Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking about Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives

Jarrett Walker

Island Press, Jul 29, 2012 - Transportation - 235 pages

Public transit is a powerful tool for addressing a huge range of urban problems, including traffic congestion and economic development as well as climate change. But while many people support transit in the abstract, it's often hard to channel that support into good transit investments. Part of the problem is that transit debates attract many kinds of experts, who often talk past each other. Ordinary people listen to a little of this and decide that transit is impossible to figure out.

Jarrett Walker believes that transit can be simple, if we focus first on the underlying geometry that all transit technologies share. In Human Transit, Walker supplies the basic tools, the critical questions, and the means to make smarter decisions about designing and implementing transit services.

Human Transit explains the fundamental geometry of transit that shapes successful systems; the process for fitting technology to a particular community; and the local choices that lead to transit-friendly development. Whether you are in the field or simply a concerned citizen, here is an accessible guide to achieving successful public transit that will enrich any community.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - larryerick - LibraryThing

This is a very concise and clear presentation of public transit options in modern metropolitan areas of any size in any country. As a long time and frequent user of public transit in numerous cities ...

User Review -

If you care about transit in your transportation system and want to take action to improve it, this is an amazing book. Transit can be a very jargon filled and technical field. Human Transit is very accessible and will give you the tools to make intelligent suggestion for improving transit. Many of tools aren't expensive either. Great book! 

Contents

• Introduction: 1
• 1 What Transit is and Does?: 13
• 2 What makes Transit Useful? Seven Demands and How Transit serves them?: 23
• 3 Five Paths to Confusion: 39
• 4 Lines Loops and Longing: 47
• Stops and Stations: 59
• 6 Peak or All Day?: 73
• 7 Frequency is Freedom: 85
• Speed Delay and Reliability: 97
• 9 Density Distractions: 109
• 10 Ridership or Coverage? The Challenge of Service Allocation: 117
• 11 Can Fares be Fair?: 135
• 12 Connections or Complexity?: 147
• 13 From Connections to Networks to Places: 163
• 14 Be on the Way Transity Implications of Location Choice: 181
• 15 On the Boulevard: 205
• 16 Take the Long View: 215
• Geometry Choices Freedom: 223
• Notes: 229
• Index: 237

About the author

Jarrett Walker is a transit consultant who has been designing public transportation systems in the United States and abroad for more than twenty years. He is currently a principal consultant at MRCagney.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking about Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives; SpringerLink : Bücher; Transportes y comunicaciones
• Author: Jarrett Walker
• Publisher: Island Press, 2012
• ISBN: 1610911741, 9781610911740
• Length: 235 pages
• Subjects: Architecture / Urban & Land Use Planning; Transportation / General; Transportation / Public Transportation