Americans are rightly frustrated, yet what most suspect to be wrong about transportation is only part of the story. The reality is worse in many ways, with our efforts to fix these systems only reinforcing the problems we are hoping to solve. A new approach is needed.

Strong Towns founder and president Charles Marohn, Jr. is a professional engineer and planner with decades of experience. In his work, he saw firsthand how the conventional approach to traffic engineering is making people less safe, bankrupting towns and cities, destroying the fabric of communities, and actually worsening the problems (like congestion) engineers set out to solve. He founded Strong Towns in 2009 to advocate for a smarter, more resilient, and more fiscally responsible approach. Over the last 12 years, Strong Towns has grown into an international movement of people from all walks of life who are challenging the status quo and changing how we build cities in the U.S. and Canada.

In Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town, Marohn pulls back the curtain on the North American transportation system. He explains how transportation got so bad, and why it keeps getting worse. He writes about the deadly toll of bad design, why the conventional approach puts cities on the road to insolvency, and why public transit is in trouble. He also talks about how transportation can be fixed―and why fixing it will involve not just engineers, but local residents and officials who have become effective and empowered advocates, connected with others to make real change.

No one should be consigned to living in a community where transportation gets worse while costing more. Rather than being a burden, transportation should fit with your life. It is possible to build a transportation system that makes you, your family, and your community safer and more prosperous.This book will show you how.

Praise for CONFESSIONS OF A RECOVERING ENGINEER

“I’ve been waiting for this book for a long time. It’s been more than a decade since its title essay rocked me to my core; reading it was my Meg Ryan When Harry Met Sally moment. Over the intervening years, Chuck’s message has become all the more necessary, and America may finally be ready for it.”
―JEFF SPECK, city planner and author of Walkable City and Walkable City Rules

“This should be required reading―and the default approach to transportation―for anyone who cares about building safe streets and strong communities, whether transportation engineers, urban planners, policymakers or advocates.”
―BETH OSBORNE, Director of Transportation for America

“Marohn shows how the manuals, standards, and professional practices of traffic engineering reflect judgments about who matters and who doesn’t―judgments that deserve to be visible so that we can all debate them.”
―JARRETT WALKER, transit planner and author of Human Transit

How American roads are designed and how we can do better

We all want to live in a place where the transportation system serves us. But with crumbling roads, skyrocketing costs, maddening amounts of congestion, thousands of traffic deaths each year, and unreliable public transit…it feels like the other way around. So who’s serving who?

In Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town, renowned speaker and author of Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity Charles Marohn pulls back the curtain on the assumptions and approaches that go into building and managing America’s transportation systems. He demonstrates how, with a different approach, any community can spend less and provide transportation systems that make their residents safer, wealthier, healthier, and more prosperous.