America’s Prodigal Devotion to Light Rail: Did Denver’s Light Rail System Help with Traffic Decongestion?

Authors

Thomas Kelemen, Brigham Young University
Dr. Michael Ransom, Brigham Young University

Keywords

light rail system, traffic decongestion, Denver

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Economics

Abstract

Over the past twenty years, the Denver Regional Transit District has developed an extensive light rail public transit system in the Denver, Colorado metro area. This development was motivated, at least in part, by severe highway congestion on important highway routes to downtown Denver. In a recent analysis, Bhattacharjee and Goetz (2012) suggest that the presence of the light rail system has reduced the growth of highway traffic on major highways near the light rail network by ten percent, relative to routes in areas not served by light rail. We show that such an effect is implausibly large. We provide evidence that growth in highway usage in the study area was constrained by the capacity of highways, and that initiation of light rail service had no discernible effect on the use of congested highways near light rail lines. We also document that the fraction of commuters who use public transit has continued its long-term decline during the period of the study, most likely due to the continued suburbanization of population and employment in the Denver metro area, which we also document.

Recommended Citation

Kelemen, Thomas and Ransom, Dr. Michael (2015) "America’s Prodigal Devotion to Light Rail: Did Denver’s Light Rail System Help with Traffic Decongestion?," Journal of Undergraduate Research: Vol. 2015: Iss. 1, Article 10.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jur/vol2015/iss1/10