Urban Mass Transit: The Life Story of a Technology

From the Publisher

"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."

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SciTech Book News

"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."

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Choice

Urban Land - Tony Reevy

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

Lexington Quarterly - Michael R. Weinman

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

Transfers - Zachary M. Schrag

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.

Icon - Rudi Volti

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

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

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.

Lexington Quarterly

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.

Choice

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.

Urban Land

— Tony Reevy

Transfers

— Zachary M. Schrag