Book recommendations: Foundational text(s) on public transit

November 10, 2020 5:08 AM

I would like to add some books on public transportation to my library -- where to start?

I guess I'm looking for foundational texts in the Public Transportation domain. I'm working on a project that I think might grow into something and I'm not formally educated in the field.

I have a strong background in Mathematics and Computer Science, and have travelled extensively and done a lot of problem solving on public transit systems (theoretical and practical).

I've asked this question elsewhere on the internet and people seem to recomment J. Walker's 'Human Transit'. Any other suggestions are welcome!

posted by jpziller to Travel & Transportation (9 answers total)

I came here to recommend Human Transit.

It's not a book, but you should read Alon Levy's blog Pedestrian Observations.
posted by madcaptenor at 6:42 AM on November 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

I'm not sure what you're looking for exactly, but maybe these:

"Cities Back from the Edge, New Life for Downtown"
By Roberta Brandes Gratz, Norman Mintz

You may find the above interesting.

Also "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" by Jane Jacobs. Chapter 18.

This is a blog about the rise and fall Philadelphia's PRT:
https://hsp.org/blogs/fondly-pennsylvania/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-philadelphia-rapid-transit-company

That's all I can think of at the moment.
posted by james33 at 7:43 AM on November 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

Jan Gehl, Cities for People
posted by pinochiette at 7:44 AM on November 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

Straphanger by Taras Grescoe is not technical, more about the story of transit in our cities. It's an engaging read.

I just checked Better Buses, Better Cities by Steven Higashide out of the library, so can't personally recommend it yet. I've heard good things.
posted by My Kryptonite is Worry at 8:04 AM on November 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

In Transit by Joshua Freeman is a really good history of the New York Transport Workers Union. Goes into detail on the way its political identity evolved, from the radical tradition of Irish Republicanism to the anti-communism characteristic of many U.S. unions after WW II.
posted by Morpeth at 8:14 AM on November 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

So much of public transport these days is entangled with active transport. I would really recommend Janette Sadik Khan and Seth Solomonow’s book Street Fight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution to understand this. She is a former NYC Transport Commissioner. It’s a very readable book.
posted by Concordia at 10:43 AM on November 10, 2020

Human Transit is probably the best introduction, so you're already covered. I'll also second Levy's blog, particularly since he also comes from a math background. There are also a number of good local blogs in different areas; Clem Tillier's Caltrain-HSR Compatibility blog is excellent on commuter rail especially in the Bay Area, Steve Munro writes a lot about Toronto transit, especially street cars and service reliability.

Christof Spieler has a nice book, Trains, Buses, People that covers a lot of the same basics as Walker but also has a ton of maps and details about every notable system in the US.

If you want to get very much in the weeds, the TCRP reports and synthesis reports are freely available in-industry summaries of current research and practice on very specific topics, like DC control systems, or transit-TNC interactions or fare payment apps.

All that said, there are a lot of people who think there are interesting mathematical and computational breakthroughs to be made in public transit, but in my experience, the actual problems in public transit in the auto-oriented West are primarily social and cultural problems:

• Transit funding is anemic, because it is politically unpopular, because of inequality and structural racism.
• Transit is not given its fair share of road space, because drivers are the privileged class, because of inequality and structural racism.
• Transit agencies are given multiple competing priorities and insufficient funding to do all of them.
• Transit agencies don't look elsewhere to bring in best practices; in large metros transit agencies are in constant turf wars with each other rather than working together, as a result of local political and cultural history.
• New building construction is made in transit-hostile fashion, because developers are used to the status quo, because the externalities and costs of transit-hostile design are subsidized by the public, and because regulatory capture prevents anything from being done about this.

So it might be as useful to read a good book about redlining, or local political organization. Streetfight, by Janette Sadik-Khan talks a little about the political aspect of transportation change.

For instance, one of the most recent trends I've seen buzzed about from the mathy crowd is demand-responsive transit, where software dispatches buses to customers as needed; I recommend watching Regina Telebus, a film showing almost exactly the same system, in a podunk city of 150K. In 1973.
posted by Superilla at 10:50 AM on November 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

Great Society Subway, about the development of the Washington DC Metro.
posted by yarrow at 5:20 PM on November 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

I passed the question on to my daughter who is in the transportation business (DC buses). Here is here reply.

Human Transit is the one I'd start with also. Maybe also:

Christof Spieler, Trains, Buses, People - I haven't read it, but I've seen the author on panels and twitter and he's really sharp
Steven Higashide, Better Buses, Better Cities - this is new and I bought it and haven't read it yet, but it got a good reception. This is more angled to politics and less to the math of public transit, probably. But transit is largely about politics these days, anyway - we know how to design good bus service, it's getting the funding and street space that are the problem.

Zachary Schrag, The Great Society Subway is fun if you're familiar with the DC Metro. Amazon shows me similar books for NYC MTA, the Chicago L, and BART. Also Doug Most, The Race Underground for early history was pretty fun. All are history, but you learn some things about transit design and operations along the way.

We didn't use a standard textbook for any of my transit classes in grad school, but if he's looking for something that's more engineering oriented, I often see The Geography of Urban Transportation by Guiliano and Hansen and Public Transportation Systems by Daganzo and Ouyang. Urban Public Transportation Systems and Technology by Vuchic was the standard for a long time, but may now be somewhat dated.
posted by SemiSalt at 7:50 AM on November 11, 2020 [2 favorites]