Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town

by Charles L. Marohn Jr.

Discover insider secrets of how America's transportation system is designed, funded, and built - and how to make it work for your community

In Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town, renowned speaker and author of Strong Towns Charles L. Marohn Jr. delivers an accessible and engaging exploration of America's transportation system, laying bare the reasons why it no longer works as it once did, and how to modernize transportation to better serve local communities.

You'll discover real-world examples of poor design choices and how those choices have dramatic and tragic effects on the lives of the people who use them. You'll also find case studies and examples of design improvements that have revitalized communities and improved safety.

This important book shows you:

The values of the transportation professions, how they are applied in the design process, and how those priorities differ from those of the public. How the standard approach to transportation ensures the maximum amount of traffic congestion possible is created each day, and how to fight that congestion on a budget. Bottom-up techniques for spending less and getting higher returns on transportation projects, all while improving quality of life for residents. Perfect for anyone interested in why transportation systems work - and fail to work - the way they do, Confessions of a Recovering Engineer is a fascinating insider's peek behind the scenes of America's transportation systems.

Genres: Urban Planning, Urbanism, Nonfiction, Cities, Audiobook, Urban, Economics

258 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 2021

Reviews

[Russell Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book by Chuck Marohn is quite wonderful; more narrowly focused than his previous book, Strong Towns, but in many ways more argumentatively incisive and politically relevant for all that. It teaches all the basics of the language which civil engineers and urban designers use when imposing their understanding of how streets and roads "should" be built upon the American public, explains the flaws in that language, and provides smart readers with a language they can use to counter that constant over-building. A must-read. If you want political reflections on the localist significance of this book, read here, but regardless, read the book!

[Jason Jewell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read a pre-release, electronic copy of this book. It is a full-on critique of the inherited biases of the civil engineering profession that have led to a dangerous and unsustainable transportation situation in North America.

Foremost among these biases is the rote application of highway standards to urban streets, which have a different purpose than moving motor vehicles quickly. Marohn and the Strong Towns organization have introduced the term "stroad" into the urban planning lexicon. A stroad blends the two goals of moving vehicles quickly (road) and building wealth (street), and ends up doing neither one well. Stroads are dangerous, especially for pedestrians, and they lead to low financial productivity, making their upkeep impossible without new debt or outside funding. Urban design needs to separate the goals of mobility and wealth-building and engineer roads and streets accordingly.

The engineering profession's practices are full of embedded values that are normally not examined, e.g., more speed is always better. Marohn insists that elected officials need to critique and override these values when they conflict with the community's interests.

Marohn also has lots to say about how our road design affects public financing of infrastructure, law enforcement practice, and approaches to public transit. Reform is needed in these areas as well.

Anyone interested in urban or transportation issues should read this book.

[Lada]

The book mentioned Springfield's State Street a lot because of a pedestrian fatality there, so I went to search for a photograph to see what it looked like. I found an article dated 10 hours ago, mentioning another pedestrian fatality that had just occurred. The tragedy of overengineering this book describes is real. There are insightful arguments presented.
I wish there had been more illustrations and less inclusion of text from the author's other book (but printed in half the size of the other text). At one point he even quoted three paragraphs from a previous chapter. Why? There also seems to be some unnecessary score settling with other engineers that was a bit jarring. But overall, if you can tolerate some repetition, there was much good material.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

While this book (like the previous one by the same author) has some good points, its overall message seems to be diluted by the author's relentlessly conservative approach. I fundamentally agree that a bottom up approach to change is needed if America is going to make progress, but it seems that every solution the author proposes must be tiny, incremental and local, with no room for larger support at the regional, state and federal level. If our current methods are too spendy, the author's ideas are far too thrifty. My main takeaway is the author is a libertarian who believes in taxes.

Aside from the ideas in the book, the book is also overly wordy and repetitive. The same point is belabored many times before the author moves on, but even after we move on the book inevitably circles back and repeats itself again. Throughout, when the author isn't repeating points made previously in the book he repeats points made in his previous book - which he introduces every time by its full title and subtitle.

I like a lot of thoughts in this book and there's a lot here that I think everyone can agree on. American towns need help from the ground up and the author has some good ideas, I hope one day to see some of the proposals in this book come to fruition in the coming years.

[Jonathan Salmans · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked what this book has to say about how we need to better prioritize safety in the design of our streets and its thoughts on how to accomplish that. The book proposes categorizing facilities for motor vehicles as either 'streets' or 'roads'. The purpose of a street is to create a sense of place, and facilitate access to adjacent land uses. Pedestrians should be prioritized, and cars should travel at a slow speed to improve safety and reduce noise pollution. On roads, the priority should be on maximizing vehicle speed, like on a freeway. Facilities that try and do both are referred to as 'stroads'.

