IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/itsrrp/qt3mb598qr.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Urban Densities and Transit: A Multi-dimensional Perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Cervero, Robert
  • Guerra, Erick

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between transit and urban densities in the United States. An analysis of light rail systems finds that a residential density of about 30 people per gross acre near stations is needed to in order to make them among the top 25 percent of rail transit investments in terms of cost effectiveness; for heavy rail systems, the density is 45 people per gross acre. Increasing density around stations would greatly increase ridership, particularly when jobs are located within one-quarter mile of the stations and housing is located within one-half mile. Stakeholders in the small city of Stockton found high levels of density unacceptable, and supported transit improvements, such as bus rapid transit, only when there would be no impact on private vehicle traffic.

Suggested Citation

  • Cervero, Robert & Guerra, Erick, 2011. "Urban Densities and Transit: A Multi-dimensional Perspective," Institute of Transportation Studies, Research Reports, Working Papers, Proceedings qt3mb598qr, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Berkeley.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:itsrrp:qt3mb598qr
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/3mb598qr.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Reid Ewing & Robert Cervero, 2010. "Travel and the Built Environment," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 76(3), pages 265-294.
    2. Ian W. H. Parry & Kenneth A. Small, 2009. "Should Urban Transit Subsidies Be Reduced?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 700-724, June.
    3. Guerra, Erick & Cervero, Robert & Tischler, Daniel, 2011. "The Half-Mile Circle: Does It Represent Transit Station Catchments?," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt0d84c2f4, University of California Transportation Center.
    4. Cervero, Robert, 1994. "Transit-based housing in California: evidence on ridership impacts," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 174-183, June.
    5. Guerra, Erick & Cervero, Robert & Tischler, Daniel, 2011. "The Half-Mile Circle: Does It Best Represent Transit Station Catchments?," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt9jd6r1t9, University of California Transportation Center.
    6. Zhan Guo & Asha Agrawal & Jennifer Dill, 2011. "Are Land Use Planning and Congestion Pricing Mutually Supportive?," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 77(3), pages 232-250.
    7. Guerra, Erick & Cervero, Robert & Tischler, Daniel, 2011. "The Half-Mile Circle: Does It Best Represent Transit Station Catchments?," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt68r764df, University of California Transportation Center.
    8. Erick Guerra & Robert Cervero, 2011. "Cost of a Ride," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 77(3), pages 267-290.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Saad AlQuhtani & Ardeshir Anjomani, 2021. "Do Rail Transit Stations Affect the Population Density Changes around Them? The Case of Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolitan Area," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-21, March.
    2. Kwon, Kihyun & Akar, Gulsah, 2022. "People with disabilities and use of public transit: The role of neighborhood walkability," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    3. Gelauff, George & Ossokina, Ioulia & Teulings, Coen, 2019. "Spatial and welfare effects of automated driving: Will cities grow, decline or both?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 277-294.
    4. Orsi, Francesco, 2018. "How densely populated and green are the places we live in? A study of the ten largest US cities," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 300-316.
    5. Tscharaktschiew, Stefan & Reimann, Felix, 2021. "On employer-paid parking and parking (cash-out) policy: A formal synthesis of different perspectives," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 499-516.
    6. André de Palma & Alexandre Guimard, 2014. "Urbanism, an overview," Working Papers hal-00969574, HAL.
    7. Kılkış, Şiir, 2015. "Exergy transition planning for net-zero districts," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 92(P3), pages 515-531.
    8. Forouhar, Amir, 2022. "Rail transit station and neighbourhood change: A mixed-method analysis with respect to neighbourhood context," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    9. Ryan, Jean & Wretstrand, Anders & Schmidt, Steven M., 2015. "Exploring public transport as an element of older persons' mobility: A Capability Approach perspective," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 105-114.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Singh, Yamini Jain & Lukman, Azhari & Flacke, Johannes & Zuidgeest, Mark & Van Maarseveen, M.F.A.M., 2017. "Measuring TOD around transit nodes - Towards TOD policy," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 96-111.
