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This roundtable discussion concluded the conference "Roads to Exclusion: Socio-Spatial Dynamics of Mobility Infrastructures since 1800" that took place at the German Historical Institute Washington (GHI) in September 2022. The event was organised by the GHI and the Käte Hamburger Kolleg global dis:connect – Dis:connectivity in Processes of Globalisation at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) and brought together scholars from four continents who discussed the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion entailed in transportation infrastructures around the globe. The roundtable included four panellists – Jennifer Hart (Virginia Tech), Peter Norton (University of Virginia), Anke Ortlepp (University of Cologne) and Heidi Tworek (The University of British Columbia) – and was moderated by Roland Wenzlhuemer (LMU). Focusing on the question of what the most pressing topics in the history of transportation and infrastructure are, the panellists urged for more people-centred histories and cross-disciplinary collaboration. The discussion also revolved around the need for scholars of transportation to develop compelling narratives that can help them reach wider audiences and build pathways toward a more just, sustainable, inclusive, and mobile future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The editorial from the Journal of Transport History explores the theme of social and spatial exclusion within transportation infrastructure. It delves into historical instances of how infrastructure has produced and reproduced social inequality, highlighting the various forms of exclusion experienced by different groups. The special issue features case studies from different world regions, focusing on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to provide a nuanced understanding of infrastructural inequality and hierarchies. The articles in the special issue challenge the traditional view of infrastructure as a universal force of connection, emphasizing the complex dynamics of inclusion and exclusion that shape societies over time. [Extracted from the article]

"A Short History of Transport in Japan: From Ancient Times to the Present" by John Andrew Black is a comprehensive study of transportation in Japan. The book covers various aspects of transport history, including ports and shipping, canals, roads, railroads, civil aviation, and urban planning. Black applies the theory of new institutional economics to analyze the organizations and institutions governing transportation in Japan. While the book provides a detailed examination of Japanese transportation history, it does not delve into topics such as motorization, militaristic states, or the competition between Shinkansen and airlines. Overall, the book offers valuable insights into the state of mobility in an aging Japan and is recommended for those interested in transportation history and smart cities. [Extracted from the article]

It is the aim of this article to put questions of maintenance and repair in the history of science and technology under scrutiny, with a special focus on technologies and methods of transportation. The history of transportation is a history of trying to avoid shipwrecks and plane crashes. It is also a history of broken masts, worm-eaten hulls, the flat tires of cars, and endless delays at airports. This introductory article assesses the technological, scientific, and cultural implications of repairing and maintaining transportation networks. We argue that infrastructures for maintenance and repair played just as important a role in the history of transportation as the wharves and factories where ships, cars, trains, and airplanes were originally built. We also suggest that maintenance and repair are important sites of knowledge production, and a historical account of these practices provides a new, decentered narrative for the development of modern science and technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New York City witnessed the construction of one of the largest subway systems in the world in the first four decades of the twentieth century. Expansion virtually ceased thereafter, and New York's public transportation has since relied on a legacy of aging infrastructure. The explanation of this unexpected cessation is key to understanding the city's current transit problems, and also offers valuable lessons for other cities experiencing infrastructure construction booms. Identifying the 1951 bond issue as a key turning point, this article argues that there are three convergent factors that brought about the end of subway expansion after the Second World War: political leadership distracted by disputes over administration and unable to plan for the long term; financial constraints imposed by construction and labor-cost inflation, the strained municipal budget, and declining ridership; and the New York transit authorities' indifference to the growing demographic, political, and symbolic significance of the rapidly growing suburbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses topics featured within the issue including urban history and automobility in Berlin, Germany, the significant role of urban design in transportation history, and the construction of ring-roads in West Berlin.

