06/02/2026
TRANSPORTATION FUNDING OPPORTUNITY
Although transit facilities and services create enormous amounts of land value (measured in the billions of dollars), many transit agencies lack funding resources. In part, this is because the lion’s share (80% to 90%) of transit-created land values are given away as pure windfalls to owners of well-served land. Returning transit-created land values back to the agencies that created them is an often-overlooked funding opportunity. In addition to funding, land value return helps integrate transportation investments with surrounding development activity, promoting more (and more affordable) transit-oriented development.
The Transportation Research Board (TRB) issued a report on transit funding in 2009 (TCRP Report 129). TRB is now seeking to update this report. See TCRP H-64: Funding and Financing for Public Transportation at the Local, Regional, and State Levels at https://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=6004 .
My article about initiating land value return for a Metrorail construction project is cited in TCRP 129. See “Using Value Capture to Finance Infrastructure and Encourage Compact Development” in PUBLIC WORKS MANAGEMENT & POLICY, Vol. 8 No. 4, April 2004, pp. 249-260 athttps://www.mwcog.org/uploads/committee-documents/k15fVl1f20080424150651.pdf . More recently, in 2018, I co-authored a TRB Guidebook on this topic. See “Guidebook to Funding Transportation Through Land Value Return and Recycling (NCHRP Report 873) at http://www.trb.org/Main/Blurbs/177574.aspx .”
If you or somebody you know is responding to TCRP H-64, I would be pleased to participate as a member of the team and contributing towards the successful completion of this project.
Alternatively, if your community or transit agency is seeking transit funding, I would be happy to provide advice about implementing land value return as part of the funding solution.
You can contact me directly at [email protected] or by phone at (202) 439-4176.
TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Research Report 873: Guidebook to Funding Transportation Through Land Value Return and Recycli...
