A 4D spatio-temporal approach to modelling land value uplift from rapid transit in high density and topographically-rich cities

Abstract

The land value uplift effects of rapid transit infrastructure provide evidence of willingness to pay for more sustainable forms of development and suggest a rationale for land value capture. The present research utilizes spatio-temporal methods in a quasi-experimental research design to examine changes in property values associated with pedestrian accessibility to the West Island Line heavy rail extension in Hong Kong. Several innovations in methods and techniques are proposed that respond to the econometric challenges involved in conducting research in high density, topographically-rich cities. Of these, the paper incorporates landscape topography throughout its estimation process, including the calculation of slope-aware measures of walkable accessibility on a 3D pedestrian network and proposes a new Spherical Distance Weights method for capturing horizontal and vertical spatial association among observations in 3D space. Finally, these weights are combined with measures of temporal distance for a 4D approach that accounts for relations among observations in space and time. Spatio-temporal difference-in-differences results reveal a significant change in the value of pedestrian access to the new transit stations of between 26% and 41% after opening. Interestingly, uplift occurred across both the new stations as well as for properties around the previous terminus, highlighting the network effects associated with changes in accessibility. Beyond demonstrating that rail transit is valued, these findings confirm the assumptions behind the city's Rail + Property value capture approach, suggesting it remains a viable model for sustainable finance and urbanism in other high-density and transit-oriented cities.