In this study, we investigate the impact of freeway traffic on property with a particularinterest for truck traffic. We analyze 4,715 sales of single family houses that took place in2003 and 2004 in the busy transportation corridor that links the Ports of Los Angeles andLong Beach to downtown Los Angeles. These houses are located at least 200 metersfrom the nearest arterial road to filter out the impact of arterial road traffic. In order tominimize the risk of omitted variable bias and to deal with spatial autocorrelation, weestimate a fine-grained fixed effects model. We find that a one percent increase in totaltraffic would reduce by only $24 the value of a $420,000 house located within 100 metersof a freeway. By contrast, a one percent increase in the proportion of truck traffic coulddecrease the value of a $420,000 house located between 100 and 400 meters from thenearest freeway by between $2,000 and $2,750. These results are important forpolicymakers and for the owners of single family houses located close to freewaysbecause of the expanding role of trucking in our economy.
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