Evaluating the Impact of Urban Transit Infrastructure: Evidence from Bogotá’s TransMilenio
Abstract
This paper estimates the effects of improving public transit infrastructure on city structure and welfare. It develops a quantitative urban model with multiple worker groups and transit modes, and derives a special case yielding sufficient statistics for aggregate welfare in a broad class of models. The paper estimates reduced-form elasticities to implement the approach using data spanning construction of the world’s largest Bus Rapid Transit system in Bogotá, Colombia. This class of models explains observed adjustments in economic activity. Standard value-of-time calculations capture only 52 percent of welfare gains. Accounting for reallocation and general equilibrium effects, distributional impacts are modest. (JEL H76, L92, L98, O18, R42, R53)
Fields of Study & Subjects
Transportation Planning and Optimization
Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth
Regional Economics and Spatial Analysis
Publication details
- Journal / source
- American Economic Review
- Publisher
- American Economic Association
- Volume
- 116
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 418–463
- Publication date
- 30 January 2026
- Language
- EN