A Bump in the Road: Speed Bumps’ Impact on Property Values

Speed bumps invite varied responses from homeowners, drivers, and policymakers. Parents of small children like speed bumps, if they slow the passing traffic, but prospective homebuyers may reject a home with a speed bump nearby, contemplating the traversal of it thousands of times during an ownership period. No circulating study, though, measures the property-value impacts of speed bumps. This study addresses that void. Initial results exploiting variation in the number of bumps traversed suggest that speed bumps are associated with reduced residential property values. A follow-on examination of a second neighborhood estimates a treatment effect of speed bump installation and underscores the original findings. Finally, an anonymous online survey was conducted to shed light on factors that may drive the negative relationship between speed bumps and home values. Survey results imply that older homeowners, and homeowners with children, may favor speed bumps, but that “favor” is less than the disfavor of those who do not.

A Bump in the Road: Speed Bumps’ Impact on Property Values Academic Article