Since the early 1990s, federal transportation laws have slowly started to level the playing field between highway and alternative transportation strategies, as well as between older and newer communities. The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 and the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century made substantial changes in transportation practices. These laws devolved greater responsibility for planning and implementation to urban development organizations and introduced more flexibility in the spending of federal highway and transit funds. They also created a series of special programs to carry out important national objectives, and they tightened the linkages between transportation spending and issues such as metropolitan air quality. Taking the High Road examines the most pressing transportation challenges facing American cities, suburbs, and metropolitan areas. The authors focus on the central issues in the ongoing debate and deliberations about the nation's transportation policy. They go beyond the federal debate, however, to lay out an agenda for reform that responds directly to those responsible for putting these policies into practice -leaders at the state, metropolitan, and local levels. This book presents public officials with options for reform. Hoping to build upon the progress and momentum of earlier transportation laws, it ensures a better understanding of the problems and provides policymakers, journalists, and the public with a comprehensive guide to the numerous issues that must be addressed. Topics include: A wide-ranging policy framework that addresses the reauthorization debate An examination of transportation finance and how it affects cities and suburbs An analysis of metropolitan decisionmaking in transportation The challenges of transportation access for working families and the elderly The problems of increasing traffic congestion and the lack of adequate alternatives Contributors include: Scott Bernstein (Center for Neighborhood Technology), Edward Biemborn (University of Wisconsin), Evelyn Blumenberg (UCLA), John Brennan (Cleveland State University), Anthony Downs (Brookings), Billie K. Geyer (Cleveland State), Edward W. Hill (Cleveland State), Arnold Howitt (Harvard University), Kevin E. O'Brien (Cleveland State), Ryan Prince (Brookings), Claudette Robey (Cleveland State), Sandra Rosenbloom (University of Arizona), Thomas Sanchez (Virginia Tech), Martin Wachs (University of California, Berkeley), and Margy Waller (Brookings).

Recent legislation deregulating the airline and trucking industries has enhanced competition and reduced real transportation prices by putting pressure on firms to operate more efficiently. Yet, with the entry of many new small airlines and trucking firms facing the financial pressures of competition, many legislators fear that public safety will be reduced due to compromises in maintenance, equipment replacement, recruitment and training. This volume examines the theoretical and empirical issues involved in the debate on the relationship between safety and economic performance in the airline and trucking industries. Contributors discuss such factors as the role of government as provider of safety oversight personnel and airport and road space quality, and conclude that the government has not acted quickly enough to provide the additional safety resources to meet the changed needs of the two industries, though the evidence does not support the notion that deregulation has compromised safety.

An effective transport infrastructure and its associated services are widely regarded as key components of an efficient, equitable, and sustainable society. But the link between transport provision (especially car ownership) and growing global levels of, for example, social exclusion, congestion, pollution, and road deaths is also increasingly recognized. The need to understand how to satisfy a seemingly insatiable appetite for mobility while minimizing its harmful impacts grows ever more crucial.

The subdiscipline of transport economics has made a substantial contribution towards a more sophisticated understanding of such dilemmas, and how detailed strategy and policy might be better developed and implemented. Indeed, especially in the last thirty years or so, there has been a veritable explosion in research output, and this new four-volume collection from Routledge s Critical Concepts in Economics series meets the need for an authoritative reference work to help make sense of a rapidly expanding and ever more complex corpus of scholarly and practical literature.

Volume I includes an overview of the subdiscipline, and then focuses on choice and demand; and transport networks. Volume II, meanwhile, is organized around the themes of willingness to pay and the valuation of: travel time; reliability and trip-time variability; crowding; life and injury; noise; and emissions. Volume III emphasizes institutional reform, costs, and performance. The final volume in the collection includes the best and most influential work on: infrastructure; pricing, subsidy, and funding; congestion charging; subsidies; case studies in passenger transport economics, and analyses of freight and logistics economics.

With a full index, together with a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, Transport Economics is an essential work of reference. The collection will be particularly useful as an essential database allowing scattered and often fugitive material to be easily located. It will also be welcomed as a crucial tool permitting rapid access to less familiar and sometimes overlooked texts. For researchers, students, practitioners, and policy-makers, it is as a vital one-stop research and pedagogic resource.

