This study assesses the impact of proximity to light rail transit stations on residential property values in Buffalo, New York, where light rail has been in service for 20 years, but population is declining and ridership is decreasing. Hedonic models are constructed of assessed value for residential properties within half a mile of 14 light rail stations and independent variables are included that describe property characteristics, neighbourhood characteristics and locational amenities. The model suggests that, for homes located in the study area, every foot closer to a light rail station increases average property values by $2.31 (using geographical straight-line distance) and $0.99 (using network distance). Consequently, a home located within one-quarter of a mile radius of a light rail station can earn a premium of $1300-3000, or 2-5 per cent of the city's median home value. Model results further suggest that three independent variables-the number of bathrooms, size of the parcel and location on the East side or West side of Buffalo-are more influential than rail proximity in predicting property values. Individual regression models for each of the light rail system's 14 stations suggest that effects are not felt evenly throughout the system. Proximity effects are positive in high-income station areas and negative in low-income station areas. An analysis of the actual walking distance to stations (along the street network) versus the perceived proximity to stations (measured by straight-line distance) reveals that the results are statistically more significant in the network distance than the straight-line distance model, but the effects are greater in the straight-line distance model, which suggests that apparent proximity to rail stations is an added locational advantage compared with physical walking distance to the station.

This study assesses the effect of free parking on mode choice and parking demand. A multinomial logit model is developed to evaluate the probabilities that commuters who do and do not receive free parking at work will choose to drive alone, ride in a carpool, or use transit for the trip to work in the central business district (CBD) of Portland, Oregon. The mode choice model predicts that with free parking, 62 percent of commuters will drive alone, 16 percent will commute in carpools, and 22 percent will ride transit; with a daily parking charge of $6, 46 percent will drive alone, 4 percent will ride in carpools, and 50 percent will ride transit. The mode choice model predicts that a daily parking charge of $6 in the Portland CBD would result in 21 fewer cars driven for every 100 commuters. This translates to a daily reduction of 147 vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per 100 commuters and an annual reduction of 39,000 VMT per 100 commuters. These findings are consistent with previous studies on how parking cost affects mode choice. The policy variables that help influence mode choice decisions for commuters are the parking cost and the travel time by transit. The results suggest that raising the cost of parking at work sites and decreasing the transit travel time (by improving service and decreasing headways) will reduce the drive alone mode share. The results provide little support for the contention that land use is a significant factor in mode choice decisions.

This study extends the spatial mismatch literature by examining access to employment for the low-income population in Erie and Niagara Counties in western New York State. The analysis uses geographical information systems (GIS) to map residence and employment locations and calculate measures of employment and transport access. Throughout the two-county region, two-thirds of adults in poverty live within close proximity to a reasonable number of low-wage jobs. The ratio of the number of jobs accessible within a 30-minute commute by automobile versus public transit varies only slightly across neighbourhoods with high poverty rates. The close proximity of the suburbs to the central city and the network of grid and radial streets connecting the two places make suburban job access reasonable. Thus, despite higher numbers of low-wage jobs in the suburbs, job access in the city is superior to job access in the suburbs due to higher densities of employment opportunities and the existence of developed transport networks. While poverty is highly centralised in the cities of Buffalo and Niagara Falls, the analysis suggests that, based on the spatial distribution of low-wage employment and concentrations of poverty, central-city locations have significant advantages in terms of proximity to jobs. However, Black/African American adults in poverty have poorer access to automobiles than Whites, and, as a result, they may be able to search for jobs only within a smaller area. This study recommends enhancements to public transit in places with large concentrations of low-wage jobs and increased access to reliable automobiles in places with small concentrations of low-wage jobs. Above all, unemployment rates in low-income neighbourhoods suggest a need to enhance programmes to improve job readiness, placement and support services.

The promise of transit-oriented development (TOD) for increasing transit ridership, enhancing economic development, and establishing a "sense of place" at transportation nodes has been well documented in the literature. However, the majority of research addresses TOD in greenfield sites located primarily in suburban places in growing regions. The policies that are widely believed to be supportive of TOD are examined, the gap in knowledge about TOD in established city neighborhoods is addressed, and the challenges of TOD in different urban settings are compared. Findings reveal that ( a) the literature appears to be consistent and confident in outlining the public policies that encourage TOD; ( b) researchers tend to focus on TODs in suburban and greenfield areas of fast-growing regions in the western and southern United States; ( c) TODs in older cities are not well publicized and are largely ignored by the literature; and ( d) researchers who study inner-city TOD usually focus on the lack of it, or any type of development, in economically depressed areas. The conclusion of several researchers that a strong local economy is key to successful TOD offers a clue as to why recently built TOD is largely absent from many older, slow-growth cities like Buffalo, New York, and St. Louis, Missouri. It also offers some insight into why the TOD trend is strongest in high-growth metropolitan areas like San Diego, California, and why it seems to skip struggling neighborhoods within them, like South Central Los Angeles, California. Although pre-1950s TOD is common in older cities, that ubiquity appears to reduce the publicity and attention given to more recent TOD in those places.

Universities and public transit agencies in the United States have together invented an arrangement—called Unlimited Ac-cess—that provides fare-free transit ser-vice for all students (and, on some campuses, faculty and staff as well). Unlimited Access is not free transit but is instead a new way to pay for it. The university pays the transit agency for all rides taken by eligible members of the campus community. This article evaluates the results of the Un-limited Access program at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Bus ridership for commuting to campus in-creased by 56 percent during BruinGO's first year, and solo driving fell by 20 per-cent. Because these startling results were achieved in a city famous for its addiction to cars, they suggest that Unlimited Access can succeed almost anywhere.