Homes in Queens and Long Island near LIRR stations will see their values increase by an average of $7,300 when the MTA connects the railroad to Grand Central Terminal, according to a study released yesterday.
Some 600,000 homes will get the bump once the over-$8 billion project — called East Side Access and slated for completion in 2019 — is complete, the analysis from the Regional Plan Association found.
The RPA calculated the rise in home values by looking at the costs of New Jersey homes that got a boost in value after a series of improvements to NJ Transit from 1996 to 2003.
Those improvements included:
* Midtown Direct service on the Morris and Essex line, which opened in 1996.
* NJ Transit’s Montclair Connection, which opened in 2002.
* The Secaucus Junction transit hub, which opened in 2003.
The homes that were in close walking distance to NJ Transit stations saw an extra $3,000 in value for every one minute of commuting time saved.
Houses that were a short drive from stations also saw benefits, with an average $2,000 increase in value for every minute of commuting time saved.
The RPA expects similar results in Long Island and Queens.
“When commutes are shorter, people have more time to do other things, and they will pay for the convenience,” said Juliette Michaelson, RPA’s vice president for strategic initiatives and the lead author of the study.
East Side Access is expected to shave off an average of 18 minutes of commuting time per day for LIRR riders who work on the east side of Manhattan, according to the MTA.
“Good public transit increases housing values,” said RPA President Robert Yaro. “We have seen time and time again in metropolitan areas across the US that when commuter-rail service is added or improved, home prices near stations rise.”
About 560,000 jobs in Manhattan will be closer to Grand Central than Penn Station, the report said.