BMW is a company associated with motoring firsts. The very idea of a sports sedan was merely a novelty until BMW introduced the 5 series in 1972. As BMW's ""middle child,"" the 5 series has featured from the company's smallest and largest models, with the e12 M535i being the first car after the e26 powertrains and other equipment M1 to wear the ""M"" badge. This book covers the history of BMW's 5 series midsize sedan and X5 SUV from September 1972 to the e60's major makeover for 2008 and the recent development of the e70 X5. Specific mechanical, electronic and cosmetic changes are described, including the time of and reasons for their introduction. Several aspects of BMW's corporate history and technically related models such as the 6-series are also described, as are aftermarket modifications by Alpina, Hartge, and other low volume specialist BMW tuners and speed shops. The book includes more than 200 photographs, along with an extensive index covering BMW technical innovations and listing all model variants by number ID, model ""e"" code, and production dates.

A call to redefine mobility so that it is connected, heterogeneous, intelligent, and personalized, as well as sustainable, adaptable, and city-friendly. The twentieth century was the century of the automobile; the twenty-first will see mobility dramatically re-envisioned. Automobiles altered cityscapes, boosted economies, and made personal mobility efficient and convenient for many. We had a century-long love affair with the car. But today, people are more attached to their smartphones than their cars. Cars are not always the quickest mode of travel in cities; and emissions from the rapidly growing number of cars threaten the planet. This book, by three experts from industry and academia, envisions a new world of mobility that is connected, heterogeneous, intelligent, and personalized (the CHIP architecture). The authors describe the changes that are coming. City administrators are shifting from designing cities for cars to designing cities for people. Nations and cities will increasingly employ targeted user fees and offer subsidies to nudge consumers toward more sustainable modes. The sharing economy is coaxing many consumers to shift from being owners of assets to being users of services. The auto industry is responding with connected cars that double as virtual travel assistants and by introducing autonomous driving. The CHIP architecture embodies an integrated, multimode mobility system that builds on ubiquitous connectivity, electrified and autonomous vehicles, and a marketplace open to innovation and entrepreneurship. Consumers will exercise choice on the basis of user experience and efficiency, aided by "intelligent advisors," accessible through their mobile devices. An innovative mobility architecture reconfigured for this century is a social and economic necessity; this book charts a course for achieving it.

Tales of being a London cabbie

Foreword by Ted Hesketh, CBE Former Managing Director, Translink - This is the sixth book in the 'Buses in Ulster' series published by Colourpoint Books. They are to be congratulated for bringing the story of Ulsterbus and Citybus to a wider audience, and putting it on record for future generations. During the first two decades of the 'Troubles', the men and women of Ulsterbus and Citybus had to cope with unprecedented difficulties. My predecessor, Werner Heubeck, gave outstanding leadership when it would have been so easy to throw in the towel. To keep buses running normally was the top priority and everything else was secondary. My early days with Ulsterbus were focussed on keeping the finances in good order when buses were being destroyed in quantity; compensation was a thorny issue, and revenues were subject to frequent disruption. Gradually, as Mr Heubeck's deputy, I took on additional responsibilities such as industrial tribunals, property development, etc; Mr Heubeck gave me a lot of scope in the day to day running of the business so the transition to Managing Director was relatively smooth. The worst of the 'Troubles' had passed when I became MD in 1988.Even so, this volume records nearly 250 buses totally destroyed by terrorism during my time as MD.Thankfully no staff were killed. In 1996, we erected a ceramic wall panel in Laganside Buscentre to commemorate the twelve busmen killed earlier in the 'Troubles'. With the passage of time it is very pleasing that the heroism of our bus drivers, and all the staff who supported them during the 'Troubles', is increasingly recognised. I hope that in time there will be a more substantial memorial for those killed and injured, which will also record the bravery of the very many who, on a daily basis, displayed great courage to maintain services throughout the 'Troubles'. Like most bus companies, Ulsterbus faced declining passenger numbers due to the growth in private car usage. Introduction of a market led approach saw the development of many new services, real improvements to the quality of all services and much better public information. Strenuous efforts went into creating a new climate of industrial relations, and this helped avoid unnecessary service disruptions. There was increasing recognition that many of our staff work unsocial hours which can impact on family life.By way of "thank you" we ran a series of Family Fun Days for partners and children - hugely enjoyed by all!A previously untold success story was the effective blocking of proposals to privatise and deregulate bus services in the Province. These proposals were wholly unsuited to Northern Ireland and had they succeeded there is little doubt that Ulsterbus, as we know it, would no longer exist. As always there is unfinished business. The E-way and Super-route busway schemes are long term projects conceived during the period covered by this book. Less well known are similar schemes going into north and west Belfast. Some of the land currently blighted by the peace line offers a unique opportunity to develop a new busway to benefit the entire community. I hope that future volumes of 'Buses in Ulster' will be able to carry reports of substantial progress on these schemes. I am proud to have played a part in the history of these two great companies. From retirement, I look back with fondness to a most enjoyable time working in both Ulsterbus and Citybus with some of the best professionals in the business. Despite all the problems and the long hours we still managed to have some fun!From the start of Ulsterbus in 1967 until he retired in 2001, Irvine Millar was a valued member of the senior management.During the period of this volume he developed his initial role as management auditor, to create a specialism embracing the whole area of bus priority measures. He even managed to convince some of our colleagues in Road Service that building more roads is not necessarily the best answer to every traffic problem, and that sometimes public transport has a role to play! Irvine's extensive knowledge of buses has been put to good use in this book. He goes beyond the detailed recording of fleet changes to trace the history of service development and touches on many other aspects of Ulsterbus and Citybus to the reader's benefit and it is with great pleasure that I commend it to you.

