Review: Street Smart
If you have any interest at all in the ideas driving the redesign of urban centers for walkability, bikeability, and other support for non-automotive transport, Street Smart is required reading. Samuel Schwartz, the author, is a major driver in the field and Street Smart is exactly the sort of book one would expect a passionate engineer to write on such a topic. Me motivates his points from personal experience and then delves deeply into the theory and existing practice of each of the topics in great detail. The topics are also well footnoted, but not exhaustively so.
Schwartz’s credentials are impeccable – in addition to working as a traffic engineer for decades, he coined the word “gridlock” – and he’s clearly a supporter of reform and restructuring. He’s not a zealot, though. At many points in here he tactfully points out that some advocates of different transport technologies – say, cyclists – are too vociferous or rigid in their thinking. He seems like a very intelligent and fair advocate to me. He writes persuasively and well.
Strongly recommended.