한국의 고밀 주거개발이 대중교통 활성화에 미친 효과

Many developing countries, faced with rapid urbanization, suffer from a lack of public transport as well as urban sprawl with low-density residential developments. In contrast, Korea has successfully supplied public transport including subway, while promoting high-density residential developments as represented by apartments. This study empirically tests the causality between high-density residential development and utilization of public transport, focusing on the sequence of supply between subways and apartments in Seoul. Subway stations in Seoul are classified into residential and non-residential types based on the number of riders who get on and off the subway by time slot. Then the opening year of each subway station of residential type is compared with the average year of building completion for apartments located within a 500m and 750m radius from the station. If the latter antecedes the former, those stations are categorized as DOT (Development-oriented Transit), while the rest of stations as TOD (Transit-oriented Development). Multiple regression analyses demonstrate that an increase in apartment density results in increased number of subway users in DOT stations and the estimated rate of increment is not different from that in TOD stations. These results imply that it would be possible for developing countries with limited financial resources to focus on high-density residential developments first and provide public transport infrastructure later, if carefully planned, as in the case of Korea.