Mobile homes--or manufactured housing, as they are called today--provide shelter for more than twelve and a half million Americans, and in the last two decades have accounted for one quarter of all new single family housing produced annually. Yet they have been attacked as unsafe and unsatisfactory, and critics have argued that they should be banned or restricted. But to Allan Wallis, the mobile home embodies many of the most fundamental American ideals of home and community.
In Wheel Estate, Allan Wallis offers a lively and informative history of this much-maligned form of housing over six decades. He begins with the travel trailers of the late 1920s and 1930s, describing models that were built like yachts or unfolded like Polaroid cameras. With the Second World War, Wallis writes, the industry mushroomed as trailers became homes for thousands of defense workers; he vividly portrays the communities they lived in and the trailer houses that were turned out under government contract. After the war, severe housing shortages sustained demand for trailers as year-round housing. The industry responded with new models--now called mobile homes--that tried to strike a balance between house and vehicle, even as owners built their own often fanciful additions (including one mobile home complete with Egyptian pylons). The results, illustrated in Wheel Estate, were sometimes comic, but they revealed what Americans thought their housing ought to look like.
The need for mobile homes today has only grown as the housing crisis continues to deepen. Wallis reviews recent efforts to remove barriers against the use of manufactured housing and to assure construction quality, and he discusses how some of these efforts have backfired, making mobile homes less affordable. Wallis argues that, despite moves to restrict mobile homes, they remain a useful and distinctively American form of housing. This colorful account, extensively illustrated with period photographs and vivid portraits of the people who live in mobile homes and the industry pioneers who designed and built them, will inform and amuse anyone curious about this American phenomenon.

An evocative and powerful portrait of America in transition, The End of the Line tells the story of what the 1988 closing of the Chrysler assembly plant in Kenosha, Wisconsin, meant to the people who lived in that company town. Since the early days of the twentieth century, Kenosha had forged its identity and politics around the interests of the auto industry. When nearly six thousand workers lost their jobs in the shutdown, the community faced not only a serious economic crisis but also a profound moral one. In this innovative study, Dudley describes the painful, often confusing process of change that residents of Kenosha, like the increasing number of Americans who are caught in the crossfire of deindustrialization, were forced to undergo. Through interviews with displaced autoworkers and Kenosha's community leaders, high-school counselors, and a rising class of upwardly mobile professionals, Dudley dramatizes the lessons Kenoshans drew from the plant shutdown. When economic forces intrude on our lives, the resulting changes in earning power, status, and access to opportunity affect our sense of who we are, what we are worth, the nature of the world we live in, and in particular, what it takes to succeed. Dudley examines how ideas about self-worth - especially those based on market ideologies of competition and the Darwinian notion that only the fittest survive - become the subject of intense cultural conflict. Dudley describes a community in conflict with itself: while Kenosha's autoworkers struggle to regain an economic foothold and make sense of their suddenly devalued place in society, white-collar workers, professionals, and a new wave of politicians see themselves at thevanguard of a new moral order that redefines community as a "culture of mind" instead of the traditional "culture of hands" long associated with the work of the assembly line. This honest, moving portrait of one town's radical shift from a manufacturing to a postindustrial economy will redefine the way Americans across class lines think about our families, communities, and future.