Development expectations and experiences of major public transportation investments. Paper presented at the international symposium on surface transportation system performance, held in Washington, D.C., May 11-13, 1981.

This paper examines the extent to which applications of microeconomic theory can be predicting the land use/urban development impacts of major urban transport investments in the light of actual experience in Philadelphia, Toronto, and San Francisco. It concludes that the results predicted by partial equilibrium economics may be distorted or reversed by factors exogenous to the models, such as levels of accessibility in other areas, the planning climate, and the business climate. Finally, it cautions against making large urban transport investments in cases where a specific urban development outcome is essential to the success of the project. (A)