Magic Motorways

Magic Motorways PDF Author: Norman Bel Geddes
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Automobiles
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
"Signed presentation to Vincent Astor, the son of John Jacob Astor IV, dated 20 March 1940. Profusely illustrated, approximately 187 photographs, maps and plans. An early, influential road classic the truth of which remains fixed fifty years later. Bel Geddes in his opening chapter says, "The real trouble with American highways in the simple fact that they are not designed for teh traffic they bear." --description from Royoung Bookseller Inc.

Magic Motorways

Magic Motorways PDF Author: Norman Bel Geddes
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Automobiles
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
"Signed presentation to Vincent Astor, the son of John Jacob Astor IV, dated 20 March 1940. Profusely illustrated, approximately 187 photographs, maps and plans. An early, influential road classic the truth of which remains fixed fifty years later. Bel Geddes in his opening chapter says, "The real trouble with American highways in the simple fact that they are not designed for teh traffic they bear." --description from Royoung Bookseller Inc.

Gridlock

Gridlock PDF Author: Randal O'Toole
Publisher: Cato Institute
ISBN: 1935308246
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
America is the most mobile society in history, but our transportation system is on the verge of collapse. Traffic congestion is today five times greater than it was 25 years ago, yet many transportation plans and projects are making it worse. As Randal O’Toole reveals in Gridlock, the prime causes of our ailing system are a government transportation planning philosophy whose primary goal is to diminish auto use—hence, personal mobility—in combination with federal budget incentives that perversely encourage transportation planners to increase congestion. As a result, the automobile which is accessible to almost every family in the nation and provides unparalleled access to better housing, low-cost consumer goods, a choice-driven affordable life, and freedom—is being deliberately forced off the transportation grid by the expensive “solution” of little-used high-speed trains and urban transit lines. Gridlock presents a wide range of innovative ideas and policy recommendations for creating an effective transportation system—improvements that will increase our mobility and pay for themselves, whether it’s cars, buses, planes, or trains. At the center of O’Toole’s solutions are three core principles: those who use transportation facilities should pay for them; negative effects should be dealt with in a cost-efficient manner; and new technologies that will increase mobility at a low cost must be embraced. In Gridlock, Randal O’Toole brings energetic and unconventional thinking to transportation strategies that have, until now, only driven us into the breakdown lane.

Self-driving Cars

Self-driving Cars PDF Author: Michael Fallon
Publisher: Twenty-First Century Books (Tm)
ISBN: 1541500555
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 108

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Book Description
"Author Fallon presents a history of how the technology used in self-driving cars has developed, identifies recent technological gains, and surveys recent controversies surrounding the potential mass adoption of self-driving cars."--Provided by publisher.

Building the Nation

Building the Nation PDF Author: Steven Conn
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 081229310X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
Moving away from the standard survey that takes readers from architect to architect and style to style, Building the Nation: Americans Write About Their Architecture, Their Cities, and Their Landscape suggests a wholly new way of thinking about the history of America's built environment and how Americans have related to it. Through an enormous range of American voices, some famous and some obscure, and across more than two centuries of history, this anthology shows that the struggle to imagine what kinds of buildings and land use would best suit the nation pervaded all classes of Americans and was not the purview only of architects and designers. Some of the nation's finest writers, including Mark Twain, W. E. B. Du Bois, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Lewis Mumford, E. B. White, and John McPhee, are here, contemplating the American way of building. Equally important are those eloquent but little-known voices found in American newspapers and magazines which insistently wondered what American architecture and environmental planning should look like. Building the Nation also insists that American architecture can be understood only as both a result of and a force in shaping American social, cultural, and political developments. In so doing, this anthology demonstrates how central the built environment has been to our definition of what it is to be American and reveals seven central themes that have repeatedly animated American writers over the course of the past two centuries: the relationship of American architecture to European architecture, the nation's diverse regions, the place and shape of nature in American life, the design of cities, the explosion of the suburbs, the power of architecture to reform individuals, and the role of tradition in a nation dedicated to being perennially young.

