Urban Transportation Planning in the United States: An Historical Overview

(Hardback, 2nd edition)

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The development of U.S. urban transportation policy over the past 50 years illustrates the changing relationship between federal, state, and local governments. This comprehensive text examines the evolution of urban transportation planning from early developments in highway planning in the 1930s to the concern for sustainable development and pollution emissions. Focusing on major national events, the book discusses the influence of legislation, regulations, conferences, federal programs, and advances in planning procedures and technology. The book offers an in-depth look at the most significant event in transportation planningthe Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1962. Creating a federal mandate for a comprehensive urban transportation planning process carried out cooperatively by states and local governments with federal funding, this act was crucial in the spread of urban transporation. Claiming that urban transportation planning is more sophisticated, costly, and complex than its highway and transit planning predecessors, the book demonstrates how urban transportation planning evolved in response to changes in such factors as environment, energy, development patterns, intergovernmental coordination, and federal transit programs. It further illustrates how broader concerns for global climate change and sustainable development have braided the purview of transportation planning.

Reviews

This insider account of the story of urban transportation planning, presented in an unusual format, succeeds beautifully in the hands if Weiner, a noted long-time, senior policy analyst at the US Department of Transportation. Clearly a major 'institutional memory'; there is no comparable book. The bibliography and index are appropriately very comprehensive.... Recommended for all libraries.-Choice
"This insider account of the story of urban transportation planning, presented in an unusual format, succeeds beautifully in the hands if Weiner, a noted long-time, senior policy analyst at the US Department of Transportation. Clearly a major 'institutional memory'; there is no comparable book. The bibliography and index are appropriately very comprehensive.... Recommended for all libraries."-Choice

Author Bio

EDWARD WEINER has been a Senior Policy Analyst in the Office of the Secretary of the U.S./e Department of Transportation since 1970. He is responsible for surface transportation policy, planning, and legislative issues and has represented the Department of Transportation on a number of international working groups.