While breaking down vehicle rights of way into these two categories is overly simplifying, use of this framework would be an improvement over the status quo.

I also appreciated how Chuck identified ways in which engineering standards for design motor vehicle facilities presume certain values that most of the public would question. Mainly, vehicle speed is prioritized above safety and other trade-offs.

Most of the rest of the book was weaker. The author believes that the United States spends too much on infrastructure. He argues the ratio of private investment to public investment of somewhere between 20:1 and 40:1. However, I found his arguments for this to be weak. For example, Chuck argues that since a study has shown people are only willing to pay $3 in tolls per hour saved of travel time, a similarly low value should be applied to determine if a road that reduces travel time is justified. However, people aren't entirely rational, and they spend large amounts of money to save travel time in other contexts (mainly for a home location that has a shorter commute).

The book also doesn't acknowledge that ratio of public to private investment depends heavily on density. In a rural area it makes more economic sense to have a private well and a septic tank, whereas in an urban area a public water/sewer system makes more sense. In a rural area households own their own vehicles whereas publicly owned subway systems are better in urban areas. In a rural area it is inexpensive for everyone to have their own yard, whereas in an urban area a shared public park uses the land more efficiently.

He also does a poor job in his coverage of transit. The author is skeptical of urban planners and thinks cities should focus on small, incremental changes. While that may work for car, bike, and pedestrian networks, successful transit systems need system wide planning. The cities since world war 2 that have developed decent transit systems (Washington DC, Seattle) have done it with a system wide network design.

He is dismissive of high speed rail with slim justification. This book doesn't acknowledge that this technology successfully delivering high value in many countries.

His chapter on traffic stops and police reform felt like it was outside his area of expertise.

[Cathi Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone should read this book. Is it perfect? No. Repetitive? Yes. Radicalizing? Yes. Frustrating? YES!!
more roads do not result in less congestion long-term (short-term yes but…)
Prioritizing cars never makes it safer for pedestrians and bikers. (They just go faster and are more deadly)
Infrastructure—that political nirvana of building things to boost the economy will result in more maintenance needs (and yes more long-term deferred maintenance—which means never for most cities)
I live in one of the most unwalkable cities in the US—famous for sidewalks that mysteriously end only to resume a few blocks later with foot high heaving concrete sections and impassable water hazards. (Yes streets are the cities responsibility—sidewalks the homeowner—not just to keep clear but to put in maintain and replace when unusable—OMG-is it any wonder they are so horrible)
This author says this book is written for people like me who want a safe street that promotes walking biking and yes even cars. He gives examples of how to do this and yet I still do not know how to begin.

My street is already used by many bicycle commuters going to Rice University and the Medical Center. Cars routinely cruise through at 50mph. In only 3 years I have seen many near misses as cars dash from cross streets to “beat” oncoming cars and neglect to see incoming bikes. My street should be redesigned to slow traffic down and protect bikers and children going to school. Why can’t such a redesign be considered an “infrastructure “ project with the same priority as freeways and bridges to nowhere(literally true in Texas—this is how you end up with a city the size on Connecticut!)

After reading this book I know what I want but I don’t know how to get there

[Kendrick Hardaway · Rating 4 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book for those that have a suspicion that something is wrong with our communities but can’t quite figure what or how to start fixing anything.

Chuck’s writing closely mirrors how my brain moves through thinking, so his writing is easy to follow and all the more enjoyable for this reason.

My three main takeaways:
1. For too long, we have designed our streets as if they were roads which has sacrificed our quality of life and wealth building.
2. The funding mechanisms in place for transportation can make for undesirable feedback loops in design and build that occasionally make the transportation an end rather than the means to an end.
3. Transportation as a part of our community should not be left to traffic engineers or planners alone—it is a political decision in which people from all backgrounds should be involved.

Much of the book involves quoting his previous book, Strong Towns; however, this book focuses more specifically on transportation. It was excellent timing for me to read the book as I had just finished a civil engineering course on Transportation Systems Analysis/Evaluation.

[Molly Singer · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Bernie voice) I am once again asking you to listen to me complain about stroads.

This book did a great job explaining the definition and role of streets vs roads, and how their purposes have been entirely butchered in modern American transportation design. Lots of good discussion of speed limits, road design, and enforcement, and "whose mistakes we forgive" in poorly designed road environments that will inevitably lead to fatalities. Hint: we forgive drivers, anyone outside of a car in an unprotected environment be damned. There were a lot of criticisms of poor design being a result of the way that transportation funding is allocated at the federal/state level to local levels (stroads being rewarded in proposals, in particular), but there wasn't much detail about this - I would have liked to learn more but maybe it's super dry and thus was not included.

