A groundbreaking study of public transportation in the Gilded Age and its place in the emerging American city

Transport Revolutions: Moving People and Freight without Oil sets out the challenges to our growing dependence on transport fuelled by low-priced oil. These challenges include an early peak in world oil production and profound climate change resulting in part from oil use. It proposes responses to ensure effective, secure movement of people and goods in ways that make the best use of renewable sources of energy while minimizing environmental impacts.Transport Revolutions synthesizes engineering, economics, environment, organization, policy and technology, and draws extensively on current data to present important conclusions. The authors argue that land transport in the first half of the 21st century will feature at least two revolutions. One will involve the use of electric drives rather than internal combustion engines. Another will involve powering many of these drives directly from the electric grid - as trains and trolley buses are powered today - rather than from on-board fuel. They go on to discuss marine transport, whose future is less clear, and aviation, which could see the most dramatic breaks from current practice.With its expert analysis of the politics and business of transport, Transport Revolutions is essential reading for professionals and students in transport, energy, town planning and public policy.

For more than a century trolley buses have been providing transportation in towns and cities throughout the world. The trolley bus offered several advantages over other vehicles, primarily quiet operation, quick acceleration from a standing start, hill-climbing ability and a long life span. During the 1950s and 1960s, many trolley bus systems were abandoned. The oil crisis of the 1970s marked a turning point, and the number of trolley bus systems in the world has risen steadily since. Take a trip around the world to see the various styles and systems of trolley buses. This Photo Gallery includes many past and present trolley bus systems from North & South America, Europe, Russia, Asia, and Africa. You'll learn the differences in equipment built over time, who the main manufacturers of Trolley Buses were in these countries and much more.

Streetcar lines grew and prospered in Dallas from 1872 until the 1920s. Automobile competition siphoned many of their riders away, but ridership soared again during World War II . After the war, the trolleys entered an era of gradual attrition, and they were abandoned by 1956. Amazingly, in 1989, the nonprofit McKinney Avenue Transit Authority (MATA ) returned restored vintage trolley cars to the city in the Uptown neighborhood near downtown. MATA evolved from a tourist attraction into a true transit company and became the M-Line. Since then, the area has experienced rapid growth and is now home to midrise office buildings and upscale apartments.

During the 1880s, widespread availability of electricity was a modern wonder. It allowed fast electric transit vehicles to replace the traditional horse--drawn conveyances. Initially these streetcars (or trams) travelled on steel rails, but soon trolley coaches, with their rubber--tired buses began to dominate, because they proved more maneuverable streets increasingly crowded with automobile traffic. Every major city in Canada added fleets of the new electric coaches, which, thanks to their quiet powerful motors could climb hills and accelerate faster than their petrol--fuelled counterparts. St. Johns, Saint John, Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Cornwall, Toronto, Hamilton,, Kitchener, Windsor, Port Arthur--Fort William, Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton, Nelson, Vancouver, and Victoria are the focus for this history, which features more than 200 photographs and drawings, route maps, a history of the nine Canadian trolley coach manufacturers, and complete system rosters.

The recent development of light rail transit in the Twin Cities has been an undeniable success. Plans for additional lines progress, and our ways of shopping, dining, and commuting are changing dramatically. As we embrace riding the new Hiawatha light rail line, an older era comes to mind—the age when everyone rode the more than 500 miles of track that crisscrossed the Twin Cities. In Twin Cities by Trolley, John Diers and Aaron Isaacs offer a rolling snapshot of Minneapolis and St. Paul from the 1880s to the 1950s, when the streetcar system shaped the growth and character of the entire metropolitan area. More than 400 photographs and 70 maps let the reader follow the tracks from Stillwater to University Avenue to Lake Minnetonka, through Uptown to downtown Minneapolis. The illustrations show nearly every neighborhood in Minneapolis and St. Paul as it was during the streetcar era. At its peak in the 1920s and early 1930s, the Twin City Rapid Transit Company (TCRT) operated over 900 streetcars, owned 523 miles of track, and carried more than 200 million passengers annually. Recounting the rise and fall of the TCRT, Twin Cities by Trolley explores the history, organization, and operations of the streetcar system, including life as a streetcar operator and the technology, design, and construction of the cars. Inspiring fond memories for anyone who grew up in the Twin Cities, Twin Cities by Trolley leads readers on a fascinating and enlightening tour of this bygone era in the neighborhood and the city they call home. John W. Diers has worked in the transit industry for thirty-five years, including twenty-five years at the Twin Cities Metropolitan Transit Commission. He has written for Trains, and has served on the board of the Minnesota Transportation Museum. Aaron Isaacs worked with Metro Transit for thirty-three years. He is the author of Twin City Lines—The 1940s and The Como-Harriet Streetcar Line. He is also the editor of Railway Museum Quarterly.