"In the late nineteenth century, as cities like Boston and New York grew larger, the streets became increasingly clogged with horse-drawn carts. When the great blizzard of 1888 brought New York City to a halt, a solution had to be found. Two brothers--Henry Melville Whitney of Boston and William Collins Whitney of New York City--pursued the dream of his city being the first American metropolis to have a subway and the great race was on. The competition...

"For hundreds of years, the shorefront of Manhattan Island served as the country's center of trade, shipping, and commerce. With its maritime links across the oceans, along the Atlantic coast, and inland to the Midwest and New England, Manhattan became a global city and home to the world's busiest port. It was a world of docks, ships, tugboats, and ferries, filled with cargo and freight, a place where millions of immigrants entered the Promised Land....

In From Mobility to Accessibility, an expert team of researchers flips the tables on the standard models for evaluating regional transportation performance. Jonathan Levine, Joe Grengs, and Louis A. Merlin argue for an "accessibility shift" whereby transportation planning, and the transportation dimensions of land-use planning, would be based on people's ability to reach destinations, rather than on their ability to travel fast. Existing models for...

Public transportation is in crisis. Through an assessment of the history of automobility in North America, the "three revolutions" in automotive transportation, as well as the current work of committed people advocating for a different way forward, James Wilt imagines what public transit should look like in order to be green and equitable. Wilt considers environment and climate change, economic and racial inequality, urban density, accessibility and...

Outlines a panoramic view of what the authors predict will be the next phase of globalization, describing transportation-centric urban regions designed to keep workers, suppliers, and goods networked within the global marketplace.

Last Subway is the fascinating and dramatic story behind New York City's struggle to build a new subway line under Second Avenue and improve transit services all across the city. With his extraordinary access to powerful players and internal documents, Philip Mark Plotch reveals why the city's subway system, once the best in the world, is now too often unreliable, overcrowded, and uncomfortable. He explains how a series of uninformed and self-serving...

Transport is key to our daily lives. The transport system is essential to ensure the movement of people and goods, and most of us will use the roads or public transport every day. Vast sums are tied up in it, and are spent on trying to resolve the problems of congestion and delays. And, yet it is a most neglected field of politics. Britain has never had a coherent transport policy. Transport ministers are regarded, as minnows compared with their 'big...

Bike messengers are familiar figures in the downtown cores of major cities. Tasked with delivering time-sensitive materials within, at most, a few hours-and sometimes in as little as fifteen minutes-these couriers ride in all types of weather, weave in and out of dense traffic, dodging (or sometimes failing to dodge) taxis and pedestrians alike in order to meet their clients' tight deadlines. Riding through midtown traffic at breakneck speeds is dangerous...

Rapid urbanization and motorization combined with high population density have led to serious congestion and air quality problems in the People's Republic of China capital of Beijing. While Beijing accounts for less than 2% of the population, more than 10% of the country's vehicles ply the city's roads. This study is part of the Asian Development Bank's initiative to support greener and more sustainable transport systems that are convenient and lessen...

Transit-oriented development (TOD) has been recognized as a suitable option to help address urban development issues in India. In the context of metro rail systems, TOD has much potential to promote inclusive and sustainable urban mobility. It can also enhance the livability and resilience of cities through better integration of land use policies and the development of the transport network. TOD presents an opportunity to utilize land value capture...