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    Straphanger: Saving Our Cities and Ourselves from the Automobile
    Unavailable
    Straphanger: Saving Our Cities and Ourselves from the Automobile
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    Straphanger: Saving Our Cities and Ourselves from the Automobile
    Ebook530 pages9 hours

    Straphanger: Saving Our Cities and Ourselves from the Automobile

    By Taras Grescoe

    4.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Taras Grescoe rides the rails all over the world and makes an elegant and impassioned case for the imminent end of car culture and the coming transportation revolution

    "I am proud to call myself a straphanger," writes Taras Grescoe. The perception of public transportation in America is often unflattering—a squalid last resort for those with one too many drunk-driving charges, too poor to afford insurance, or too decrepit to get behind the wheel of a car. Indeed, a century of auto-centric culture and city planning has left most of the country with public transportation that is underfunded, ill maintained, and ill conceived. But as the demand for petroleum is fast outpacing the world's supply, a revolution in transportation is under way.
    Grescoe explores the ascendance of the straphangers—the growing number of people who rely on public transportation to go about the business of their daily lives. On a journey that takes him around the world—from New York to Moscow, Paris, Copenhagen, Tokyo, Bogotá, Phoenix, Portland, Vancouver, and Philadelphia—Grescoe profiles public transportation here and abroad, highlighting the people and ideas that may help undo the damage that car-centric planning has done to our cities and create convenient, affordable, and sustainable urban transportation—and better city living—for all.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateApr 24, 2012
    ISBN9780805095586
    Unavailable
    Straphanger: Saving Our Cities and Ourselves from the Automobile
    Author

    Taras Grescoe

    Taras Grescoe is the author of The Devil's Picnic: A Tour of Everything the Governments of the World Don't Want You to Try and Bottomfeeder: How the Fish on Our Plates is Killing Our Planet. He also wrote Sacre Blues: An Unsentimental Journey Through Quebec, which was shortlisted for the Writers’ Trust Award, won the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-fiction, and was a national bestseller in Canada. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, Salon, Conde Nast Traveller, the Independent, The Times and National Geographic Traveller. He also writes for Saveur, New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, Wired and Chicago Tribune Magazine. He lives in Montréal, Canada.

