Urban Mass Transit: The Life Story of a Technology

by Robert C. Post

Overview

This volume in the Greenwood Technographies series covers urban mass transit - that is, the technologies that allow cities to move large numbers of people around. Just a few hundred years ago, the size of cities was limited by the time it took people to move from one part of the city to another. The development of successive technologies has forever altered the urban landscape. From horse-drawn omnibuses to subways to current light-rail, this volume highlights the technological and social struggles that have accompanied urbanization and the need for an efficient and cost-effective means of transportation in cities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313339165
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	11/30/2006
Series:	Greenwood Technographies
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Robert C. Post received his doctorate in American history from the University of California, Los Angeles. From 1974 to 1996 he was employed by the National Museum of History and Technology/Museum of American History. His books include Street Railways and the Growth of Los Angeles (1989) and Technology, Transport, and Travel in American History (2003). For fifteen years he was editor of Technology and Culture, the quarterly jourbanal of the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT). He was SHOT's president in 1997-98 and recipient of its Leonardo Da Vinci Medal in 2001.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Chronology ix

Introduction 1

1 Before Electrification 13

2 The Trolley Ascendant 35

3 Competition 65

4 Rail or Rubber? 91

5 Heavy and Light Rail 123

6 Conclusion 143

Afterword: But What About Judge Doom? 149

Glossary 157

Bibliography 165

Index 171

Editorial Reviews

Post offers Urban Mass Transit—The Life Story of Technology, a well-written book that traces the development of the trolley and streetcar to today's light rail transit (LRT). The book includes material on urbanization and transit via horsepower; introduction of mechanical means to run cable railways; electrification and the rise of the trolley; motor vehicle developments and trolley use decline; and rapid transit expansion and the revival of mass transit. The book includes a time line, glossary, and list of resources. Post has done an excellent job, using stories, photographs, sketches, and facts to construct a fascinating historical account of innovation. An appealing work for the general public as well as students and others with interests in public transit. Recommended. General readers; lower-division undergraduates through professionals.” —Choice

“Narrating the life story of urban mass transit in the United States, Post focuses on streetcars, trolleys, light rail, and similar transport and pays significantly less attention to buses and subways. His primary theme as he explores the mass transit developments in the 20th century concerns the ways public and decision makers evaluated the costs and benefits of various transit choices, both in strictly economic terms and in terms of wider societal concerns, including noise, pollution, and even aesthetics.” —SciTech Book News

From the Publisher

Urban Mass Transit then works on three levels. For newcomers to the topic, it offers a basic introduction. For those who think they know the field, it offers complications and ideas for future studies. And those who do not much care about streetcars can still learn from Post's more general ideas about how to study the history of technology. Though the book questions the concepts of progress and success, it is an example of both.

Transfers - Zachary M. Schrag

Well-illustrated and engagingly written . . . historians of technology, urban sociologists, and trolley aficionados will all make new discoveries while reading it.

Icon - Rudi Volti

Urban Mass Transit is meant to be a short introductory text, but readers thoroughly familiar with the subject will also find it both enjoyable and useful, for Post has made interesting observations about how and why transit developed in the ways in which it did which many of us may have not thought of before.

Lexington Quarterly

For a casual student of transportation history, this is the ideal book to put many of the small parts of information picked up over the years into a more cohesive whole. However, it would also make an excellent text for a college survey course on urban transportation history.

IA: The Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology - John McConnell

A useful overview for those seeking a better understanding of the history—and future prospects—of urban mass transportation in the United States.

Urban Land - Tony Reevy

Post has done an excellent job, using stories, photographs, sketches, and facts to construct a fascinating historical account of innovation. An appealing work for the general public as well as students and others with interests in public transportation.

Choice

[An] enjoyable read . . . that . . . belongs in most public transportation reference libraries.

Lexington Quarterly - Michael R. Weinman

Urban Mass Transit then works on three levels. For newcomers to the topic, it offers a basic introduction. For those who think they know the field, it offers complications and ideas for future studies. And those who do not much care about streetcars can still learn from Post's more general ideas about how to study the history of technology. Though the book questions the concepts of progress and success, it is an example of both.

— Zachary M. Schrag

Transfers

A useful overview for those seeking a better understanding of the history—and future prospects—of urban mass transportation in the United States.

— Tony Reevy

Urban Land