My Kind of Book

Sometimes the publishing house PR people do a good job of deciding who needs review copies of what, and thus I recently opened up a package to discover My Kind of Transit My Kind of Transit: Rethinking Public Transportation in America. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but in the interests of rewarding those who send me books I’m actually interested in, why not offer you some PR copy:

In America’s car-dominated landscape, public transit has long played second fiddle, but rising gasoline prices and the global warming crisis point to a need for alternative means of transportation. Darrin Nordahl sets the stage for these efforts by proposing that the experience of public transit and the quality of the ride are pivotal to the success of public transit.

My Kind of Transit explores America’s most beloved transit systems and how they work. From San Francisco’s cable cars to Pittsburgh’s funiculars to the streetcars of New Orleans, Nordahl recounts a transportation history of both short-sighted planning and visionary policies, and reveals that current American transit systems contain many key elements for successfully expanding public transport. My Kind of Transit explains the characteristics of ideal transit, or “passenger enrichment,” such as transit vehicles that offer views of the surrounding landscape and systems that enable diverse peoples to interact.

Successful public transport must be a uniquely enjoyable experience for riders, My Kind of Transit contends, and it offers a new vision of civic engagement that occurs when we step out of our cars and onto the train.

At first glance, I do think that this sort of issue is oftentimes under-appreciated. Streetcar systems have some substantial advantages over buses. But I don’t think that reciting those advantages, in a technical sense, fully captures the difference. Something like the Barcelona Tram is cool and futuristic, and the MetroBus in DC is not. On some level, it’s just impossible for a bus to replicate that—no bus can ever be as quiet or smooth. But DC’s Circulator bus actually does a pretty good job of capturing some of that “cool and futuristic” appeal while running alongside WMATA’s generally unappealing main bus service.