The second half of the twentieth century was marked by predominantly car-friendly urban planning, provoking also resistance. This article will analyse the urban social movement against the car-friendly city, using the case of Berlin. The main aim is to define how modern urban societies on both sides of the Iron Curtain competed over their urban mobility infrastructures. The analysis will focus on two case studies: for West Berlin, the citizens' initiative "Westtangente" formed against urban highways, as well as the broader protest movement against the marginalisation of non-automobile forms of mobility, will be analysed; For East Berlin, a socialist type of car-friendly urban planning failed to realise a number of major motorways that would have passed through a Jewish cemetery, together with the emergence of a small protest movement that formed under the umbrella of the Protestant Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the West-Berlin pathway to the "car-friendly city" in the context of the Cold War. It starts by retracing some long term continuities since the 1920s and gives special attention to the institutional settings and power struggles within the municipal authorities. The prospective character of the planning for the "Stadtautobahn" since 1945 which was far ahead of the real motorisation of the time is explained by the strong political and ideological intention to demonstrate the superiority of the Western life style. The Berlin case is reflected in the context of projects for ring-roads in other European cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This panorama paper seeks to explore some of the literature surrounding "railway towns" and the justifications for a comparative study of these towns, as defined by Jack Simmons in The Railway in Town and Country, 1830–1914. It also argues that so-called peripheral "railway towns", villages, towns and cities not dominated by the railway industry but with significant railway communities or connections, should also be included within these studies in order that the social, economic and demographic impacts of the railways can be explored in greater detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reconstructs the design history of the Ayalon Crosstown Expressway in Tel Aviv, a project that initiated the technology transfer of American and European transport planning methods to Israel. It examines the unstable, evolving dynamics between agents pushing the technology such as the World Bank and international traffic planning firms, and local institutions pulling or opposing it such as the city, the highway company, and various competing governmental departments. The five successive plans developed for that highway by Canadian, American, French, and British planners offer themselves to comparative analysis of national design philosophies of urban highway systems. Through a close reading of the different geometric plans of one bifurcating interchange, the paper analyses how the technology was adapted to fit the Israeli political, administrative, and economic environment, and identifies a shift in highway planning rationality and techniques for governing mobility at the American source of innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The slow adoption of wagon roads on the Andes is an event widely noted. In this article we document the arrival of the first wagon road to the Andes: the Cambao wagon road connecting Bogotá to the Magdalena river valley in 1885. The road projects, its construction and traffic once it opened are presented and discussed using a variety of newly identified archival sources. It is argued that the historic and economic significance of this technological milestone was probably obscured by the all too soon expected arrival of railways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Passenger coach services grew enormously in England and Wales between 1681 and 1836. This article documents the spatial patterns using data from trade directories, original maps and geographic information systems. Digital mapping illustrates the development of long-distance services from London to various destinations, including resorts, ports, industrial towns and county towns. Mapping also illustrates the development of Country services between provincial towns, especially major hubs like Manchester and Birmingham, and commuter traffic around large conurbations. Overall the maps and figures point to substantial change in destinations and the structure of the coach network. Country coach services increased after the 1790s to complement the London services. By 1835, an extensive, interlinked network of long-stage coaches grew across the country and a radial network of daily-return services grew on roads leading into London. Beyond coaching, our findings illustrate how traditional primary sources can yield new insights when combined with geographic information systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decades we witnessed a rise of public participation in transport and land-use projects, and often those practices have been formalised in a solid juridical framework. In the Netherlands and other EU-countries, the cornerstones of this participatory planning framework are the Environmental Impact Study and the Environment Impact Assessment. However, historical appraisals of the impact of these instruments on participatory processes are lacking. Using the case study of the contested Dutch motorway project passing through the Amelisweerd forest (1970s), this paper aims to appraise the role of deliberative democracy concepts and practices. This paper is a plea for a novel academic agenda driven by the research questions: to what extent have participatory processes in transport, land-use and water management policies had an impact on deliberative democracy concepts and practices? Which role did citizens and users have in shaping the decision-making process? