Railtown

Railtown
Author: Ethan N. Elkind
Publisher: University of California Press
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2014-01-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520278275

The familiar image of Los Angeles as a metropolis built for the automobile is crumbling. Traffic, air pollution, and sprawl motivated citizens to support urban rail as an alternative to driving, and the city has started to reinvent itself by developing compact neighborhoods adjacent to transit. As a result of pressure from local leaders, particularly with the election of Tom Bradley as mayor in 1973, the Los Angeles Metro Rail gradually took shape in the consummate car city. Railtown presents the history of this system by drawing on archival documents, contemporary news accounts, and interviews with many of the key players to provide critical behind-the-scenes accounts of the people and forces that shaped the system. Ethan Elkind brings this important story to life by showing how ambitious local leaders zealously advocated for rail transit and ultimately persuaded an ambivalent electorate and federal leaders to support their vision. Although Metro Rail is growing in ridership and political importance, with expansions in the pipeline, Elkind argues that local leaders will need to reform the rail planning and implementation process to avoid repeating past mistakes and to ensure that Metro Rail supports a burgeoning demand for transit-oriented neighborhoods in Los Angeles. This engaging history of Metro Rail provides lessons for how the American car-dominated cities of today can reinvent themselves as thriving railtowns of tomorrow.

Hidden History of Transportation in Los Angeles

Hidden History of Transportation in Los Angeles
Author: Charles P. Hobbs
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2014-11-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1625852002

Los Angeles transportation's epic scale--its iconic freeways, Union Station, Los Angeles International Airport and the giant ports of its shores--has obscured many offbeat transit stories of moxie and eccentricity. Triumphs such as the Vincent Thomas Bridge and Mac Barnes's Ground Link buspool have existed alongside such flops as the Santa Monica Freeway Diamond Lane and the Oxnard-Los Angeles Caltrain commuter rail. The City of Angels lacks a propeller-driven monorail and a freeway in the paved bed of the Los Angeles River, but not for a lack of public promoters. Horace Dobbins built the elevated California Cycleway in Pasadena, and Mike Kadletz deployed the Pink Buses for Orange County kids hitchhiking to the beach. Join Charles P. Hobbs as he recalls these and other lost episodes of LA-area transportation lore.

BART

BART
Author: Michael C. Healy
Publisher: Heyday.ORIM
Total Pages: 426
Release: 2013-01-01
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 1597143812

An insider’s “indispensible” behind-the-scenes history of the transit system of San Francisco and surrounding counties (Houston Chronicle). In the first-ever history book about BART, longtime agency spokesman Michael C. Healy gives an insider’s account of the rapid transit system’s inception, hard-won approval, construction, and operations, warts and all. With a master storyteller’s wit and sharp attention to detail, Healy recreates the politically fraught venture to bring a new kind of public transit to the West Coast. What emerges is a sense of the individuals who made (and make) BART happen. From tales of staying up until 3:00 a.m. with BART pioneers Bill Stokes and Jack Everson to hear the election results for the rapid transit vote to stories of weathering scandals, strikes, and growing pains, this look behind the scenes of an iconic, seemingly monolithic structure reveals people at their most human—and determined to change the status quo. “The Metro. The T. The Tube. The world's most famous subway systems are known by simple monikers, and San Francisco's BART belongs in that class. Michael C. Healy delivers a tour-de-force telling of its roots, hard-fought approval, and challenging construction that will delight fans of American urban history.”—Doug Most, author of The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America's First Subway

A People's Guide to Los Angeles

A People's Guide to Los Angeles
Author: Laura Pulido
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2012-04-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520953347

A People’s Guide to Los Angeles offers an assortment of eye-opening alternatives to L.A.’s usual tourist destinations. It documents 115 little-known sites in the City of Angels where struggles related to race, class, gender, and sexuality have occurred. They introduce us to people and events usually ignored by mainstream media and, in the process, create a fresh history of Los Angeles. Roughly dividing the city into six regions—North Los Angeles, the Eastside and San Gabriel Valley, South Los Angeles, Long Beach and the Harbor, the Westside, and the San Fernando Valley—this illuminating guide shows how power operates in the shaping of places, and how it remains embedded in the landscape.

