Identifying the impacts of rail transit stations on residential property values

Prior studies that have empirically investigated the impact of rail station proximity on property values have not fully investigated the factors that may account for this relationship. Stations may raise the value of nearby properties by reducing commuting costs or by attracting retail activity to the neighborhood. Possibly countering these positive effects are negative externalities emitted by stations and the access to neighborhoods that stations provide to criminals. This paper sorts out these effects by presenting the results from estimating a hedonic price model and auxiliary models for neighborhood crime and retail activity. Results show that all four effects play a role in defining the relationship between property values and rail stations, but the relative importance of these effects varies with distance from downtown and the median income of the neighborhood. (C) 2001 Academic Press.