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to facilitate cross-border railway transport between socialist countries in Eastern Europe, the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance and later the Organisation for Cooperation of Railways were established in 1949 and 1956. Joint planning, standardisation and tariff policy were the main fields of cooperation. The paper focuses on the struggles between Council of Mutual Economic Assistance and Organisation for Cooperation of Railways member countries regarding transit tariffs for cross-border freight shipments. These struggles, dragging on for more than three decades, reveal the economic interests of individual member countries and the limitations of socialist foreign trade (and alleged friendship). This study argues that despite of political declarations and the establishment of socialist international organisations, the East European railways became a major bottleneck in intrabloc trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nineteenth-century Belgian authorities liked to consider themselves as liberal towards migrants, but the 340,000 expulsions carried out between 1835 and 1913 paint a different picture. This article assesses how the development of Belgian railway networks influenced controls of entry and expulsion practices through seven borderland hubs with international rail connections. It first details how control stations followed changes in transport infrastructure and that some form of border control on human mobility was upheld throughout the nineteenth century. Second, it explains how railways drastically changed expulsions allowing the Sûreté Publique (i.e. the Belgian Foreigners Police) to establish a well-oiled deportation apparatus which became a central pillar of migration policies. Using Walters' concept of "viapolitics", it details how transport systems and infrastructure shaped the state's ability to govern migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The appearance of the car in early twentieth-century Australia significantly re-shaped election campaigns. Political parties used cars to bring voters to polling places, and some voters took advantage of elections by making their voting contingent on these free rides. Politicians and other campaigners took exception to the cost of supplying cars and to the attitudes evident in demands for rides. Some saw compulsory voting as a way of forcing voters to provide for their own transportation. Introduced mostly in the 1920s, compulsory voting's impact was initially muted. But over time it did change how cars were used in Australian politics. One hundred years on compulsory voting remains in force in Australia, and cars are still seldom used on election day. This serves as an enduring example of how new technologies could have a disruptive impact on campaigning prior to the advent of radio and television. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A famous appendix, devoted mainly to the state of English roads, appeared in the second volume of Daniel Defoe's Tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724–26). Though cited on countless occasions by historians over almost three centuries, the text has never been properly edited with detailed attention to its coverage of the newly emergent method of maintaining roads through the establishment of turnpike trusts. In default, this study seeks to describe major features of the account, to indicate its timeliness, and to set out the factors which enabled Defoe to provide an unrivalled picture of the communications network of his time. The appendix carries even more weight because it fills out a comprehensive survey of road conditions throughout the text, as part of the author's overall design in the Tour. This shows the interdependence of separate regions of the country, bound together in a system centred on London. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The arrival of the railways has led scholars of nineteenth-century Europe to posit the thesis of a shrinking world, in which distances were annihilated and travel became a decorporealised and delocalised experience. This article uses travellers' own writings to empirically complicate this thesis by looking at which journeys were characterised as near or far, and why. Building on Massey's and Wenzlhuemer's work on the multiplicity of space and spatial power, the seemingly contradictory findings are explained by suggesting the coexistence of a number of different types of lived distance. The article thus offers a taxonomy of sorts, outlining those distance types that were experienced most often by western-European travellers – grounded in physical effort, landscape elements and other often highly specific, material characteristics of their journeys. Together, they suggest that distances remained a tangible reality to travellers, firmly anchored in their bodies and the physical spaces they occupied and traversed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the transformation of the carrier Cubana de aviación before and after the 1959 Cuban revolution. By observing Cubana 's management, labour force, equipment, international passenger and freight traffic, this article aims to outline an international history of this Latin American flag carrier. The touristic air relationships between the American continent and Spain that could be observed in the 1950s were substituted – in the 1960s and 1970s – by a web of political "líneas de la amistad" [Friendship Flights] with Prague, Santiago de Chile, East Berlin, Lima, Luanda, Managua, Tripoli and Bagdad. This three-decade period allows us to interrogate breaks and continuities in the Cuban airline travel sector and to challenge the traditional interpretations of Cuban history. This work is based on diplomatic and corporative archives from Cuba, United States, Canada, Mexico, Spain and France and the aeronautical international press. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both Transport History and Transport Museums stand at a critical point, this piece argues, with both their academic relevance and public interest and support in the balance. Drawing on recent debate in this journal about the future of Transport History given the recent turn towards mobility, this piece argues that museums and scholars would benefit greatly from the joined up thinking that would allow for new critical perspectives to develop. The challenges of audiences and interpretations, so key to the daily work of museums, fit perfectly with the new perspectives on transport in the past academics themselves are wrestling with, and present exciting opportunities for reflective collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article, the editor calls for papers on transport history, mobility, and immobility, as well as the deadline for abstract submissions for the articles.