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    Reviews for Straphanger

    4.5/5

    62 ratings18 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I found this book to be very informative and readable; it combines the best aspects of a travelogue with detailed surveys of public transit systems around the world- the good, bad and the ugly (*ahem, Phoenix*). A worthwhile read for anyone interested in urban planning, specifically how cities become more- or less- livable.
    • 4/5
      A kind of world tour encompassing, the US, Canada, Europe and Asia. It talks about the ways an urban environment can exist without so many cars. The BRT in Bogota, the excellent subways in Paris and my favorite the bicycle friendly country of Denmark. I am living in Vietnam now and locally everyone seems to have a motorcycle. I manage the scary traffic circles here on an old Japanese bike. Much of the world is stuck in traffic jams everyday. What people need is frequent and proximate transportation. Fortunately, lots of people are waking up to realize we need access and not ownership of gas guzzling, pollution belching cars that remain parked much of the time, while eating 25 percent of your earnings.
    • 5/5
      In the previous book I've read by Taras Grescoe, The End of Elsewhere (one of my all-time favorite books), the author travels the world deliberately visiting the most touristed sites.  In Straphanger, Grescoe travels the world again this time taking advantage of the rapid transit metro systems of the world's great cities.  Grescoe visits New York, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Paris, Copenhagen, Moscow, Tokyo, Bogotá, Portland, Vancouver, Philadelphia and Montreal taking notes of what each city's metro system can offer to North American cities (or in the case of Phoenix an example of how not to do it).  Grescoe takes not how each city's public transportation network is a unique representation of that city's culture, being both of the city and shaping the city.  While not everything would work in other cities, there's a lot of food for thought for improving public transportation networks to serve dense urban environments, which Grescoe emphasizes is increasingly becoming necessary for our urban future.  Of course, me reading this book is another example of me being in the choir being preached too, but I find that it works well both as a travelogue and as a treatise on public transit's future.  I highly recomend this book and expect it will be on my list of favorite books for 2012.Favorite Passages:Kenneth Jackson: "Look," he said, "humans are social animals.  I think the biggest fake every perpetrated is that children like, and need, big yards.  What children like are other children.  If they can have space, well, that's fine.  But most of all, they want to be around other kids.  I think we move children to the suburbs to control the children, not to respond to something the children want.  In the city, kids might see somebody urinating in public, but they're much more at risk in the suburbs, where they tend to die in cars." - p. 96"Since the Second World War, in fact, transit in most of the world's great cities has been run by publicly owned agencies.  The argument for public ownership of transit is two-pronged.  First, that transit systems and railroads are an example of a natural monopoly, like electric utilities or sewer systems, they can optimize expenditures and increase efficiency if they are under a single management.  Second, since a decent transport system has external benefits like increasing property values and reducing congestion and pollution, it is best managed not to maximize owners' profits, but in the public interest." - p. 125
    • 5/5
      A fascinating look at public transportation around the world. The book covers the various successes of public transportation around the world, while also looking at cities with a perceived (or real) lack of public transportation, e.g. L.A. and Phoenix, AZ. The author admits to a decided bias towards rail over bus, which I tend to agree with, but that doesn't stop him from admitting the strengths some bus systems. It was also interesting to read his opinion of Portland, OR, where I currently live, and I agreed with many of his criticisms and praises.Well worth the read.
    • 5/5
      I've lived my entire life either in suburbs or in small towns. I've never felt the urge to move to the city...until now. Reading this book makes me want to move to Copenhagen where 37% of residents commute to work by bicycle. I want to move to Tokyo with its ultra-efficient trains (even if they are really crowded). I want to live in Moscow and spend time in the beautifully decorated underground stations. Or maybe I'll just stay where I am and try to make the U.S. a little better by giving up my car and finding alternate ways around. Whichever I choose, I know that I can look back on this book as my inspiration.
    • 3/5
      A bit repetitive and obsessed with US cities, but readable. The annotated bibliography can be useful. Use of figures is a bit journalistic, i.e. decontextualized, lacking normalization factors, not data-dense.
    • 4/5
      A tour of transit systems worldwide, with thoughts about how transit and urban design interact to make cities better or worse.
    • 4/5
      As a public transportation commuter, this book was very interesting to read. The history and background information about how public transportation systems were created was fascinating. It was also an interesting study on how these systems are more beneficial to our cities and environment. While I agree, the systems need better funding because they are overcrowded as it is, which is why many people still decide to use their cars.
    • 5/5
      Two of my adult children are without cars by choice. This is the 25th year that my husband has ridden the bus to his job in downtown Detroit. Straphanger is an eye-opening overview of mass transit throughout the world. Taras Grescoe includes the history of transit development, present day conditions and future plans for growth in more than ten cities across the globe. I was downright excited when I read the chapter on Copenhagen. Imagine a city where people ride bicycles to work, shopping, and even to drop the kids off at school or day care.And in the winter, too.Easily readable. I would recommend it.
    • 5/5
      Straphanger: Saving Our Cities and Ourselves from the AutomobileBy Taras GrescoeThis is a great introduction to the topic of public transportation! I wish everyone who is not convinced already would read this book. It’s been clear quite awhile that this is a change we need to make in the U.S., but I have not felt very hopeful about it. It seemed too difficult to make such a transition considering the way our lifestyles are. Grescoe tells stories of success as well as stories of how this change can take place in what I previously thought to be unlikely cities. He describes rather an “If you build it, they will come” scenario. He also ties in the effects on community life and relationships as we have seen in places such as Portland, Oregon.This book has enough technical information for those knowledgeable about the topic, while not putting us laypeople to sleep – a great all around read for anyone at all interested in the topic of public transportation, and those who want to feel hopeful about the future.By the way, the financial payoffs were VERY interesting and I believe especially pertinent during the present economic situation.
    • 5/5
