This paper evaluates the relationship between transit station proximity and new business creation in five US regions with varying levels of maturity in rail transit development and/or entrepreneurial ecosystems: Boston, San Jose, Austin, Cleveland and Philadelphia. It tests a variety of spatial econometric models to find the best specification and compares the results with the kinds of non-spatial models currently used in the literature. This provides a better understanding of the role of various forms of spatial dependence in the transit – new business creation relationship and shows that existing models may overstate the impact of transit on new business creation. In addition, the paper teases out differences between regions, rail modes and business types that can be usefully applied to a variety of urban contexts.