FINAL REPORT Do TODs make a difference? NITC-RR-547/763 December 2015 NITC is the U.S. Department of Transportation’s national university transportation center for livable communities. DO TODs MAKE A DIFFERENCE? Final Report NITC-UU-05-547 and NITCN-UU-01-763 by Arthur C. Nelson University of Utah and University of Arizona Matt Miller Dejan Eskic Keuntae Kim Reid Ewing University of Utah Jenny Liu Matt Berggren Zakari Mumuni Portland State University for National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) P.O. Box 751 Portland, OR 97207 December 2015 Technical Report Documentation Page 1. Report No. 2. Government Accession No. 3. Recipient’s Catalog No. 4. Title and Subtitle 5. Report Date National Study of BRT Development Outcomes December 7, 2015 6. Performing Organization Code 7. Author(s) 8. Performing Organization Report No. Arthur C. Nelson, Matt Miller, Dejan Eskic, Keuntae Kim, Reid Ewing, Jenny Liu, Matt Berggren, Zakari Mumuni 9. Performing Organization Name and Address 10. Work Unit No. (TRAIS) Arthur C. Nelson c/o Metropolitan Research Center 11. Contract or Grant No. University of Utah 375 South 1530 East Room 235, NITC-UU-14-650 Salt Lake City, Utah 84112 12. Sponsoring Agency Name and Address 13. Type of Report and Period Covered National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) Final Report P.O. Box 751 14. Sponsoring Agency Code Portland, Oregon 97207 15. Supplementary Notes 16. Abstract In this report, we present research that measures the outcomes of TOD areas in relation to their metropolitan area controls with respect to (1) jobs by sector; (2) housing choice for household types based on key demographic characteristics; (3) housing affordability based on transportation costs; and (4) job-worker balance as a measure of accessibility. Prior literature has not systematically evaluated TOD outcomes in these respects with respect to light rail transit (LRT), commuter rail transit (CRT), bus rapid transit (BRT), and streetcar transit (SCT) systems. Our analysis helps close some of these gaps. We apply our analysis to 23 fixed-guideway transit systems operating in 17 metropolitan areas in the South and West that have one or more of those systems. We find: (1) Most TOD areas gained jobs in the office, knowledge, education, health care and entertainment sectors, adding more than $100 billion in wages capitalized over time; (2) In assessing economic resilience associated with LRT systems, jobs continued to shift away from TOD areas before the Great Recession, the pace slowed during the recession but reversed during recovery, leading us to speculate that LRT TOD areas may have transformed metropolitan economies served by LRT systems; (3) Rents for offices, retail stores and apartments were higher when closer to SCT systems, had mixed results with respect LRT systems, but were mostly lower with respect to CRT systems (our BRT sample was too small to evaluate); (4) SCT systems performed best in terms of increasing their TOD-area shares of metropolitan population, households and householders by age, housing units, and renters with BRT systems performing less well while LRT and CRT systems experienced a much smaller shift in the share of growth; (5) Household transportation costs as a share of budgets increase with respect to distance from LRT transit stations to seven miles, suggesting the proximity to LRT stations reduces total household transportation costs; (6) Emerging trends that may favor higher-wage jobs locating in TOD areas over time than lower- or middle-wage jobs, perhaps because TOD areas attract more investment which requires more productive, higher-paid labor to justify the investment; and (7) The share of workers who commute 10 minutes or less to work increases nearly one-half of 1 percent for each half-mile their resident block group is to an LRT transit station, capping at a gain of 1.3 percent, which is not a trivial gain. Our report summarizes case studies of 23 transit systems and three journal articles based on our research. 17. Key Words 18. Distribution Statement Transit Oriented Development, Light Rail Transit, Bus Rapid Transit, Commuter No restrictions. Copies available from NITC: Rail Transit, Streetcar, Employment, NAICS, Industry, Sectors, Economic www.nitc.us Development, Affordability, Household Income, HUD, Longitudinal-Household Employment Database, Employment Change, Transportation planning, 19. Security Classification (of this report) 20. Security Classification (of this page) 21. No. of Pages 22. Price Unclassified Unclassified 237 i ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research was funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), in addition to the following partners: Utah Transit Authority, Salt Lake County, Wasatch Front Regional Council, Mountainlands Association of Governments, University of Utah, Portland State University, and University of Arizona. Additionally, we acknowledge contributions by Ben Anderson, Bruce Appleyard, Martin Buchert, Joanna P. Ganning, Shima Hamidi, Sarah Hinners, Katherine Kittrell, Susan Petheram, Philip Stoker, and Guang Tian. Finally, we acknowledge and thank the anonymous peer reviewers who provided immensely helpful insights and corrections to this report. DISCLAIMER The contents of this report reflect the views of the authors, who are solely responsible for the facts and the accuracy of the material and information presented herein. This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Transportation University Transportation Centers Program and the partners mentioned above in the acknowledgements in the interest of information exchange. The U.S. Government and mentioned partners assumes no liability for the contents or use thereof. The contents do not necessarily reflect the official views of the U.S. Government or the other partners. This report does not constitute a standard, specification, or regulation. iii iv TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .......................................................................................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................ 3 CHAPTER 1 ................................................................................................................................................. 6 Transit and the Rise of Urban Areas ....................................................................................... 6 Employment Change within TODs of Transit Systems .......................................................... 8 Summary Assessment ........................................................................................................... 20 CHAPTER 2 ............................................................................................................................................... 23 Overview ............................................................................................................................... 23 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 23 Resiliency .............................................................................................................................. 23 Transformability ................................................................................................................... 25 Transit and Resiliency ........................................................................................................... 25 A Theory of Transit and Economic Resilience ..................................................................... 26 A Theory of Transit and Economic Transformability .......................................................... 27 Research Question ................................................................................................................ 27 Research Design .................................................................................................................... 29 Results 30 CHAPTER 3 ............................................................................................................................................... 36 Transit and Real Estate Rents ............................................................................................... 36 Market-Value Outcomes ....................................................................................................... 37 CHAPTER 4 ............................................................................................................................................... 54 Population ............................................................................................................................. 54 Households ............................................................................................................................ 55 Research Question and Data ................................................................................................. 55 Analytic Scheme ................................................................................................................... 55 Households by Householder Age and Type .......................................................................... 56 Housing and Tenure .............................................................................................................. 56 Results 58 Summary Assessment ..........................................................................................................