Getting There: The Epic Struggle between Road and Rail in the American Century (Chicago Lectures in Mathematics) (Paperback)

~ (Author) "IN THE FALL OF 1829 THE "STEPHENSON ROCKET," SPEWING THICK clouds of black smoke, raced along the new iron tracks of the Liverpool and Manchester..." (more)
Key Phrases: highway coalition, highway advocates, motor competition, New York, United States, Los Angeles (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Goddard tells the story of how the struggle between the highwaymen and the railroaders ultimately changed the course of modern transportation systems and the U.S. economy. He describes how the automakers, engineers, contractors, and government officials dethroned the once-powerful railroad barons, pushing them from their position at the apex of the American industrial empire, and how the dawning of the global empire taught these bitter antagonists to either cooperate or perish. His account is a human story of opportunity, greed, high ideals, and raw ambition in which the automobile is painted as the "bad guy" and the railroad as the better system both for the public and for the economy. This engaging tale ends with a discussion of the implications of the railway-highway struggle on future transportation systems. For large public and academic libraries.
Eric C. Shoaf, Brown Univ. Lib., Providence, R.I.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

No one nowadays salutes the name of Tom MacDonald, but this road construction czar and federal bureaucrat single-mindedly changed the landscape of the U.S. By the time his 34 years of promoting the automobile ended in 1953, the iron horse was a nag limping into the boneyard, and the designs for U.S. autobahns by MacDonald's Bureau of Public Roads were ready to cut through and wall off cities and interstates, begun in 1956, were just around the corner. The result, traffic jams and railroads living on subsidized life support, is an unsung revolution whose concealed obviousness in the everyday is akin to looking for the nose on one's face: it's there but hard to see. So the triumph of the car calls for an enthusiastic scholar and bard who also sings the dirge for lost railroads. That Goddard is. In the process of disinterring MacDonald and others, he reveals his zest for and immersion in his subject and writes with anecdotal richness about the politics and wastrel economics surrounding the car--and he could have written a second volume on its cultural drawbacks. This will grab the policy-interested reader; the masses stuck in lonely gridlock can listen if it ever becomes an audiobook. Gilbert Taylor --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 366 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (November 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226300439
• ISBN-13: 978-0226300436
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #767,748 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How Did We Get Into This Mess, March 21, 2001

By	JOHN A. PRITCHARD "eldrwy" (SANTA FE, NM United States) - See all my reviews

Of all of the books that I have read pertaining to railroad history, "Getting There" is head and shoulders above all the rest. The author provides a well written and generally balanced account of the competition between rail and highway transportation in the United States from about the 1920's forward.

By 1920, the powerful presence of the robber barons of the late 19th century had disappeared, and the railroads were in a state of disarray and disintegration as a result of the heavy demands being placed upon the system, and the benign dictatorship of the United States Railroad Administration (USRA) who took over and ran the railroads during WWI.

In addition, the railroads were required to operate under onerous and restrictive rules and regulations imposed by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) as a result of the excesses of the 19th century. And the railroads had little support from the public because of these past sins.

Into this scenario arose highway competition, by and large developed with public funds. And without controls such as imposed on the railroads. In contrast trucks and busses were allowed to operate unfettered. So a trucking company could operate freely between two given points and change rates and service at will. While a railroad operating between those same two points would have to go through the cumbersome ICC process.

Author Goddard provides a concise and well documented picture of this competition between rail and highway, a competition which continues to this day.

I highly recommed this book to anyone who is interested in a serious look at our overall transportation system. But a word of advice: Check the condition of your pacemaker first. This book is not recommended for someone with high blood pressure. I guarantee that you will come away absolutely furious at the foibles of our national transportation policy.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How highways, with massive gov't subsidies, beat railroads, August 6, 1999

By A Customer

A well-written readable, and mostly objective picture of how highways, through massive government investment through the construction of the interstate highway system, steadily became the dominant mode of transportation in the US. The author concludes that, with deregulation and improvements to Amtrak, railroads do have a promising future despite the historic imbalance.

4.0 out of 5 stars Getting There, February 13, 2009

By	Garth James (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I may be a little biased in my review of "Getting There", since my grand uncle Roy and my grandfather John Fitzgerald (pages 123-137)played such a significant role in the transformation from the trolley to the bus.

Interestingly, this expansive transportation network was created by American entrepreneurs with no public funds and ran at a profit that public transportation doesn't seem to be able to do today.

This was accomplished during the the Great Depression era and may be a more poignent lesson today during our current economic times.