Transportation and urban quality of life. A case study of the Metroplus in Medellin, Colombia

This paper aims to establish the impact of the bus rapid transit system of Medellin, Colombia, on the urban quality of life (UQL), measured as the contribution of the amenities available in each neighborhood to the welfare of its residents. To this end, repeated cross-section data from the Encuesta de Calidad de Vida de Medellín for 2010 and 2014 and information on the neighborhood amenities are used. As a whole, the research considered 4,091 observations in 2010 and 4,219 in 2014. Through the estimation of a quasi-experimental hedonic model, the amenities with significant coefficients were identified to calculate a UQL index. The findings suggest that the implementation of the Metroplus had a positive and significant effect on changes in the UQL during the period 2010-2014. The magnitude of the effect shows differences in the results across the urban area.