Transforming Urban Transport

Transforming Urban Transport brings into focus the origins and implementation pathways of significant urban transport innovations that have recently been adopted in major, democratically governed world cities that are seeking to advance sustainability aims. It documents how proponents of new transportation initiatives confronted a range of administrative, environmental, fiscal, and political obstacles by using a range of leadership skills, technical resources, and negotiation capacities to move a good idea from the drawing board to implementation. The book's eight case studies focus on cities of great interest across the globe--Los Angeles, Mexico City, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Seoul, Stockholm, and Vienna--many of which are known for significant mayor leadership and efforts to rescale power from the nation to the city. The cases highlight innovations likely to be of interest to transport policy makers from all corners, such as strengthening public transportation services, vehicle and traffic management measures, repurposing roads and other urban spaces away from their initial function as vehicle travel corridors, and turning sidewalks and city streets into more pedestrian-friendly places for walking, cycling, and leisure.

Aside from their transformative impacts in transportation terms, many of the policy innovations examined here have altered planning institutions, public-private sector relations, civil society commitments, and governance mandates in the course of implementation. In bringing these cases to the fore, Transforming Urban Transport advances understanding of the conditions under which policy interventions can expand institutional capacities and governance mandates, particularly linked to urban sustainability. As such, it is an essential contribution to larger debates about what it takes to make cities more environmentally sustainable and the types of strategies and tactics that best advance progress on these fronts in both the short- and the long-term.

Diane E. Davis, Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism, and Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design, is author of Urban Leviathan: Mexico City in the Twentieth Century, Discipline and Development: Middle Classes and Prosperity in East Asia and Latin America, and Cities and Sovereignty: Identity Politics in Urban Spaces. Her published works examine the relations between urbanization and national development, comparative international development, the politics of urban development policy, and conflict cities.


Alan Altshuler is a Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus. He has variously served as dean of Harvard's Graduate School of Design, academic dean of Harvard's Kennedy School, and Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation. His previous books include The Urban Transportation System: Politics and Policy Innovation and Mega-Projects: The Changing Politics of Urban Public Investment (with David Luberoff).