transportation 
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SOURCE: Slate
3/30/2023
How Paris Kicked out the Cars
Planners and politicians used post-WWII prosperity to remake Paris for cars, making it one of the most car-saturated big cities. Recent changes led by Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo have show what can happen when priority is given to air quality and public space (though not every Parisian agrees).
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SOURCE: NextCity
3/10/2023
Houston's Highway History Teaches Planners What Not to Do
by Kyle Shelton
Transportation planners have begun to collect the opinions of community residents affected by proposed highway projects, but they have yet to begin to meaningfully incorporate those concerns into planning. Doing so could prevent repeating the blighting effects of urban transporation projects.
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2/26/2023
What Airports Can Tell Us About Histories of Regional Development
by Eric Porter
From the perspective of travelers, airports appear as generic "non-places." But for people who aren't just passing through—entrepreneurs, activists, and especially workers—their particularity makes them sites of struggle that shape the life of a region. Historians have much to learn from them, too.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
1/19/2023
The Romance of the Highway Obscures Harm to Communities of Color
by Ryan Reft
Secretary Pete Buttigieg's comments that interstate construction entrenched racial segregation were denounced as "woke" by critics. But history shows that highway planners knew that such consequences were likely to ensue, and proceeded anyway.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
6/2/2022
The Ideology of the Bicycle
The bicycle since its invention has found itself at the center of debates about who public space is for.
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SOURCE: Bloomberg CityLab
12/13/2021
Preservationists Want to Save Penn Station. Yes, That Penn Station.
by Kriston Capps
The one thing every New Yorker can agree on is that Penn Station is terrible. Why is this benighted hellhole being championed for historic preservation?
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11/7/2021
Tom Standage on his Brief History of Motion
by James Thornton Harris
Author Tom Standage discusses his history of personal transportation, the future of private automobile ownership, and the power of technology as a driver of history.
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SOURCE: Car and Driver
4/25/2021
Author Mia Bay Talks About Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance
Mia Bay's new book examines how the forces of Black freedom and White supremacy collided over freedom of movement.
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SOURCE: The Metropole
4/19/2021
Right In The Way: Generations Of Highway Impacts In Houston
by Kyle Shelton
Houston's characteristic sprawl is enabled by continually expanding highways, which historically and today run through Black and Latino communities.
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SOURCE: The Metropole
4/5/2021
The Myth And The Truth About Interstate Highways
by Sarah Jo Peterson
A historian with experience in transportation planning takes a close look at the way that canonical texts in the highway planning field have erased the politics of road building and the way that the interstate highway system was always tied to urban land use planning and urban renewal.
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SOURCE: Blooberg CityLab
10/21/2020
In a Land of Cul-de-Sacs, the Street Grid Stages a Comeback
Land use planners in unlikely places-the Texas suburbs--are revisiting the idea of gridded street plans as solutions for car dependence and traffic.
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SOURCE: Bloomberg CityLab
8/5/2020
The Forgotten History of How Accessible Design Reshaped the Streets
Long before the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 mandated curb cuts at all street corners, 30 years ago this summer, disabled people had pointed to the design of the street as a key locus of their political rights — the sidewalk that stands for being in public space, and therefore in the public sphere.
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SOURCE: The Metropole
4/22/2020
Justice In Movement
by Genevieve Carpio
History should challenge us to think about transportation not only in terms of moving people, but of distributing the costs and benefits of mobility equitably.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
5/8/19
Why we need to address the demands of striking ride-hailing service drivers
by Mary Angelica Painter
History tells us that ignoring these grievances could lead to catastrophic consequences.