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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

Light rail will create demand to live near and locate businesses near the stations.

Can you name examples where this oft-predicted result has actually happened (in the USA, anyway)? That certainly hasn't been the result in the Bay Area.

It definitely happened in Portland when they ran the Orange line. We were house-hunting a year or two before the new light rail opened, and realtors showing houses along its route were already starting to make a point of mentioning it.

As soon as it actually opened, neighborhoods that could use it suddenly got a lot more desirable (read: expensive).

Bethesda, Maryland. It was very sleepy before it became a metro stop. In the last 30 years it had a crap ton of development mostly centered around the metro.

Actually... Can you name a few places in a metro area that didn't experience such a boom after a transit stop was introduced? In the bay area even? I feel like I have only ever seen examples of it being good for retail, restaurants, home values.

Metro considers itself traditional fixed rail, not light rail.

  a metro area that didn't experience such a boom

I was responding to the specific claim "Light rail will create demand to live near and locate businesses near the stations." The point isn't about whether a broad area benefits from rail (vs. no rail at all) but whether adding light rail to a fully built-out environment will drive more dense business development near the added rail and because of the addition of rail. I don't know of any USA data that supports that.

Ok. I thought you meant transit in general.

Take a ride from the Seattle airport to downtown on the light rail sometime, then. You will see a lot of nice looking apartments that didn't used to be there. And you will see some less nice neighborhoods interspersed.

Columbia City is a perfect example of this

This certainly happens very obviously in European cities. It’s possible that it happens less so in the US for cultural reasons, I suppose.

It's happening in advance of the Beltline transit in Atlanta. The Beltline has been building out park/trail and surrounding neighborhoods are doing very well. The light rail is currently just a promise.

Definitely didn’t happen in Houston. There was a spike of enthusiasm but light rail proximity has almost no effect on property values.

Is Houston's light rail actually useful? Last I knew it really only ran from one end of downtown to the other.

Houston is a bit too spread out. Where can you get to on the rail?

Denver. Lots of high density developments near the light rail and A line (technically commuter rail) stops.

Chicago and "El" train stops.

This is the claim used to advertise these, but do we really see many Amazonians commuting in from Beacon Hill or Georgetown?

I have seen this happen firsthand. It took a few years but the "rail line to nowhere" built near me around 5 years ago has giant housing complexes surrounding every station. It runs over capacity during rush hour now.

I assume this only happens in places where the roads are overloaded though

As I recall, Seattle zoning actually worked to prevent increased density and parking near transit stations.

In Seattle at least, I would expect the implicit suggestion to upzone near a light rail station would be at least as important as greater land value from demand. I'm not sure how much a light rail station induces Seattle to upzone -- I've heard mixed reports.

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