Mobility: America's Transportation Mess and How to Fix It

This book asks the question, Do we really need another book about transportation problems in the United States? And the answer is “Yes, If …” with the “If” involving whether there have been recent changes that make things materially different than they were a few years ago when other books and articles were written. One obvious change is the realization that transportation vehicles like vans and commercial airliners can be turned into terrorist weapons and this is a wildcard that we still have to come to terms with. But the book describes how we have witnessed other changes as well, and they may be even more significant in the long run. The objective of this book is to focus on these changes, the opportunities they offer, and why they should cause us to think about highways, public transit and goods movement systems as components of an integrated national transportation network rather than a group of separate travel modes. The book is divided into two parts. The first part is a once-over-lightly of the subject, written in a user friendly style to make it easily accessible to the general reader and part two consists of a number of easily digested short sections and it is mainly policy oriented. Quantitative detail is kept to a minimum and is usually presented in the form of simple graphs that are easy to the naked eye. Topics include, technology, housing driven travel demand, privatization, transportation modes, strategic planning and the book looks at the future of Transportation in the year 2030.