Customer Reviews

Breaking Gridlock: Moving Toward Transportation That Works

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In the face of increasingly long and difficult commutes and rocketing gas prices comes a title which explores not one but a range of viable options for transportation. Introductory chapters examine the state of the U.S. transportation system and introduces the technology and choices which can help re-create systems for the future. Examinations of the nation's most congested suburbs and cities provide critiques and suggested models for future transportation alternatives. An important guide.

Motavalli has produced a stimulating, always readable account of the traffic woes that beset us, taking as his starting point the gridlock that faces commuters in southwestern Connecticut every morning. He considers new approaches such as ferries, "clean" buses, bicycles, light rail--his message is that just about anything that gets us out of our cars is good.

This book is best read as a companion to Motavalli's earlier book on the new non-polluting cars with hydrogen-fuel-cell technology that are just around the corner--although he recognizes the irony that clean cars are no less a cause of gridlock than their dirty brethren.

Motavalli is not particularly good about keeping his details correct. For example:

1) He refers to Boston's Central Artery as the John F. Kennedy Expressway. Lots of people make this mistake. It's actually the John F. Fitzgerald Expressway. What is bad about this error, is that he states that JFK would not have approved of the orginal Central Artery.

2) He states that parts of Acadia National Park are only accessible by shuttle. That is not true according to the National Park Service website, insofar as I can tell.

Overall, I find his premise disturbing as well. Although the idea that transit can dampen congestion was a novel idea a decade ago, more and more transportation officials and researchers are realizing that transit operates as a supplement to roads, rather than a replacement. If you build a new transit line, you are adding capacity to the transportation network. There may be an initial shift to transit (for those for which it is convenient), but that frees capacity on the highway, which causes more people from utilize the highway. The highway will be congested no matter how much transit is built.

Instead of reading books like this, there are much better, more thorough reports/analyses out there, from transit authorities/advocates (i.e. not polemic journalists), MPOs, state DOTs, and transportation research organizations/firms (and others).

Autos have offered the freedom of mobility for millions who could never have otherwise left their places of birth in pursuit of a better life. Go to any developing country, and ask people what they want most. The answer: automobiles. Because automobiles represent freedom, mobility, a better life and more opportunities to pursue their dreams. Why Motavalli is opposed to this is beyond comprehension. He is a self-appointed armchair social engineer of the worst stripe; a hectoring scold who probably wishes there was an armed batallion of lifestyle police ready to confiscate the family minivan if they got the chance. Don't waste yout time or money on this tripe, unless, of course, you're a member of the Earth Liberation Front looking for an impetus for your next anti-social act.