Better Buses, Better Cities

Better Buses, Better Cities
Author: Steven Higashide
Publisher: Island Press
Total Pages: 186
Release: 2019-10-10
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 1642830143

"Better Buses, Better Cities is likely the best book ever written on improving bus service in the United States." — Randy Shaw, Beyond Chron "The ultimate roadmap for how to make the bus great again in your city." — Spacing "The definitive volume on how to make bus frequent, fast, reliable, welcoming, and respected..." — Streetsblog Imagine a bus system that is fast, frequent, and reliable—what would that change about your city? Buses can and should be the cornerstone of urban transportation. They offer affordable mobility and can connect citizens with every aspect of their lives. But in the US, they have long been an afterthought in budgeting and planning. With a compelling narrative and actionable steps, Better Buses, Better Cities inspires us to fix the bus. Transit expert Steven Higashide shows us what a successful bus system looks like with real-world stories of reform—such as Houston redrawing its bus network overnight, Boston making room on its streets to put buses first, and Indianapolis winning better bus service on Election Day. Higashide shows how to marshal the public in support of better buses and how new technologies can keep buses on time and make complex transit systems understandable. Higashide argues that better bus systems will create better cities for all citizens. The consequences of subpar transit service fall most heavily on vulnerable members of society. Transit systems should be planned to be inclusive and provide better service for all. These are difficult tasks that require institutional culture shifts; doing all of them requires resilient organizations and transformational leadership. Better bus service is key to making our cities better for all citizens. Better Buses, Better Cities describes how decision-makers, philanthropists, activists, and public agency leaders can work together to make the bus a win in any city.

Departure Stories

Departure Stories
Author: Elisa Bernick
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2022-10-04
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0253064090

"We weren't religious per se. The most frequent mention of God in our house was my mother yelling 'Goddammit!'" Elisa Bernick grew up "different" (i.e., Jewish) in the white, Christian suburb of New Hope, Minnesota during the 1960s and early 1970s. At the center of her world was her mother, Arlene, who was a foul-mouthed, red-headed, suburban Samson who ultimately shook the walls of their family until it collapsed. Poignant and provocative, Departure Stories peers through the broader lens of Minnesota's recent history to reveal an intergenerational journey through trauma that unraveled the Bernick family and many others. Deftly interweaving reporting, archival material, memoir, jokes, scrapbook fragments, personal commentary, and one very special Waikiki Meatballs recipe, Bernick explores how the invisible baggage of place and memory, Minnesota's uniquely antisemitic history, and the cultural shifts of feminism and changing marital expectations contributed to her family's eventual implosion. Departure Stories: Betty Crocker Made Matzoh Balls (and other lies) is a personal exploration of erasure, immigrants, and exiles that examines the ways departures—from places, families and memory—have far-reaching effects.

Running on Empty

Running on Empty
Author: Karen Lucas
Publisher: Policy Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2004-10-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1861345704

The lack of access to transportation among low-income groups is increasingly being recognised as a barrier to employment and social inclusion both in Britain and the United States. This work looks at the delivery of transport from a social policy perspective to assist in a better understanding of this issue.

Los Angeles and the Automobile

Los Angeles and the Automobile
Author: Scott L. Bottles
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 1987
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780520057951

More comprehensive than any other book on this topic, Los Angeles and the Automobile places the evolution of Los Angeles within the context of American political and urban history.

The 57 Bus

The 57 Bus
Author: Dashka Slater
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2017-10-17
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 0374303258

The riveting New York Times bestseller and Stonewall Book Award winner that will make you rethink all you know about race, class, gender, crime, and punishment. Artfully, compassionately, and expertly told, Dashka Slater's The 57 Bus is a must-read nonfiction book for teens that chronicles the true story of an agender teen who was set on fire by another teen while riding a bus in Oakland, California. Two ends of the same line. Two sides of the same crime. If it weren’t for the 57 bus, Sasha and Richard never would have met. Both were high school students from Oakland, California, one of the most diverse cities in the country, but they inhabited different worlds. Sasha, a white teen, lived in the middle-class foothills and attended a small private school. Richard, a Black teen, lived in the economically challenged flatlands and attended a large public one. Each day, their paths overlapped for a mere eight minutes. But one afternoon on the bus ride home from school, a single reckless act left Sasha severely burned, and Richard charged with two hate crimes and facing life imprisonment. The case garnered international attention, thrusting both teenagers into the spotlight. But in The 57 Bus, award-winning journalist Dashka Slater shows that what might at first seem like a simple matter of right and wrong, justice and injustice, victim and criminal, is something more complicated—and far more heartbreaking. Awards and Accolades for The 57 Bus: A New York Times Bestseller Stonewall Book Award Winner YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Finalist A Boston Globe-Horn Book Nonfiction Honor Book Winner A TIME Magazine Best YA Book of All Time A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist Don’t miss Dashka Slater’s newest propulsive and thought-provoking nonfiction book, Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed, which National Book Award winner Ibram X. Kendi hails as “powerful, timely, and delicately written.”