"Individual Americans had experienced how national growth solved their individual problems, a narrative they would never seriously question thereafter" really stuck with me, about the prosperity that post WW-II/automobile/highway boom Americans experienced. So much of Americans expectations of infrastructure follow this way of thinking (and really, their expectations for the whole country - see people who pick the president based on just the state of "economy"). It's so frustrating when they focus on highways and bigger economic "growth" based on big box stores and developments rather than considering any transportation or wealth building that involves actual neighborhoods and local business to be higher priority than reducing their commute by 3 minutes.

It might have been helpful in the book to hear more about infrastructure "done right", whether in the US or abroad. There were a couple examples of this, but they were few and far between.

[Vic Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Charles Marohn's "Confessions of A Recovering Engineer" is very good at explaining the problems with our current traffic problems, how we got here, and his ideas about fixing system wide issues. His insight and ideas are very enlightening to anyone completely removed, as I am, from urban planning and transportation.
I'm a bit skeptical of his economic ideas. He seems to think if a city solves its transportation issues that city will become wealthier. I don't believe it's that simple. I'm also not sure his "smaller is always better" method is as effective as he believes.
But "Confessions" is enlightening so far as how the system works from city councils to planning departments to enforcement to the Federal government. The arrogance of engineers and the intransigence of bureaucracies are serious obstacles to creating safe, maintainable streets and roads. Likewise, because we've built so much of modern USA to operate around automobiles, drivers have gotten spoiled into thinking they are the streets sole legitimate users and everyone else is a nuisance.
That idea is reinforced by lots of social cues but also, largely as a result of design decisions. And that's the basic problem; a street/road system designed to maximize automobile volume and speed at the cost of safety and economic opportunity.
I'd recommend this to anyone interested in urban planning, auto safety, or quality of life questions.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chuck Marohn is a licensed engineer and urban planner who, in 2008, began sharing his concerns that the current approach to both building and financing the American urban landscape was disastrous. His one-man blog became a national organization devoted to educating and inspiring citizens, civic leaders, developers, and engineers to create better places and Strong Towns. Prompting his profession to do better was a vocation that grew not only out of Marohn’s concern for the world his daughters would navigate and live in as they grew older, but professional shame. As a young engineer, he built bad places and did it with pride, knowing he was following The Standards as laid out in the engineering manuals. Confessions of a Recovering Engineer attacks Those Standards, the overweening confidence the profession has in them, the domineering way in which they are applied, and the results this has had – not just on our urban form, but in fostering social problems like the disconnect between law enforcement and the communities they’re meant to be serving. Although as first glance a book on engineering and social ills might strike the lay reader as potentially too technical to be of interest, Marohn writes as a citizen to fellow citizen, and his subject concerns virtually anyone living in the United States or in places with comparable design, like Canada.

Confessions opens with the tragic story of a young woman and her family who were struck by a drunk driver while crossing Springfield’s State Street in the middle of a large block. The family were crossing mid-block and the driver moving at highway speed for the same reasons: the sheer scale of the block meant that walking through the rainy night to the next intersection with kids in tow was impractical to say the least, and that same scale allowed the driver to achieve highway speeds despite being in an urban environment where pedestrian and crosstraffic activity were common. It has become the norm in American urbanism for suburban streets to be built with the same principles that guide highway construction: wide lanes, gentle curves, broad clearances on either side so that cars that go off the road have space to recover without immediately striking trees, people, bike racks, and those other things people insist on cluttering cities up with. But highways and city streets are two very different forms, Marohn argues: a highway is a road, which is valuable for its ability to connect two or more places. A street is a platform for human and economic activity. Roads and streets are symbiotic, allowing for valuable places to grow and connect to other valuable places, making each the better. The great error engineers have done is attempting to create street-road hybrids, what Marohn calls “stroads”: they are ubiquitous in the United States, and each looks much the same, partially inspiring Jim Kunstler’s The Geography of Nowhere. Stroads, Marohn writes, are the futon of traffic infrastructure: they attempt to serve two functions at once and serve neither adequately. A stroad like State Street is so dominated by cars moving in aggressive spurts that the cultural and economic activity the dominates pedestrian environments like downtown Sante Fe or St Augustine are diminished – but the amount of crosstraffic and pedestrian activity also inhibits the free flow of traffic along the road, meaning that the vehicles are in a hurry to go nowhere quickly. They rage from light to light in a manner that might be comic if this environment didn’t foster accidents so effectively. Even more of a tragic comedy is the way we build spaces that encourage speed, realize people are speeding, and then spend more money adding speedbumps to slow people down.

