Rail-based transit-oriented development: Lessons from Hong Kong and New York

Abstract

The idea of using transit-oriented development (TOD) in reducing automobile dependency and improving the sustainability of transportation activities is gaining popularity in recent years. The existing literature has shown that residents living in TOD neighborhood use transit more frequently than other people having similar socio-economic characteristics but living elsewhere. Most of the existing studies on TOD and transit ridership used recently developed sites or suburban neighborhoods as case studies. However, limited research studies have been conducted on TOD using comprehensive station-level data for all major transit stations at the city level. Due to the more comprehensive coverage, factors affecting transit ridership may be different from the existing studies on specific stations only. By using the heavy rail systems in New York City and Hong Kong as case studies, factors which are expected to contribute to higher rail transit ridership will be analyzed by using multiple regressions. The results show that a combination of variables in different dimensions, including land use, station characteristics and human factors, is important in accounting for higher rail transit ridership and successful rail-based TOD. The findings are of value to municipal governments hoping to promote rail-based TOD in their cities.