Urban Mass Transit: The Life Story of a Technology

(Hardback)

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Description

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.

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 *

Author Bio

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 journal 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.