Traffic congestion, accessibility to employment, and housing prices: A study of single-family housing market in Los Angeles County

This study mainly addresses two main questions: (1) whether traffic congestion negatively affects single-family house price by constraining accessibility to jobs; (2) whether congestion effects and accessibility effects vary by income groups within a metropolitan area. This study uses a multilevel hedonic price model to estimate the marginal price of accessibility while controlling for other neighbourhood attributes and the correlation of proximal housing sales. The congestion effects are identified by comparing the implicit price of accessibility between congested-flow and free-flow. The results show that the accessibility measured with congested time yields higher marginal price, suggesting that households are willing to pay more to avoid locations with high congestion delays and accessibility loss. The results also suggest that accessibility effects are more valued by homebuyers in middle-income neighbourhoods, compared with those in the lowest or highest income neighbourhoods. 本项研宄主要解决两大问题： （1) 交通拥堵是否因限制上班通达性而对独栋价格产生负面影响; (2)拥堵效应和通达效应在大都市区的不同收入群体中是否存在差异。本研宄运用多层特征价 格模型，在假设其他社区属性以及周边住房销售关联度相同的情况下，估计了通达性的边际成 本。我们通过比较拥堵和非拥堵状态下隐在的通达性成本来识别拥堵效应。结果显示，在拥堵 时段测量的通达性边际成本更高，表明购房者愿意支付更高的价格来避开高拥堵、低通达性的 地段。分析结果也表明，与低收入或高收入社区的购房者相比，中等收入社区的购房者更重视 通达效应。