Marohn argues that urban engineers have lost sight of the reason we engineer in the first place: it is not for the structure, but for whom the structure serves. Engineers raised on the gospel of creating wealth through road connections assume that the highway standards of roads should be applied everywhere; they prioritize the fast and ‘safe’ flow of traffic regardless of what it does to the human habitats that roads flow through, ignoring the fact that those same human habitats invariably make their roads slower and more dangerous. Most of the danger stems from the sheer unpredictability of the urban environment mixed with the speed of traffic, but there are other complications. One particularly salient example when Marohn was writing was that the scale of urban development in the United States has forced law enforcement to become a motorized, isolated, and spread-out body: instead of beat cops walking neighborhoods and establishing relationships with those they protect, we have created an urban form that makes the only interaction cops have with most people to be the traffic stop – a notoriously dangerous scenario that both cops and many citizens fear, where petty infractions like broken taillights can spiral into violence when both parties assume the worst of the other. Because the design of cities facilitates — encourages — speed, nearly everyone does it, and officers exercise a broad amount of discretion as to who they pull over and who they don’t, greatly increasing the use of profiling. Profiling can be useful, but it can undermine public trust in the police force. Marohn then shifts to examining prospects for improving transportation within cities: he urges city officials to convert stroads into either proper roads or proper streets, and focus on incremental growth instead of massive projects. He also reviews various options for the transportation future, from the practical (walkable cities, bicycles) to the faddish (autonomous electronic vehicles). The good news is that change is possible: State Street is being actively fixed, and Strong Towns recently posted an article on seven other stroads that have been converted to more humane streets.

Confessions is solid reading for citizens who are concerned about dysfunctional, ugly, and dehumanizing urban design. Marohn writes earnestly and largely manages to convey the details of problems without overwhelming lay readers with technical information. Given that I’ve followed Marohn since he was just a dude with a blog, I was eager to read this — and happy to recommend it to others.

[Austin Guse · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a transportation engineer myself, this book resonated with me. As engineers, our default is to follow standards and drawings. When this is done in large scale, we continue to maintain an infrastructure that is car-centric, not human-centric. I enjoy Marohn’s ability to be realistic about the state of American transportation, while showing that change can be accomplished at a local, neighborhood level.

It is evident that our transportation systems and the disconnected nature of American communities are deeply connected. There is no need to understand someone else’s environment when we can quickly drive past it. Creating spaces that value speed and efficiency over a sense of place and community greatly contributes to the individualism that plagues our culture.

Marohn shows that centering transportation design around the human and not the car ultimately creates healthier, more socially cohesive, and sustainable communities. If there is one thing I would suggest to you after reading this book, it is to go take a walk, ride your bike, or take the bus somewhere if you can. You will be surprised with how much more you notice about your community.

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone completely foreign to the world of engineering and who has only a passing interest in urban planning, I was surprised and delighted to find this book so fascinating and thought-provoking. Charles Marohn's approach to street design goes beyond typical discussions of walkability and bike lanes into deeper principles of building cities that will be sustainable, pleasant to live in, and safe.

What is perhaps so interesting about this book is the ways in which some of these design principles have far-reaching implications outside the transportation engineering field. I particularly enjoyed Marohn's discussion of implicit values in design and the role nonprofessionals can play in goal-setting alongside technical engineering professionals. With the current cultural backlash against "experts" and the ways they sideline "normal people," the Strong Towns approach to street design could apply just as easily to software design, educational curriculum design, public health, or a number of other fields.

Highly recommend to anyone who's been frustrated at getting stuck in traffic or being pulled over for driving 2 miles above the speed limit and wishes we could do things better.

[Alexander Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is wonderful. Prescient, easy to read, thoughtful, and deeply necessary. He lays out the issues with modern urban design in an easily understandable way and offers solutions that seem legitimately feasible (at least to my limited understanding of the field). It is also refreshing to see the deeply Christian principles that influence Mr. Marohn’s thinking on these topics. He seems very much in line with GK Chesterton in the distributivist vein.

[Mike Disper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great viewpoint of how we need to change the way transportation engineering is practiced. I wanted to give 5 stars but there were a few points made that rubbed me wrong and one I found he was ignorant of the situation (Cedar Rapids speed cameras.). Good to listen to different viewpoints though.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of good information in here. Sometimes it drags a bit much to be a real page-turner, but I still think everyone should read it because he's right about urbanism and you'll learn a lot!

