Light Rail and Land Use Change: Rail Transit’s Role in Reshaping and Revitalizing Cities

Planners and policymakers often cite the tangible objective of land use change as a primary motivation and justification for an investment in light rail transit (LRT). But how has light rail performed with respect to achieving this goal? This paper reviews and synthesizes the previous literature on LRT and other rail rapid transit systems in North America, demonstrating that rail transit alone is not a primary driver of land use change and that six beneficial factors affect the ability of these systems to have a measurable impact on reshaping and revitalizing cities.