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 unflatteringa 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 straphangersthe 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 worldfrom New York to Moscow, Paris, Copenhagen, Tokyo, Bogot, Phoenix, Portland, Vancouver, and PhiladelphiaGrescoe 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 transportationand better city livingfor all.
