The impact of light rail transit on residential rental market : case study of Dallas Area Rapid Transit

This research was undertaken to quantify the relationship between residential rent and proximity to light rail transit in Dallas, an auto-oriented city. This correlation is of importance to real estate developers and transportation planners as they seek to make the most efficient use of developable land and to decide on the allocation of funding for future transportation projects. This study shows that proximity to DART rail stations is associated with residential rent up to half mile radius area of the stations. Hedonic regression models in simple Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and semi log form were used for the analysis. The semi log model showed that light rail stations have the strongest relationship with rent in the 0.1 mile to 0.2 mile distance buffer, where the rent/sq. ft. is 20.92% higher than for units between 0.4 and 0.5 miles distance from stations. After 0.2 miles distance from the stations, the rent starts to drop and continues to go down till 0.5 miles distance from a station. The simple OLS model showed similar results and according to this model within 0.1 to 0.2 mile buffer area the rent is 27.6 cents/sq. ft. higher than the rent/sq. ft. in the 0.4 to 0.5 mile buffer area. This result will help to manage the extent of investment in light rail in Dallas in the future.