The making and running of one of the early Swedish civil aviation companies – Svenska Lufttrafikaktiebolaget 1919–23 – show that military representatives and private entrepreneurs were highly important during this phase. We state that the making of this early civil aviation company in Sweden had not been possible without close personal ties between bankers and entrepreneurs, as well as their beliefs in the future of civil aviation as a natural and an evident part of Swedish infrastructure. However, the enterprise was indeed pioneering the field and faced the 1920–23 Swedish crisis. Svenska Lufttrafikaktiebolaget did not survive, despite minor subsidies. The article shows that the initial position of State involvement regarding civil aviation was not a clear-cut matter in the late 1910s and early 1920s. We claim that only later in the 1920s the Swedish State properly supported civil aviation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When Portugal began building railways in its mainland territory in the 1850s, the main goal was to connect its harbours (mainly Lisbon) to the border with Spain (and beyond to Central Europe). This strategy left out of the network vast areas of the nation, some of which were perceived as very rugged, poor, and with low economic potential, where the construction of a railway was not cost effective. The same quandaries existed in the colonies, where investment in public works started in the 1870s. To bring railroads to these regions, it was necessary to find a low-cost technical solution. That solution was narrow-gauge railroads. In this paper, we analyse how this technology was transferred from Central Europe to Portugal and its colonies via a travel circuit of learning by Portuguese engineers and how it was developed through a mixture of Portuguese and foreign expertise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological changes have opened up new opportunities for historical research, which call for new methodologies to fully realise these opportunities. This paper presents the four-step interactive photo timeline analysis we developed to analyse large volumes of historical photographs from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective. We present the results of a case study (regarding both street design and street use in Vienna from 1860 to 1949) in which we utilised interactive photo timeline analysis. The geographical research scope was limited to the streets around the Vienna Opera: street use and street design were analysed from the perspective of the street as transportation space and as urban living space. The development of the interactive photo timeline analysis methodology and the case study analysis benefited greatly from the interdisciplinary nature of the research team. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1930s Dubai and Sharjah in the Trucial States (now the United Arab Emirates) were regular stops on Imperial Airways’ England – India route. But in early 1947 the successor British airline British Overseas Airways Corporation discontinued service to them. The local market for air travel connecting the Gulf shaikhdoms, which were de facto British protectorates, was undermined just as the expanding oil industry most needed reliable scheduled flights. For fear of competition following its ratification of the Chicago Convention, Britain still restricted access to the airfields at Kuwait, Bahrain and Sharjah. For four years the Trucial States had no regular air service. Its wireless facilities led to the survival of the Sharjah airfield, shared by the Royal Air Force and International Aeradio Limited, a new British telecommunications company. Britain’s control over air services and their post-war disruption arguably contributed to delaying the socio-economic development of the Emirates that oil production would make possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including transportation history, British Atlantic merchant ship and motor-vehicles history in Dunedin, New Zealand.

Scholarship on the drug trade shares points of convergence with work on mobilities studies and transport history, particularly in the study of the production, commerce, and consumption of licit and illicit drugs in spatial and geographical context. The visibility of the connections between drugs studies and mobility and transport history has become more evident very recently, in part, because of the novelty of both areas of study. The authors identify literature intended to offer a bridge and foster a discussion among specialists in these distinct fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the sub-disciplines of transport history, migration history and mobilities studies too rarely interact directly with each other, and that there is much to be gained from the integration and cross-fertilisation of different approaches. Migration historians rarely directly consider the modes of transport used to travel, and although there has been increased interaction between transport historians and mobilities scholars in recent years the full potential of such interactions is yet to be exploited. The experience of travelling, and the convenience of the modes of transport used, can significantly influence later decisions about migration and mobility. This paper calls for a greater focus on such topics and explores some of the potential benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics related to transport history.

