Rediscovering light rail: assessing the potential impacts of a light rail transit line on transit oriented development and transit ridership

Light Rail Transit (LRT) has been promoted to North American cities as a means for encouraging real estate development in the vicinity transit stops, and due to its real and perceived advantages over buses, LRT is also seen by public transportation providers as an opportunity to increase public transportation's modal share. The City of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada is taking steps towards adding a LRT line to a busy transportation corridor in the city with the hopes of realizing some the potentially positive impacts that have occurred in some United States case studies. In this paper, we report on the results from an Integrated Urban Model (IUM) which characterizes the relationship between land use, transportation, and activities in order project what impacts the LRT line will have on this Canadian case study in the medium term. Results from this model suggest that the construction of a LRT network alone is not sufficient causation for economic development and modal share changes. In addition to adding a valuable case study to the literature on transit oriented development, this research examines the applicability of IUMs in testing LRT related public policies that seek to facilitate transit oriented development and increased transit modal share.