Assessing Transportation Capacity and Property Values In and Around the Boston Metropolitan Area
The Relationship Between Property Value Data and Transportation Data
With a basis for the transportation accessibility in the Boston Metropolitan Area and detailed housing price averages, further analysis can be done to better understand the populations living within specific neighborhoods and how their transportation needs and behaviors vary.
Recall the MBTA Bus Route and Stops map that outlined the neighborhoods with the greatest demand for buses. These data showed that Cambridge-Somerville as well as South Boston had the highest bus stop counts after normalized for the census tract area. From an analytical standpoint, one could wonder whether these neighborhoods share any characteristics beyond simply the necessity to take the bus. To test this I created 0.5 mile radius buffers around all the Boston Metro Area bus stops and then joined this buffer shapefile to the property sales data. After calculating an average property sale for each mile node, I displayed the data with graduated symbols and the results can be seen below.
Public transportation serves all types of people within the Boston Metro Area from the homeless to tourists. With that in mind, the map below overlays the average sale price per bus stop buffer against the bus stop count map. Essentially, this depicts the income levels of the various neighborhoods that are served by the MBTA bus routes and the average sale price serves as an indicator for income level. The smaller triangles represent a low-income neighborhood while the larger triangles represent high-income neighborhoods. Understanding the income-level distinction of these neighborhoods, like South Boston versus Cambridge, allows transportation planners to equitably balance resources to ensure that those who have to take the bus due to income restraints are being served.
Property Values Compared with Major Roadways
Below I mapped all single-family and condominium property sales greater than $390,000 in Massachusetts and focused on the eastern portion of the state. I chose that value as it sits just a bit higher than the median home price but not by a large margin. My goal with this map was to see the concentration of average and above average priced homes in the state. A few trends can be seen. First, many of the homes in MetroWest are more expensive than even some of the oceanfront property along the Atlantic shoreline revealing that property values in these towns are astronomical. The blue bold lines represent the most major highways and routes in the region and the further outside the blue rings one goes, the fewer properties sold over $390,000. Essentially, there are concentrations of more expensive homes along the major highway routes. Yet this varies from location to location, but for the outlying suburbs, the proximity to a highway will benefit property values.
Interestingly, if we look back at the map above, most of the end lines (e.g. Hingham, Milton, Dedham) have large average property prices as compared to the rest of the route. This could mean that their placement on the bus route renders a higher premium or that there are new residential developments strategically in the proximity of the bus stops. The point between these two maps shows how transportation does have an effect on property values but the degree to which they do depends on many variables.