There's a growing body of research relating transport infrastructure (particularly transit) to land values, mostly relating to rail in residential areas. But how can we identify and quantify the potential benefits of proposed transit facilities to CBDs and the inner city?
Most transit facilities don't stack up in traditional benefit:cost analyses, but may afford great benefits in amenity, livability and the socio-economic well-being of our city centers. How can we evaluate those benefits and include them in the benefit:cost equation? Or, if we are stuck with some sort of MCA, what measures are available to allocate scores to such benefits in such a way that they can be weighed against implementation costs?
I'm particularly interested in the impact of new transit facilities on well-established CBDs. That is, the land is already highly developed, there is little or no scope for additional development (TOD or other) around the new facilities (although changes in use may be possible), and the land use is predominantly commercial.
The funds for the infrastructure come from public revenue derived largely from property rates and hence local politicians, not private interests, make the decision whether to proceed. What help can professional transport planners give them?
Changes in accessibility are relatively easy to measure, one way or another, and to monetise. But what if there is no change in accessibility?
Q1. Is there evidence for uplift in the commercial economy from, say, introducing bus lanes into the CBD?
Q2. Is there a way to estimate uplift in the commercial economy from making the streetscape more pleasant?
The answers to both questions would be YES, and the evidence is from the CBD and sub-centers of Hong Kong: quantifying benefits of having vibrant real estate market, healthy mobility pattern; high street shopping; successful place making etc. But it is also prudent to be careful about gentrification caused as soon as the injection of transportation network to place occur, which deletes the inherent neighborhood character with controlled real estate market and coherent residential form and density.
Quantifying benefits of transportation can be derived from Hedonic Price Modeling together with the neighborhood survey that reflects on changing housing prices, accessibility profile; social cost of travelling; regeneration potential; etc.
Economic advantages of a high quality urban public realm
There have been suggestions that a higher quality public realm with a more attractive and people centred built environment has a positive impact on retail footfall and the value of retail and residential properties in general. Research by Sinnett et al (2011) shows that improvements in the walking environment have the potential to increase economic value and activity in a local area. Their research also points to the fact that pedestrian traffic is often undervalued by business owners and that a Sustrans study in Bristol shows that business owners overestimate the proportion of customers arriving by car by almost double (Sustrans, 2006).
Further to this, research carried out by CABE (Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment) demonstrates that investment in design quality brings quantifiable financial returns and that people value improvements to their streets. The report titled ‘Paved with gold: the real value of good street design’ shows that better streets result in higher market prices for both retail properties and residential units (Commission for Architecture & the built Environment, 2007). The aim of the ‘Paved with gold’ research was to calculate the “extra financial value that good street design contributes, over average or poor design”.
Using the ‘Pedestrian Environment Review System’ or PERS developed by TRL limited (TRL Limited, 2012) CABE selected ten London high streets based on a certain criteria to ensure the sites were comparable. PERS evaluates both the place function and the link function of a street based a set of categories. For the CABE research the following headline PERS categories were used; 1) Effective width (of the footpaths), 2) Dropped Kerbs / gradients, 3) Obstructions, 4) Permeability, 5) Legibility, 6) Lighting, 7) Personal security, 8) Surface quality, 9) User conflict, 10) Maintenance, and 11) Quality of Environment. The results from a regression analysis carried out as part of this show that there is a relationship between the design quality of the street and the property values in these locations. The ‘Paved with Gold’ report states that for every point increase on the PERS scale, there is a corresponding increase of £13,600 in residential prices, and an increase of £25 per square metre in retail rent per year.
Therefore, across the ten streets, which are comparable in terms of socioeconomics, location, access and pedestrian activity, the streets with a higher quality urban environment generate greater monetary value for the business and residential properties in these areas, thus proving the economic value of a high quality public realm.
Growing out of this research, Transport for London (TfL), along with a range of partners including TRL Limited, Colin Buchanan and others, has developed the ‘Valuing Urban Realm (VUR) Toolkit’ to monetise the benefits of any proposed urban space improvements (Transport for London, 2012). The VUR Toolkit uses PERS and the associated categories listed above and provides a web based tool to “provide a complete user-friendly interface for local authorities, developers, academics and private individuals to evaluate proposed streetscape improvements, undertake cost-benefit analysis, develop a robust business case and justify investment in public realm projects” (ibid). The web tool allows individuals to enter baseline data about the project (existing pedestrian numbers, rental prices etc.) and also scenario / measured data in relation to the proposed/completed works. From this baseline and scenario/measured data the ‘VUR Toolkit’ provides feedback on a range of impacts including; Climate change, Economic Impact, Equality of opportunity, Quality of life and environment and , Safety, security and health. The toolkit also calculates total economic benefit from improving the public realm, total social benefits, total project costs and a benefit to cost ratio, among other calculated impacts.
