine the effects of the Houston's light rail transit (LRT) line on residential property values. It also adopted a multi-level regression model (MLR) to examine the hierarchical structures of spatial data and employed spatial regression model to analyze the spatial autocorrelation in the modeling process and evaluate its effects on the results. The modeling results suggest that the Houston's LRT line has had significant net positive effects on residential property values. MLS model captures the difference of the effects with more spatial details. Spatial regression model also improves model fit but spatial autocorrelation cannot be completely eliminated.