title: Evaluating the attractiveness of a new light rail extension: Testing simple change and displacement change hypotheses.
abstract: Many communities in the United States have been adding new light rail to bus-predominant public transit systems. However, there is disagreement as to whether opening light rail lines attracts new ridership or merely draws ridership from existing transit users. We study a new light rail line in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, which is part of a complete street redevelopment. We utilize a pre-test post-test control group quasi-experimental design to test two different measures of ridership change. The first measure is calculated from stops along the light rail route; the second assumes that nearby bus stops might be displaced by the rail and calculates ridership change with those stops included as baseline. Both the simple measure (transit use changes on the complete street light rail corridor) and the "displacement" measure (transit use changes in the one-quarter mile catchment areas around new light rail stops) showed significant (p< .01) and substantial (677%) increases in transit passengers compared to pre-light rail bus users. In particular, the displacement analysis discredits a common challenge that when a new light rail line opens, most passengers are simply former bus riders whose routes were canceled in favor of light rail. The study suggests that light rail services can attract additional ridership to public transit systems. In addition, although pre-post control-group designs require time and effort, this project underscores the benefits of such quasi-experimental designs in terms of the strength of the inferences that can be drawn about the impacts of new transit infrastructure and services.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Utah, 380 S 1530 E, Salt Lake City 84112, UT, USA.
authors.forename: Carol M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Werner
authors.affiliation: Department of Family & Consumer Studies and Cancer Control & Population Sciences, Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah, 225 S 1400 E RM 228, Salt Lake City 84112, UT, USA.
authors.forename: Barbara B
authors.initials: BB
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography, Ohio State University, 1036 Derby Hall, Columbus 43210, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Calvin P
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: Tribby
authors.affiliation: Department of Family & Consumer Studies and Cancer Control & Population Sciences, University of Utah, 225 S 1400 E RM 228, Salt Lake City 84112, UT, USA.
authors.forename: Doug
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Tharp
authors.affiliation: Department of Family & Consumer Studies and Cancer Control & Population Sciences, University of Utah, 225 S 1400 E RM 228, Salt Lake City 84112, UT, USA.
authors.forename: Kristi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Flick
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography, Ohio State University, 1036 Derby Hall, Columbus 43210, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Harvey J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.affiliation: Department of Family & Consumer Studies and Cancer Control & Population Sciences, Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah, 225 S 1400 E RM 228, Salt Lake City 84112, UT, USA.
authors.forename: Ken R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: Department of Family & Consumer Studies, University of Utah, 225S 1400 E RM 228, Salt Lake City 84112, UT, USA.
authors.forename: Wyatt
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Jensen
keywords: Bus; Complete streets; Light rail; Ridership