Suburban Gridlock

by Robert Cervero (Editor)

Overview

Robert Cervero documents the rise in suburban traffic around the country and examines the role of various planning, design, and management approaches in defining the automobile's growing presence in suburbia. The book highlights suburban business complexes and mixed-use centers throughout the United States that have been planned and designed to reduce auto dependency and to promote ridesharing, transit usage, and other commuting alternatives.Steps taken by various municipalities to enlist the support of private interests in reducing employee trip-making and financing area-wide roadway improvements are also examined. While the analysis is national in scope, detailed case studies offer in-depth insights into the many institutional and logistical problems involved in mitigating the impact of suburban congestion.The transportation planning profession has historically focused its attention and resources on downtown access and mobility problems. Suburbs, and places beyond, have long been considered havens for travel, free from traffic jams, and ideal for leisurely weekend excursions. Over the years, transportation planning in suburbia has involved little more than adding new projects to five-year capital improvement programs. This book remains essential for planners, administrators, and citizens interested in the future of suburbia and safeguarding it from the coming transportation crisis.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781412848688
Publisher:	Transaction Publishers
Publication date:	12/15/2012
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	297
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.60(d)

Table of Contents

1: The Suburban Office Boom; 2: America’s Growth Regions; 3: Design and Land Use Considerations in Suburban Office Development; 4: Suburban Traffic Management; 5: Southern California Case Study; 6: Northern California Case Study; 7: Unlocking Suburban Gridlock

Editorial Reviews

Historically, transportation planning has focused on the constrained spaces of city centers, says Cervero. . . but increasingly, once quiet suburban streets are becoming busy and crowded as office buildings and other work sites relocate out of city centers. This was his perspective in 1985 as he was writing the 1986 first edition. After 27 years, he says, the typical commute now begins and ends in suburbs — mostly different ones — and the transportation system designed to carry people to city centers then back home to suburbia is no longer adequate.” —Book News “Suburban Gridlock describes the rapidly developing mobility crisis in suburban areas caused by an explosion in nonresidential construction and development of large office complexes outside the traditional central city… Robert Cervero’s goal in writing this book was to “call the looming mobility crisis facing our suburbs to the attention of the nation’s developers, city planners, and transportation professions in hopes of stimulating both dialogue and creative response”… Readers of the book are treated to an extremely well researched, organized, and presented analysis.” —James H. Miller, Transportation Journal “Suburban Gridlock is a significant contribution to the expanding literature on the economic geography of the outer city. Cervero has diligently organized his multidimensional subject, has presented a compelling discussion of its issues based on well-drawn case studies, and achieves his goals of calling attention to the mobility crisis and of “stimulating both dialogue and creative responses”… I highly recommend this lively, thoughtful, and remarkably current book to everyone investigating the changing late-twentieth-century American city.” —Peter O. Muller, The Geographical Review "One of the most important books to emanate from urban studies during the past decade." —Annals of the Association of American Geographers

From the Publisher