Other Comments
Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...13514?v=glance
Short Blurb
http://geography.about.com/library/misc/blan.htm
Car-free Advocates
http://www.climatechangeconnection.o...r_asphalt.html
Washington Free Press
http://www.washingtonfreepress.org/4...lt_nation.html
NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/07/2...20jacksot.html
e design
http://www.state.fl.us/fdi/edesign/n...ws/asphalt.htm

I recently read Asphalt Nation by Jane Holtz Kay, it's long at 350 pp and cross referenced, footnoted, and extensively researched. I like the personal thoughts mixed in with stat's and the little stories. I am astonished at the following tidbits:
~The "Big Dig" in Boston was 2 billion dollars a mile.
~We invest in highways and airports, we subsidize trains.
~"The suburban commuter pays only 25% of the cost to a central city, long haul trucks do 20x as much damage and pay 40%
~The gas tax pays 60% of road cost, the rest from general taxes.
~70% of all law enforcement activity are focused on traffic issues.
~A billion dollars invested in mass transit creates 7,000 more jobs than road construction.
~The first freeway was in LA in 1937.
~2 million cars are sold every month, U.S. has 1.7 per person.
~Traffic experts motto "If you build it, they will come".
~Car companies spend 11 billion a year promoting cars.
~The average household makes 6 trips in the car per day, excluding work commutes.
~1/2 of elderly citizens live without public transportation.
~9% of Americans have no car and are the lowest economic group.
~Automobiles cost $6000 a year directly and $4000 a year indirectly.
There is more, but this one saddened me-
By revoking licenses of recalcitrant fathers, officials have the most success in collecting debts. The message is: absent fathers are more closely bonded with their automobile than their kids.