      I was amazed at how interesting and readable I found this book about public transport. It's as much a social history as one focused on transport technology, and the author elegantly demonstrates how deeply enmeshed urban planning is (and has always been) with commercial interests, often to a city's detriment. He adopts a compare-and-contrast approach, examining the public and private transport systems of a variety of cities around the world (such as New York, Moscow, Copenhagen, Tokyo, etc), while at the same time conveying a real feel for the character of each city and its people. While he makes no bones about being a proponent of public transport, he attempts to be even-handed and present many sides to the argument, and maintains a moderate, wry tone throughout.Straphanger was of particular interest to me because I live in a city with almost unregulated sprawl and horribly congested motorways; now that the city is finally attempting to address this properly and give more attention to public transportation, this book has given me a lot to think about, and I suspect it will be the yardstick by which I measure my hometown's future.
    • 4/5
      Straphanger is a fascinating journalistic account of different public transportation systems in cities around the world. Fun reading whether you love the color car or hate it.
    • 5/5
      I really liked the way the author presented his point of view on the subject of mass transit. By using a different city to illustrate a different point in each chapter, he provides a crash course in some of the more efficient (and inefficient) public transit systems in the world, while highlighting what each of them does right and wrong. The author makes a compelling case for spending our limited infrastructure dollars on mass transit and shows that it can be done with speed and without spending trillions of dollars. This book is worth reading for anyone concerned about the future cost of gasoline.
    • 4/5
      Straphanger details Taras Grescoe's journey through the public transit systems of the world, and it is an excellent primer on what transit can and cannot do.Although I was skeptical at the beginning, this book really grew on me by the end. Talking about public transit seems to inherently become an "us vs. them" debate, and Grescoe makes his bias abundantly clear. That said, I was so overwhelmed by the depth of the content and Grescoe's ability to engage the reader that even when I did not agree with the extent of his argument, I was charmed into continuing my read.This book is a great read for anyone who drives, takes transit, or even thinks about how transportation plays a role in the evolution of geography and culture.
    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed this tour of mass transit systems in cities as diverse as Moscow, Copenhagen, Tokyo, and New York. It's a polemic, with a very definite point of view. I will own that I requested this book because I am already deeply sympathetic to a car-light, mass transit oriented lifestyle. In particular the historical overviews of how each system developed were a treat. I will be putting this book into my library (I work for a City University of New York college) because of the very excellent chapter on the history of the MTA. Highly recommended. It's well researched, and also light, warm, and well written.
    • 5/5
      I remember the straps in the buses I rode in the early 1970s. Holding the strap helped to balance those riders who were standing in the aisle. Taras Grescoe considers straphangers to be people who use public transportation in any form. Quite often these are urbanites who do not own cars but may own bicycles.The book includes ten chapters covering New York, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Paris, Copenhagen, Moscow, Tokyo, Bogata, Portland (OR)/Vancouver (BC), Philadelphia, and Montreal. The author lives in Montreal and has never owned a car. This book is not a polemic against the automobile. Instead it is a crafted argument in favor of livable cities for people. Grescoe’s narrative style is engaging and informative. Clearly each city and its transportation system has been thoroughly researched. I found the chapter about Copenhagen fascinating. In the greater Copenhagen area bicycles outnumber people. During the winter bike lanes are cleared of snow before roads for cars. In Germany there is a town, Vauban, where the residents are reinventing suburbia. Previously suburbia depended on cars, but not in Vauban. Interesting.Unfortunately the public transportation options in the United States pale in comparison to the rest of the industrialized world. With only a handful of exceptions, our passenger rail system is archaic and frustrating. Spain continues to lay high-speed tracks and expects a majority (90%) of the population to live within 30 miles of a high-speed rail station by 2020. In Germany 150 mph is the average speed of the bullet trains. The next generation of trains in production in France will have an average speed of 223 mph. In the US there is one “high-speed” train and it averages 88 mph. The lack of attention to public transportation infrastructure in the US is not only embarrassing but short-sighted. Straphanger is inspiring. In order for the American public transportation system to change we must be able to imagine what an efficient system would look like. Grescoe provides an amazing palette of systems to consider. There is a section in the back of the book for “Sources.” It is arranged by chapter and there are plenty of references for readers wanting more information. I am reviewing a publisher-supplied Advance Reader’s Copy. I cannot comment on the index since it is not included in the ARC. Without hesitation, I highly recommend this book.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book. Grescoe's style is breezy, pleasant, and just quirky enough to keep the reader amused. The book is written in the style of a newspaper columnist, only book-length.This book would be suitable for someone who wants validation as a mass-transit user/preferrer/supporter. This book will probably not convince anyone who is not already inclined to support mass transit. This item is appropriate for public libraries or for undergraduates in their first year or two of college.
    • 5/5
      Straphanger by Taras Grescoe is an examination of transportation and how it relates to the development of cities. Grescoe advances his argument by giving readers an in-depth looks at a number of world cities. Grescoe explains each city's development, its current transit situation and then proceeds to analyze what works and what does not. In doing so, Grescoe points out the connections between transportation and livability. When transportation is done right economic development, pollution reduction, fitness and other benefits follow to enhance a city's livability and desirability. Grescoe also shows the consequences of transportation that is managed poorly. Neighborhoods are destroyed, crime rises, and pollution and congestion ensues. Grescoe makes a compelling case for public transportation and an equally compelling condemnation of the personal automobile in Straphanger. My only criticism with this this book is that there is a risk that it will be read only by those all ready predisposed to agree with Grescoe's core idea that automobiles should be largely removed from the world's cities. Such a limited audience would be a shame. This book should be read by everybody who is at all interested in or involved in urban planning and development. Moreover, this book should be read by voters who should, in turn, ask their elected officials pointed questions about transportation planning.As Grescoe makes clear throughout the book, transportation problems can be fixed with sufficient investment in political will and financial resources. However, the longer a transportation problem festers the harder and more costly the repair becomes. Straphanger may not provide all the answers for our transportation problems but it does a superb job of identifying those problems and pointing out a path forward. Highly recommended.