Category: All Posts

All Posts

Research Roundup: Climate Change In State Transportation Policy, OCTA’s Draft Long Range Plan & Green Jobs From Freight Rail

With a comprehensive climate bill stalled at the federal level, many are turning to the states to make progress toward reducing carbon emissions.  Are the states ready? Getting Back On Track: Aligning State Transportation Policy With Climate Change Goals (66p.…

Recent Research: Urban Congestion Trends, High-Speed Rail Lessons & Travel Assistance Device Deployment

Is traffic congestion getting better or worse? The Federal Highway Administration collects various statistics each year to help us understand whether traffic is improving or increasing. We wanted to take a closer look at a document titled 2009 Urban Congestion…

New And Notable: Oil On The Brain, Transport Geographies & Early Downtown Los Angeles

Oil On The Brain: Petroleum’s Long, Strange Trip To Your Tank is a smart, surprisingly funny account of the oil industry — the people, economies, and pipelines that bring us petroleum, brilliantly illuminating a world we encounter every day. Americans…

Resources To Know: California Transit Association & Its Annual Legislative Summary

Since its founding in 1965, the California Transit Association (CTA) has been a primary advocate for public transportation in the state. The Association’s team of legislative advocates works to promote multi-year transit funding and to represent transit’s interests before the…

New And Notable: Smart Growth Manual, “Unplanning,” & Asphalt And Politics

Everyone is calling for smart growth…but what exactly is it? In The Smart Growth Manual (New York: McGraw-Hill Professional, 2009), two leading city planners provide a thorough answer. From the expanse of the metropolis to the detail of the window…

Resources To Know: The MUTCD — A Book In The News This Week You May Never Have Heard Of That Impacts You Every Day

A relatively obscure book is receiving its 15 minutes (or more) of fame this week, The Manual On Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). This set of federal standards for traffic signs, road surface markings, and signals is a primary resource…

New And Notable: Los Angeles From The Air Then And Now, Makeshift Metropolis & Down The Asphalt Path

Avid readers of local history are usually intrigued by photos of historic sites juxtaposed against contemporary images. This format of visual history has a particularly strong impact when the subject is Los Angeles: a city that grew up — and…

New And Notable: Sprawl Repair Manual, Republic Of Drivers & Urban Mass Transit’s Life Story

There is a wealth of research and literature explaining suburban sprawl and the urgent need to retrofit suburbia. However, until now there has been no single guide that directly explains how to repair typical sprawl elements. Sprawl Repair Manual demonstrates…

Digitization And Transportation: Northwestern University’s Google Books Project

Beginning today, Northwestern University’s Transportation Library begins its Google Books Digitization Project. The University Libraries and Google are partnering to digitize hundreds of thousands of print volumes from their collections, rendering the contents readily available to scholars and researchers worldwide.…

Los Angeles In Maps & The Curious Case Of Miss Laura J. Whitlock

One the most exciting new books in a long time has been released this month: Glen Creason’s Los Angeles In Maps (New York: Rizzoli, 2010). Creason is the Map Librarian at Los Angeles Public Library and co-curated the landmark 2008-2009…