Divided Highways

Divided Highways PDF Author: Tom Lewis
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801467829
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
"Anyone who has ever driven on a U.S. interstate highway or eaten at an exit-ramp McDonald’s will come away from this book with a better understanding of what makes modern America what it is." – Chicago Tribune "A fascinating work... with a subject central to contemporary life but to which few, if any, have devoted so much thoughtful analysis and good humor." – Minneapolis Star-Tribune "Divided Highways is the best and most important book yet published about how asphalt and concrete have changed the United States. Quite simply, the Interstate Highway System is the longest and largest engineered structure in the history of the world, and it has enormously influenced every aspect of American life. Tom Lewis is an engaging prose stylist with a gift for the telling anecdote and appropriate example."—Kenneth T. Jackson, Harvard Design Magazine "Lewis provides a comprehensive and balanced examination of America’s century-long infatuation with the automobile and the insatiable demands for more and better road systems. He has written a sprightly and richly documented book on a vital subject."—Richard O. Davies, Journal of American History "Lewis describes in a convincing, lively, and well-documented narrative the evolution of America’s roadway system from one of the world’s worst road networks to its best."—John Pucher, Journal of the American Planning Association "This brightly written history of the U.S. federal highway program is like the annual report of a successful company that has had grim second thoughts. The first half recounts progress made, while the second suggests that the good news is not quite what it seems."—Publishers Weekly "Lewis is a very talented and engaging writer, and the tale he tells—the vision for the Interstates, Congressional battles, construction, and the impact of new highways on American life—is important to understanding the shape of the contemporary American landscape."—David Schuyler, Arthur and Katherine Shadek Professor of the Humanities and American Studies at Franklin & Marshall College, author of Sanctified Landscape: Writers, Artists, and the Hudson River Valley, 1820–1909 In Divided Highways, Tom Lewis offers an encompassing account of highway development in the United States. In the early twentieth century Congress created the Bureau of Public Roads to improve roads and the lives of rural Americans. The Bureau was the forerunner of the Interstate Highway System of 1956, which promoted a technocratic approach to modern road building sometimes at the expense of individual lives, regional characteristics, and the landscape. With thoughtful analysis and engaging prose Lewis charts the development of the Interstate system, including the demographic and economic pressures that influenced its planning and construction and the disputes that pitted individuals and local communities against engineers and federal administrators. This is a story of America’s hopes for its future life and the realities of its present condition. Originally published in 1997, this book is an engaging history of the people and policies that profoundly transformed the American landscape—and the daily lives of Americans. In this updated edition of Divided Highways, Lewis brings his story of the Interstate system up to date, concluding with Boston’s troubled and yet triumphant Big Dig project, the growing antipathy for big federal infrastructure projects, and the uncertain economics of highway projects both present and future.

Changing Lanes

Changing Lanes PDF Author: Joseph F.C. Dimento
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262526778
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
The story of the evolution of the urban freeway, the competing visions that informed it, and the emerging alternatives for more sustainable urban transportation. Urban freeways often cut through the heart of a city, destroying neighborhoods, displacing residents, and reconfiguring street maps. These massive infrastructure projects, costing billions of dollars in transportation funds, have been shaped for the last half century by the ideas of highway engineers, urban planners, landscape architects, and architects—with highway engineers playing the leading role. In Changing Lanes, Joseph DiMento and Cliff Ellis describe the evolution of the urban freeway in the United States, from its rural parkway precursors through the construction of the interstate highway system to emerging alternatives for more sustainable urban transportation. DiMento and Ellis describe controversies that arose over urban freeway construction, focusing on three cases: Syracuse, which early on embraced freeways through its center; Los Angeles, which rejected some routes and then built I-105, the most expensive urban road of its time; and Memphis, which blocked the construction of I-40 through its core. Finally, they consider the emerging urban highway removal movement and other innovative efforts by cities to re-envision urban transportation.

Vehicular Networking

Vehicular Networking PDF Author: Christoph Sommer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107046718
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
Learn about the basics and the future of vehicular networking research with this essential guide to in- and inter-vehicle communication.