The paper addresses an innovation in the history of transport as well as in the history of public policy. During the 1970s, the mid-sized city of La Rochelle (France) was probably the first place where an institutionalised bike sharing system was implemented. Crossing the materials of the local archives with the global dynamics of urban policies and mobility practices in Europe at that time explains the emergence of this innovation and allows reflection on the legacy of a forgotten first experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues that in the 1940s-1950s the construction of the 'Brotherhood and Unity' highway in former Yugoslavia was an important tool for the formation of a transethnic collective socialist Yugoslav identity, based on the idea of equality of all citizens, of all republics and of 'building a new Man'. Yet in practice, from the 1960s the constructed auto transport infrastructure started to adapt to pragmatic advantages and produced the opposite -- differentiation of the Federation's cores and peripheries, and a growing sense of individualism with the spread of personal automobility. The paper investigates the elements of this shift, being based on the analysis of official reports, secondary literature and national statistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surface transportation was a crucial element of all human activities ever since the beginning of the exploration of the seventh continent. At the Argentine Antarctic research base 'Base Esperanza' there is a small informal collection/museum on Antarctic transportation that constitutes the only transportation museum in Antarctica. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most household account books of the eighteenth-century London elite contain entries for 'Sedan chairmen', albeit they were never servants per se. Little consulted as sources for transport history, these unpublished accounts in various public and private archives in England reveal that Sedan chairmen were independent and worked for themselves. Supplemented by contemporary material, court cases, diaries and correspondence, light is shed on when Sedan chairs first appeared in London, on how the public overcame initial repugnance at the idea of being carried, on the earnings of chairmen, the hours they worked and the diverse tasks asked of them. Examples are given of chairmen's position in London society, their status and how they regarded themselves. The sources show how chairmen responded to market forces and for over a hundred years played a part in inner London mobility and transport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Kiel Canal (built between 1886 and 1895) connects the North Sea and the Baltic for seagoing vessels, yet, being 100 km long, about 10 m deep and 100 m wide, it also divides a landscape. This finding is the starting point for analysing the effects of infrastructure that facilitates communication and exchange but also produces obstructions and rivalries. This article explores the ambiguous effects this piece of infrastructure had on politics, technology, labour, trade and military strategy. The 'deep ditch' also had severe environmental consequences that were palpable until well into the twentieth century. By considering both the 'positive' and the 'negative' of the waterway, the narrative of 'connect-and-divide' avoids the still-too-often told affirmative story of transport infrastructure. Instead, it and opens the outlook to a multi-faceted history of transport infrastructures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role of transport infrastructure systems in energy transitions, with a particular focus on the advent of coal, oil, and electricity in the U.S. mid-Atlantic region during the 19th and early 20th centuries. According to the author, canals, pipelines, and wires played a significant role in the advent and the continuation of these practices. Emphasis is given to the social and economic aspects of transportation systems. Other topics include capital and consumer demand.