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The above is an excerpt from a report carried out by TrinityHaus (www.trinityhaus.tcd.ie)Trinity College Dublin, regarding shared space design in Ireland through a Universal Design approach http://www.universaldesign.ie/newsandevents/launchofresearchonsharedspaces).The Cost- benefit relationship is an important part of this work as the creation of pedestrian friendly or a higher quality urban realm must economically sustainable as well as socially and environmentally sustainable.
References
COMMISSION FOR ARCHITECTURE & THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT 2007. Paved with gold: The real value of good street design. In: DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT, T. A. T. R. (ed.). Commission for Architecture & the built Environment.
SINNETT, D., WILLIAMS, K., CHATTERJEE, K. & CAVILL, N. 2011. Making the Case for Investment in the Walking Environment. A review of the evidence. University of the West of England, Bristol
SUSTRANS 2006. Shoppers and how they travel - Information Sheet LN02. Sustrans Bristol.
TRANSPORT FOR LONDON. 2012. Valuing Urban Design [Online]. Available: https://toolkit.urban-realm.co.uk/ [Accessed 29-07-12 2012].
TRL LIMITED 2005. Report No 640 Pilot home zone schemes: evaluation of Morice Town, Plymouth.
TRL LIMITED. 2012. Streetaudit-pedestrian module-PERS [Online]. Available: http://www.trl.co.uk/pers.htm [Accessed 30-07-12 2012].
Thank you both (Tom and Quazi) for your extensive and useful responses. I will certainly be following up on the references you gave. Thye message seems to be that there is a chain of positive effects from better bus services attracting more passengers, in turn creating more foot traffic at the commercial destination, thus increasing business turnover and raising commercial property values.
Your are welcome Harry.
I am looking for information on place making by energy corridor or similar sustainable energy as design element that would help creating attractive place to live and therefore establishes a show case for tourism, housing, green transport, and lastly making it a place for all to visit and enjoy - fundamentals of Placemaking. If you or anyone reading this site, have any case study or theories on similar place making exercise using energy as key element, It would be useful.
All I know is that living near high-voltage power lines makes people sick. Best to avoid them.
Indeed EcoDistricts, formally the Portland Sustainability Institute, is focused on this exact concept of tourism, housing, and the loose meaning of the word 'sustainability' in relation to urban districts. The focus of private-public partnership to increase the attractiveness of investment is one core message- thus bringing about a sustained, resilient empowerment and growth. See more here: http://ecodistricts.org/about/
Harry, coming back to your earlier question posted in June.
1.Re: quantifying benefits for the introduction of transit facilities to the CBDs.
One of the purposes of introducing transit is to reduce car dependence and congestion on the road network. The second would be relatively easy to quantify by running 4-step travel demand model, I use TransCAD for running such models. It can be used to estimate total travel for each alternative (in your case: total travel before and after transit introduction by single occupant vehicle (SOV) mode). Traffic congestion is measured in terms of volume-to-capacity (V/C) ratios on individual links and system-wide vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and vehicle hours traveled (VHT). Reduction in total travel by car (your goal) is evaluated in terms of the estimated change in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and vehicle hours traveled (VHT).
2. Regarding change in accessibility, introduction of transit might improve accessibility, especially for low-income earners to urban services located within CBD.
3. Further, according to Newman, Kenworthy and Vintilaour (1995) there are big costs associated with auto-based system over transit, "numbers suggest that the car system costs 40C/passenger km of travel, bus systems 23C/passenger km and rail 27C/passenger km (Australian cents)." But these are 1995 data, I'd check the newer data on that.
EConsult Solution of Philadelphia had a study out on this topic. Check general literature in economic impact studies.
Harry,
As I recall, in the process of the implementation of the state's Comprehensive Plan Legislative Act, the State of Florida Department of Community Affairs required local governments and regional planning agencies to develop and adopt methodologies that estimated the anticipated impacts of developments upon future regional infrastructure requirements. This was used to compute "impact fee" assessments on projects that were determined to be "developments of regional impact" ("DRI's")... I believe the planners and consultants engaged in these activities also designed methods to estimate benefits from developments that accrued from projects oriented to transit use and traffic/environmental improvements.
You may want to check with the Florida Metropolitan Planning Organization Advisory Council ("MPOAC" - Howard Glassman, Executive Director), the Florida Department of Community Affairs and the Florida Department of Transportation (all based in Tallahassee, FL) about their recent efforts in these areas.
If you didn't hit the nail right on the head, thenI think that you at least hinted the answer to your question. The answer is that the city both quantifies and captures a portion of these benefits. It does this through the property tax. Property values are increased by some sorts of transit improvements. As a result, the city benefits. After all, the city is in a sense in business with the businesses that utilize brick and mortar urban spaces. That is, the city shares in the good fortune of the business through the real estate tax. Now how do you quantify this. First you need a price index. Second, you need to identify the announcement dates for transit improvements (as well as completion dates). Finally, you need to do an event study . . . using event time . . . incorporating the various improvements. Good luck.
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