    2. Vale, David S. & Viana, Cláudia M. & Pereira, Mauro, 2018. "The extended node-place model at the local scale: Evaluating the integration of land use and transport for Lisbon's subway network," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 282-293.
    3. Jyothi Chava & Peter Newman, 2016. "Stakeholder Deliberation on Developing Affordable Housing Strategies: Towards Inclusive and Sustainable Transit-Oriented Developments," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(10), pages 1-21, October.
    4. Dohyung Kim & Yongjin Ahn & Simon Choi & Kwangkoo Kim, 2016. "Sustainable Mobility: Longitudinal Analysis of Built Environment on Transit Ridership," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(10), pages 1-14, October.
    5. Aston, Laura & Currie, Graham & Pavkova, Katerina, 2016. "Does transit mode influence the transit-orientation of urban development? – An empirical study," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 83-91.
    6. Aston, Laura & Currie, Graham & Kamruzzaman, Md. & Delbosc, Alexa & Teller, David, 2020. "Study design impacts on built environment and transit use research," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    7. Mishra, Sabyasachee & Welch, Timothy F. & Jha, Manoj K., 2012. "Performance indicators for public transit connectivity in multi-modal transportation networks," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 46(7), pages 1066-1085.
    8. Vergel-Tovar, C. Erik & Rodriguez, Daniel A., 2018. "The ridership performance of the built environment for BRT systems: Evidence from Latin America," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 172-184.
    9. Heilmann, Kilian, 2018. "Transit access and neighborhood segregation. Evidence from the Dallas light rail system," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 237-250.
    10. Jinbao Zhao & Wei Deng & Yan Song & Yueran Zhu, 2014. "Analysis of Metro ridership at station level and station-to-station level in Nanjing: an approach based on direct demand models," Transportation, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 133-155, January.
    11. Kevin Credit, 2018. "Transit-oriented economic development: The impact of light rail on new business starts in the Phoenix, AZ Region, USA," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(13), pages 2838-2862, October.
    12. Arlie Adkins & Andrew Sanderford & Gary Pivo, 2017. "How Location Efficient Is LIHTC? Measuring and Explaining State-Level Achievement," Housing Policy Debate, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(3), pages 335-355, May.
    13. Liu, Yan & Wang, Siqin & Xie, Bin, 2019. "Evaluating the effects of public transport fare policy change together with built and non-built environment features on ridership: The case in South East Queensland, Australia," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 78-89.
    14. Guerra, Erick & Cervero, Robert & Tischler, Daniel, 2011. "The Half-Mile Circle: Does It Represent Transit Station Catchments?," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt0d84c2f4, University of California Transportation Center.
    15. Wenjia Zhang & Ming Zhang, 2018. "Incorporating land use and pricing policies for reducing car dependence: Analytical framework and empirical evidence," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(13), pages 3012-3033, October.
    16. Pyddoke, Roger, 2023. "Comparison of policies for increasing sustainable transport mode shares in Swedish cities," Working Papers 2023:9, Swedish National Road & Transport Research Institute (VTI).
    17. Li, Shanjun & Liu, Yanyan & Purevjav, Avralt-Od & Yang, Lin, 2019. "Does subway expansion improve air quality?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 213-235.
    18. Qing Su, 2017. "Travel Demand Management Policy Instruments, Urban Spatial Characteristics, and Household Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Travel in the US Urban Areas," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 7(3), pages 157-166.
    19. Adam Millard-Ball & Purva Kapshikar, 2024. "How land use patterns keep driving cheap: Geographic support for transportation taxes," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(7), pages 1345-1370, May.
    20. Guerra, Erick & Cervero, Robert & Tischler, Daniel, 2011. "The Half-Mile Circle: Does It Best Represent Transit Station Catchments?," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt9jd6r1t9, University of California Transportation Center.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Engineering;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cdl:itsrrp:qt3mb598qr. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/itucbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.