Transportation policy in the United States has historically been the locus of social change, playing a signifcant role in social policy – like the 20th century Civil Rights movement – and economic policy. This research suggests that current transportation policymaking practices favor certain groups, primarily automobile users and suburban commuters, at the expense of other groups, mostly poor and urban minority populations who rely on public transportation modes. Transportation policy in the United States is socially unjust because it does not reward the costs and benefits of public policy equally; current policies have negative implications for the efficacy of democracy. Public administrators are poised to play a significant role in ameliorating such injustices, and this research suggests a few ways all public agencies and their employees can contribute to a more just transportation policymaking environment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

America is a consumption addicted commuter nation, but our once beloved transportation infrastructure is suffering from years of neglect jeopardizing this way of life. Public administration seems to have all but abandoned the subject and, thus, transportation policies and the implementation of those policies are seriously flawed. This article explores the progression of transportation policy in the United States as it relates to our federal system of governance. The focus is on the nexus of control and how this control could be shifted locally due to freight planning requirements of the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act. It also discusses the expanded role in freight planning for localities and the private sector outlined in the Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2014. It emphasizes the growing significance of public administrators in implementing complex, multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional policy and calls on them to embrace this expanded role. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Public sector investment in transportation accounts for about 4% of all governmental spending but may represent the public investment most frequently accessed by citizens. This means that transportation administration faces public administration (PA) type challenges, and a number of these are discussed in this special issue of Public Works Management & Policy. Transportation administration is a subfield of PA, but it has enjoyed its own distinct history and evolution, partially due to the dependence upon engineers to carry out this mission. This commentary argues that the field has evolved from a coterie of apolitical technicians to more closely mirror the practice and values of the general body of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA). Recent changes in spending on transportation infrastructure and a shift to a more integrated operational focus have moved transportation to be more in alignment with PA. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While federal policy makers have pursued “livable” communities since the late 1970s, they have rarely agreed on precisely what “livability” entailed and how best to achieve it. When U.S. Secretary of the Department of Transportation Ray LaHood promised in 2009 to make livability the hallmark of an ambitious interagency partnership with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Environmental Protection Agency—and, in the process, to undo long-standing patterns of auto-dependency—it appeared that LaHood was poised to shift American transportation policy in a bold new direction. And yet other policies, such as those that govern the alignment of highway interchanges serving super-regional shopping malls, continued to promote the dominance of highway-driven economies. This article demonstrates how the failure to confront historic development patterns fostered by the Interstate highway system undermined LaHood’s campaign for livable communities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Authors of the five essays published in this special section of the Journal of Urban History highlight the Interstate’s harsh and mostly unyielding consequences for urban residents, for their neighborhoods, and for their livelihoods. Politics and policy have shaped the Interstate Highway System from its beginning in 1939 up to the present day. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the mid-1950s, the Saskatchewan Archives Board distributed a survey to those individuals who had pioneered in the province between 1876 and 1914. The purpose of this survey was to identify the reasons why individuals felt compelled to migrate or immigrate to Canada, how their friends and family members felt about their decision to move, the various means of transportation they used to travel to Saskatchewan, and the family members, friends, or acquaintances who accompanied them on their journey. Respondents were also asked to comment on any incidents that occurred during their travels and where they first settled when they arrived in the province. The intent of this article is to provide a descriptive analysis of the survey results in order to obtain a greater understanding of those individuals who decided to relocate and pursue the life of a pioneer in the province of Saskatchewan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article reviews various museum exhibitions and museums, including the exhibition "Views: Norway Seen from the Road 1773-2020," at the Norwegian National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo, Norway, the Cobb & Co Museum in Toowoomba, Queensland, and the exhibition "Visions of Empire: the quest for a railroad across America, 1840-80," at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.

The article discusses the history of circulation and congestion within the framework of dialectics. It comments on notions of movement and transportation concerning organs, such as arteries, veins, and lungs. The authors consider concepts of regulation and intersections, crossings, and signals. The conceptualization of congestion as a problem is addressed. Ideas presented at the conference "Blocked Arteries: Circulation and Congestion in History," held at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, England from November 25-26, 2010, are also explored.

