Trains, Buses, People: An Opinionated Atlas Of US Transit, by Christof Spieler

It is not hard to figure out what sort of opinions the author has even before reading this book, and I must admit that while I was disappointed by the author, I was not particularly surprised by his perspective. When someone talks about US transit (and by this they mean rapid bus, people movers, streetcars, light rail, or heavy-rail) and claims to be opinionated about the subject, there is very little doubt about what sort of opinions they are going to have. Few people feel it necessary to be dogmatic or annoying about their appreciation for car culture; they simply get in their car and drive, and try not to complain too much about high gasoline prices. On the other hand, people who support mass transit are frequently irritating and feel the need to blare their misinformed opinions to everyone who will hear and a great many people who will not hear them out. If I do not consider the opinions of this book to be particularly praiseworthy, it is worth at least knowing the perspective of people of such ilk that would write this book or enjoy it and to recognize where their perspectives fall short in matters of justice and equity. In reading this book, one finds out very quickly that the people the author is concerned are a very small group of people that does not even include all of those who ride mass transit–the author has few good things to say about rural or suburban or tourists and their interests, after all.

In terms of its contents, this book is a bit less than 250 pages and is divided into three parts. After an acknowledgement and an introduction that seeks to encourage transit being put where the people are–and remember, these are residents of cities who live in at least mid to high density areas, not tourists or suburbanites or rural people–the first part of the book is a discussion of the role of transit in the United States. The author spends about ten pages or so in this section talking about what transit does well, a brief history of transit, modes of transit, hopes and fears regarding mass transit, and issues of funding and governance. The second part of the book, which takes up about 20 pages or so, then looks at the basics of successful transit in the eyes of the author, which includes a focus on population density (to increase ridership), activity, walkability, connectivity, frequency, travel time, reliability, capacity, legibility of signs, and good ideas from abroad (especially but not only Europe and Japan). The third part of the book, which takes up the vast majority of the book, then briefly discusses the best and the worst and then provides a more or less detailed breakdown of mass transit in the top 47 transit areas of the United States: New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, San Francisco, Boston, Dallas, Philadelphia, Miami, Houston, Atlanta, Detroit, Seattle, Phoenix, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Cleveland, Denver, San Diego, Portland OR, Orlando, Tampa, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Charlotte, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Austin, Nashville, Norfolk, Hartford, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Memphis, Richmond, Buffalo, Albuquerque, Tuscon, El Paso, Honolulu, Little Rock, Eugene, and Fort Collins. The author explores the map of transit in these cities and discusses in his view what are their positives and negatives. As might be imagined, mostly negatives proliferate, and the author includes some rather savage and accusatory statements against the good people of areas like rural Pennsylvania, among many others. The book then concludes with a transit agenda for the future of cities as well as an index.

While a great many of the author’s opinions are idiotic and the author’s lack of interest in building consensus for the massive infrastructure improvements to America’s cities that he has in mind is troubling, it should be noted in the author’s favor that not everything the author proposes is moronic. To his credit, the author has at least one good idea that bus maps and a standardized bus sign that includes useful information about route frequency and what destinations a bus route would allow one to see would be useful in providing information to transit travelers as well as providing convenient ways for multimodal transportation efforts to work together to serve those who wish or need to live without cars. Beyond that, though, there is little to commend this book for. The author seems to be under the assumption that only left-leaning voters in cities matter and that the job of suburbanites and rural inhabitants is simply to provide money for propping up and developing the cities to the tastes of the author and others of his ilk. The author seems to know or care nothing about how rural or suburban areas themselves are to be developed and maintained properly, and thus his advocacy of cities falls well short of what would be needed to be genuinely interested in the well-being of America’s people as a whole.