Can New Light Rail Reduce Personal Vehicle Carbon Emissions? A Before-After, Experimental-Control Evaluation in Los Angeles

Marlon G. Boarnet, Xize Wang and Douglas Houston
Additional contact information
Marlon G. Boarnet: University of Southern California
Xize Wang: University of Southern California
Douglas Houston: University of California, Irvine

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: This paper uses a before-after, experimental-control group method to evaluate the impacts of the newly opened Expo light rail transit line in Los Angeles on personal vehicle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. We applied the California Air Resources Board's EMFAC 2011 emission model to estimate the amount of daily average CO2 emissions from personal vehicle travel for 160 households across two waves, before and after the light rail opened. The 160 households were part of an experimental-ccontrol group research design. Approximately half of the households live within a half-mile of new Expo light rail stations (the experimental group) and the balance of the sampled households live beyond a half-mile from Expo light rail stations (the control group). Households tracked odometer mileage for all household vehicles for seven days in two sample waves, before the Expo Line opened (fall, 2011) and after the Expo Line opened (fall, 2012). Our analysis indicates that opening the Expo Line had a statistically significant impact on average daily CO2 emissions from motor vehicles. We found that the CO2 emission of households who reside within a half-mile of an Expo Line station was 27.17 percent smaller than those living more than a half-mile from a station after the opening of the light rail, while no significant difference exists before the opening. A difference-in-difference model suggests that the opening of the Expo Line is associated with 3,145 g less of household vehicle CO2 emissions per day as a treatment effect. A sensitivity analysis indicates that the emission reduction effect is also present when the experimental group of households is redefined to be those living within a kilometer from the new light rail stations.

Date: 2022-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env and nep-tre
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in Journal of Regional Science, 57(3), 523-539 (2017)

Downloads: (external link)
http://arxiv.org/pdf/2206.12610 Latest version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:arx:papers:2206.12610

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers from arXiv.org
Bibliographic data for series maintained by arXiv administrators ().