This colorful history will appeal to borth the interested reader and transportation historian. Brian Cudahy's skillful narrative is combined with a wealth of period photographs. The first comprehensive history of public transportation in North America to be published in more than 60 years, the book traces the grwoth of urban mass transit from the horse-drawn street cars of the 1830's through the development of cable cars, electric street cars, subways, and buses, to the new light rail systems that are playing a key role in today's urban transit renaissance. The book is not bound to any geographical region and examines transit rail systems throughout the United States and Canada.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Brian Cudahy was born in Brooklyn, New York, and it was there that he developed a life-long fascination with subway trains. His first professional career was as a professor of philosophy, and he held positions on the faculoty of both Niagara University and Boston College. Cudahy left the academic world in the mid-1970s and spent the rest of his career working in the field of mass transportation, first with Boston's MBTA, then with the RTA in Chicago, and finally with the U.S. Department of Transportation.
He has published widely in two areas of transportation ... urban mass transit and maritime history. When Fordham University Press celebrated its centennial in 2007, Cudahy's history of the New York subways, "Under the Sidewalks of New York," was cited as one of the Press' ten best sellers during its first hundred years.
Brian Cudahy retired in 1999 and currently lives near Hilton Head, South Carolina. Watch out, though! One of these days, readers may be able to get an inside look at urban mass transit in America through Cudahy's first work of fiction, a book that will bear the title "Foggarty's Heart Attack."