The Folklore of the Freeway

The Folklore of the Freeway PDF Author: Eric Avila
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452942900
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
When the interstate highway program connected America’s cities, it also divided them, cutting through and destroying countless communities. Affluent and predominantly white residents fought back in a much heralded “freeway revolt,” saving such historic neighborhoods as Greenwich Village and New Orleans’s French Quarter. This book tells of the other revolt, a movement of creative opposition, commemoration, and preservation staged on behalf of the mostly minority urban neighborhoods that lacked the political and economic power to resist the onslaught of highway construction. Within the context of the larger historical forces of the 1960s and 1970s, Eric Avila maps the creative strategies devised by urban communities to document and protest the damage that highways wrought. The works of Chicanas and other women of color—from the commemorative poetry of Patricia Preciado Martin and Lorna Dee Cervantes to the fiction of Helena Maria Viramontes to the underpass murals of Judy Baca—expose highway construction as not only a racist but also a sexist enterprise. In colorful paintings, East Los Angeles artists such as David Botello, Carlos Almaraz, and Frank Romero satirize, criticize, and aestheticize the structure of the freeway. Local artists paint murals on the concrete piers of a highway interchange in San Diego’s Chicano Park. The Rondo Days Festival in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the Black Archives, History, and Research Foundation in the Overtown neighborhood of Miami preserve and celebrate the memories of historic African American communities lost to the freeway. Bringing such efforts to the fore in the story of the freeway revolt, The Folklore of the Freeway moves beyond a simplistic narrative of victimization. Losers, perhaps, in their fight against the freeway, the diverse communities at the center of the book nonetheless generate powerful cultural forces that shape our understanding of the urban landscape and influence the shifting priorities of contemporary urban policy.

The Long History of the Future

The Long History of the Future PDF Author: Nicole Kobie
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1399403141
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
We love to imagine the future. But why are groundbreaking future technologies always just around the corner, and never a reality? For decades we've delighted in dreaming about a sci-fi utopia, from flying cars and bionic humans to hyperloops and smart cities. And why not? Building a better world - be it a free-flying commute or an automated urban lifestyle - is a worthy dream. Given the pace of technological change, nothing seems impossible anymore. But why are these innovations always out of reach? Delving into the remarkable history of technology, The Long History of the Future introduces us to the clever scientists, genius engineers and eccentric innovators who first brought these ideas to life and have struggled to make them work since. These stories reveal a more realistic picture of how these technologies may evolve - and how we'll eventually get to use them. You may never be able to buy a fully driverless car, but automated braking and steering could slash collision rates. Smart cities won't perfect city life, but they could help empty bins on time. Hyperloops may never arrive, but superfast trains are already here. We always believe current technology is the best it could be. By looking to the past and the future, Nicole Kobie shows how history always proves us wrong and how what lies ahead may not be what we imagine, but so much better.

The Transportation Experience

The Transportation Experience PDF Author: William L. Garrison
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199395837
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 634

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Book Description
The Transportation Experience explores the historical evolution of transportation modes and technologies. The book traces how systems are innovated, planned and adapted, deployed and expanded, and reach maturity, where they may either be maintained in a polished obsolesce often propped up by subsidies, be displaced by competitors, or be reorganized and renewed. An array of examples supports the idea that modern policies are built from past experiences. William Garrison and David Levinson assert that the planning (and control) of nonlinear, unstable processes is today's central transportation problem, and that this is universal and true of all modes. Modes are similar, in that they all have a triad structure of network, vehicles, and operations; but this framework counters conventional wisdom. Most think of each mode as having a unique history and status, and each is regarded as the private playground of experts and agencies holding unique knowledge, operating in isolated silos. However, this book argues that while modes have an appearance of uniqueness, the same patterns repeat: systems policies, structures, and behaviors are a generic design on varying modal cloth. In the end, the illusion of uniqueness proves to be myopic. While it is true that knowledge has accumulated from past experiences, the heavy hand of these experiences places boundaries on current knowledge; especially on the ways professionals define problems and think about processes. The Transportation Experience provides perspective for the collections of models and techniques that are the essence of transportation science, and also expands the boundaries of current knowledge of the field.