Getting There: The Epic Strugg

Explains why automobiles replaced the train as the primary means of transportation, discusses the social impact of the automobile, and looks at the future of transportation

A lively, sometimes polemical, but often persuasive look at the rise and decline of the once-mighty railroads and the ills of America's exclusive reliance on the ``highway-motor complex.'' The car and the interstate highway are today such pervasive features of the American landscape that it is difficult for Americans to realize that 100 years ago most cities and towns were linked only by often impassable dirt roads and by railroads. Because of this, attorney Goddard shows, railroads wielded enormous power and influence during the 19th century, incurring the enmity of other interests, especially farmers. At the beginning of the 20th century, the development of bicycles and automobiles created a demand for good roads. But, Goddard contends, it was during the First World War, when the flow of American war materiel overwhelmed the nation's rails, that American policy makers recognized the importance of developing a good national highway network. As a result, beginning in the 1920s, government, road builders, and automobile makers joined in promoting cars over railroads: ``By 1930, a dense network of interconnected paved roads linked every corner of America, and Detroit produced millions of cars and trucks that cut dramatically into the railroad business.'' This culminated in the Eisenhower administration's massive drive to upgrade interstate highways. After dwelling on the railroad's steep decline and the apparent total victory of cars and highways, Goddard discusses environmental and other ills that have attended the explosive growth of the highways, contending that, in order to remain competitive in a global economy, America will have to develop alternatives to cars and highways without relinquishing them: Among these might be high-speed rail lines and computer- guided urban traffic systems. A first-rate look at the history and problems of American mass transportation. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

No one nowadays salutes the name of Tom MacDonald, but this road construction czar and federal bureaucrat single-mindedly changed the landscape of the U.S. By the time his 34 years of promoting the automobile ended in 1953, the iron horse was a nag limping into the boneyard, and the designs for U.S. autobahns by MacDonald's Bureau of Public Roads were ready to cut through and wall off cities and interstates, begun in 1956, were just around the corner. The result, traffic jams and railroads living on subsidized life support, is an unsung revolution whose concealed obviousness in the everyday is akin to looking for the nose on one's face: it's there but hard to see. So the triumph of the car calls for an enthusiastic scholar and bard who also sings the dirge for lost railroads. That Goddard is. In the process of disinterring MacDonald and others, he reveals his zest for and immersion in his subject and writes with anecdotal richness about the politics and wastrel economics surrounding the car--and he could have written a second volume on its cultural drawbacks. This will grab the policy-interested reader; the masses stuck in lonely gridlock can listen if it ever becomes an audiobook. Gilbert Taylor

Goddard tells the story of how the struggle between the highwaymen and the railroaders ultimately changed the course of modern transportation systems and the U.S. economy. He describes how the automakers, engineers, contractors, and government officials dethroned the once-powerful railroad barons, pushing them from their position at the apex of the American industrial empire, and how the dawning of the global empire taught these bitter antagonists to either cooperate or perish. His account is a human story of opportunity, greed, high ideals, and raw ambition in which the automobile is painted as the "bad guy" and the railroad as the better system both for the public and for the economy. This engaging tale ends with a discussion of the implications of the railway-highway struggle on future transportation systems. For large public and academic libraries.
Eric C. Shoaf, Brown Univ. Lib., Providence, R.I.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.