This essay highlights key themes of the five essays that comprise this special issue of the Journal of Planning History on the post-Interstate Era. It outlines in broad strokes the role of highway engineers and politicians in planning and financing the Interstate Highway System. The Interstates had a positive impact on economic growth and automobility, yet citizens groups in many cities challenged route decisions that destroyed neighborhoods and damaged sensitive environments. By the early 1970s, when the Interstate System was mostly completed, Congress opened up the Highway Trust Fund for mass transit alternatives. However, our authors emphasize the persistence of conflict over transportation planning and policy. Construction of late-developing Interstate segments in cities such as St. Paul, Minnesota and Huntsville, Alabama revived the freeway revolt, but unsuccessfully. Highway planners and policy experts developed controversial new strategies for moving traffic, as in Boston’s “Big Dig,” or for creative transportation financing, as with the Chicago Skyway and the Pennsylvania Turnpike. By the end of the twentieth century, planners and politicians in some cities sought to reverse poor route decisions of an earlier era by tearing down elevated freeway segments most judged ugly, onerous, and unnecessary. In the twenty-first century, the engineers, planners, and politicians who control the Interstate Highway System face new challenges as the aging highway infrastructure requires rebuilding and retrofitting in an era of economic decline and political cost cutting. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Pedestrianism is neglected in mobility historiography. This research article focuses on one of the most decisive moments in the history of walking in the urban context, namely, the dawn of transport motorisation. Several sources associated with pedestrianism in Santiago, Chile, show that during the first three decades of the twentieth century the nature of pedestrianism was deliberately steered from a natural and unquestionable right of city inhabitants to a position of pedestrian responsibility and conscientiousness. Towards the end of this period, while motorised mobility was being linked to rationality, efficiency, productivity and modernisation, pedestrianism was increasingly associated with irrationality, insurgency, unpredictability and temerity. Although pedestrians began as victims of motorisation, they were gradually blamed for obstructing urban modernisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the twentieth century Americans came to believe that driving an automobile and having a high level of personal motorised mobility was their democratic right. In contrast, travelling on an intercity bus was generally considered less convenient, more risky and even demeaning, despite the efforts of bus and coach companies to cultivate passenger markets, especially among women. Using a gendered lens to focus on women rather men, this chapter examines the historical development of motor mobility in modern American society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The early years of the inter-war period in Britain was dominated by a desire to construct a better world by applying the wartime experience of collectivist planning in peacetime. New directions in public policy included plans for co-ordinating inland transport. Sir Eric Geddes played a crucial role in formulating policy, which included the formation of the Ministry of Transport. Parallel to these developments those in the transport industry were moved to create the Institute of Transport to organise and promote the standing of the profession. Lord Ashfield took a decisive role in shaping the new Institute, including the development of a comprehensive scheme of education to support the training and development of those pursuing a career in transport. These two institutions were the twin-pillars of the new era of co-ordination, which was now orthodoxy. Initially the idea of co-ordination was seen as the outright successor of competition but was later realigned into one of an accommodation between co-ordination and competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historians have generally attributed the decline of American railways to excessive government regulation or failed corporate management. These explanations, however, ignore the ways in which private control of the planning and financing of railway development, combined with the unprecedented interventions of the US government during the Great Depression, contributed to railway decline. Starting in the mid-19th century, large financial institutions such as savings and investment banks, insurance companies, and trusts used their control of capital markets to shape rail development. American railways thrived within this regime until World War I. But, soon thereafter, due to growing competition from cars, buses and trucks and the burdens of excessive debt, many declined towards bankruptcy. The Great Depression became a defining moment. Under the guidance of President Roosevelt, a powerful new public financial intermediary, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, rescued both banks and railways by socializing rail debt. At the same time, however, even though he had the financial and political power to do so, Roosevelt failed to implement policies that would ensure the competitive viability of rail in relation to motorized transport. Thus soon after the end of World War II, railways were displaced by highway-based and airline transport. Rarely used archival sources provide much of the evidence for this argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years the contribution of transport improvements in the period prior to the famous 'transport revolution' has been subjected to re-assessment. Whereas economic historians especially looked for signs of productivity changes and market integration engendered by improvements such as the construction of turnpike roads, this article focuses on the output of the transport sector as measured by traffic volume estimates and their relationship to economic growth. For the majority of Brabant, eighteenth-century paved roads bareer receipts offer excellent sources for the assessment of road transport in a core area of a densely populated and urbanized region in northwestern Europe. Throughout the eighteenth century road transport contributed to the growth of the Brabantine economy, although the underlying bases of the transport sector varied greatly in time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]