Essays on Transportation and Environmental Economics

Abstract

This dissertation consists of three independent essays on transportation and environmental economics.

Chapter 1 studies the impacts of docked bikeshare on residential property prices and the metro station house price gradient in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Public bikeshare systems have gained popularity in the United States over the past decade. This study examines the effect of bikeshare systems on property prices and the so-called metro station house price gradient, i.e., the curve that depicts the relationship between property prices and distance to the closest metro station. A priori, bikeshare can have ambiguous effects on residential property prices and the (metro station house) price gradient. It can provide amenities, e.g., by solving the last-mile problem for residents living within a certain radius of metro stations. On the other hand, it can have disamenity effects as more non-residents gain easier access to a neighborhood. Amenity and disamenity effects will affect property prices in opposing ways. The heterogeneous amenity and disamenity effects at different distances to metro stations, and the extent to which bikeshare and metro rail are complements or substitutes, can affect the price gradient. This study employs a hedonic regression model with difference-in-differences to analyze how residential property prices and the price gradient respond to the introduction of docked bikeshare in eight counties and cities of the Washington, DC metropolitan area. The study uses detailed property level transaction data from Zillow along with data on the locations and opening dates of Capital Bikeshare stations and metro stations. This study is the first to examine the effects of bikeshare systems on the price gradient in the North American context. Results show that introducing bikeshare stations near residential properties has no net effect on property prices or the price gradient. A conceptual model is developed to provide possible explanations for the results.

Chapter 2, co-authored with Xiaoying Yang, examines the relationship between docked bikeshare systems and public transit in U.S. cities. Bikeshare systems have gained popularity in the United States in recent years as they are an environmentally friendly mode of micro-transportation. This study examines the relationship between docked bikeshare systems and public transit ridership in U.S. metropolitan areas (MSAs). Bikeshare can be a complement to public transit as it provides a solution to the first/last-mile problem. On the other hand, bikeshare can be a substitute for public transit as people replace short-distance public transit trips with bike rides. This study presents a multi-MSA analysis that includes small and medium-sized MSAs, using transit agency-level monthly ridership data and bikeshare entry dates in 31 MSAs. We employ a difference-in-differences model and an event study specification to examine the impacts of docked bikeshare entry in an MSA on public transit ridership. The results show that following bikeshare entry, monthly bus ridership declines by 4.6%. However, rail ridership does not experience a significant change in response to bikeshare entry. In addition, this study uses MSA-level monthly docked bikeshare trip data to analyze the relationship between bikeshare use and public transit ridership. The results also indicate that docked bikeshare primarily serves as a net substitute for buses. However, we find heterogeneity in the effects of bikeshare entry and bus ridership. Specifically, in large MSAs or MSAs that are more bikeable or more transit-friendly, bikeshare tends to serve as a substitute for buses, reducing transit ridership. Conversely, in small or non-bikeable MSAs, this negative impact diminishes.

Chapter 3, also co-authored with Xiaoying Yang, analyzes the effects of fuel standard upgrades on urban air pollution in China. Improving fuel quality is an important means of reducing tailpipe emissions from motor vehicles, the main contributor to air pollution in urban areas. This study is based on temporal differences in the implementation of gasoline standard VI in Chinese cities, using a difference-in-differences (DID) method, an event study design, and a regression discontinuity in time (RDiT) design to investigate the effects of upgrading fuel standards on air quality. We use city-level hourly pollutant data for 334 Chinese cities between 2014 and 2019 and aggregate them to the weekly and monthly levels. The primary results from the DID models show that the upgrade from gasoline standard V to VI has significantly improved air quality, with a 15.2% improvement in the air quality index (AQI). Specifically, PM2.5 and PM10 were reduced by 21.02% and 14.53%, respectively. Results from the RDiT further support the findings from the DID analysis. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the reductions in these pollutants led to a total health benefit of $23.98 billion per year.