[Michael Lewyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book critiques American traffic engineering. American civil servants often design ordinary commercial streets to carry traffic speeds almost as high as those of an interstate highway. Marohn calls this kind of high-speed street a stroad: like a traditional city street, it is designed to create economic value by including businesses and homes, but like a road, it connects towns with high-speed traffic.

Marohn's key insight is that because a stroad contains elements of both a street and a road, it doesn't perform the function of either very well. The stroad functions poorly as a street because its speed limits often are 30 mph or above, and it is designed to support even faster speeds. These high speeds make the stroad unsafe to cross on foot, and also ensure that vehicle-on-vehicle crashes create a significant risk of bodily injury or death.

Defenders of the status quo might argue that even if the stroad is dangerous for walkers, it works as a road, because it helps drivers go where they need to go rapidly. But Marohn argues that the stroad fails as a road too. Why? To mitigate the risk caused by stroads, traffic engineers fill them with traffic lights and crosswalks, causing traffic to grind to a halt every few minutes. Marohn suggests that if stroads were replaced with streets designed for 10 mph traffic, drivers would actually reach their destinations more rapidly. Why? Because there would be no need for traffic lights; for every minute drivers lost due to slower speed, they would gain a minute by stopping less frequently.

[Matt Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book. I appreciate Chuck’s perspective on transportation. He gets a little lost in trying to give certain types of transportation a sticker of approval which I think violates his own principles of providing the type of transportation that works best for a given community. But overall I’ve always appreciated Chuck’s down to earth tone and the book overall does what he wants it to do: to help individuals to understand big transportation projects and their costs both financial and social

[Ethan Myers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chuck Marohn definitely has some interesting and thought-provoking things to say about America’s transportation system. He has some very valuable ideas about how we as a society can improve our streets and roads, and he has some strong things to say about the danger and disarray of much of the current system. He lays out his arguments with care and precision while always remembering to keep some authenticity layered throughout the language.

This book is a wonderful critique of the engineering profession, and I’m glad to have read it because I’m about to be a full-time Engineer in Training. Good book, would recommend.

[Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town is a remarkable mea culpa from a professional civic/traffic engineer. Marohn kicks off the book with a short parable on suburban street upgrades, from the point of view of an engineer who is project managing the upgrade. Marohn's engineer is the stereotypical know-it-all, someone who deigns to condescend to the level of the common citizen to explain how simple and obvious it is that this road should be flattened, straightened, and widened -- all in the interest of safety, of course -- despite the fact that it would increase vehicle speeds and congestion, remove half of their front gardens and trees, and starve the local grocer and restaurants of business.

After pulling back the curtain on this parable, Marohn begins to detail all of the different factors that go into why the streets, roads, and "stroads" of the USA are the way they are. From taxation and state/federal funding, to obstinate engineers and misguided standards, it's easy to see how a combination of pride and poor funding models contribute to a system where it's only possible to build new infrastructure, and impossible to maintain the infrastructure that cities already have.

In each chapter, Marohn offers his "Strong Towns" approach, contrasting the current way things are done in the USA with an ideal way to improve local communities, both by consistently defining streets and roads, and by starting a community culture of identifying small and actionable changes, and making them happen.

This book often made me stop and consider the way that traffic is engineered in Australia, and how it contrasts to the standards and conditions described in the USA. I'd like to see more of a Strong Towns approach taken here, too. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the way that roads and communities are designed.

[Cole Lachmiller · Rating 4 out of 5]

“For what particular greatness are we sacrificing our people? The misperception of a few saved seconds? To save ourselves a short walk? For the chance at a drive-through hamburger? This is senseless, beneath any nation that considers itself great, even if were not so destructive.” (Marohn 229)

The great wonders of our times are doomed to be endless sprawl, great box stores, and decaying freeway interchanges. Indescribable monuments to our engineering powers. Charles Marohn asks in the quote above, and for what? A car can take me anywhere in North America, it provides a freedom to go where and when I want. It also promises to kill me. Everyday we are all a breath away from tragedy even if you never get behind the wheel of our tamed metal beasts.

This book gives us insight into how that came to be, why it did. It tells us what we can do to end the idea that speed and volume are more important than safety and community. I recommend this book to anybody who wants to take a deep dive into traffic engineering and the pitfalls that come with it.

[Andrew Chandler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I confess that I had made many of the wrong assumptions when it comes to traffic and road construction that Marohn points out in the book. While the author cannot hide in his writing that he is indeed an engineer, his message comes across clearly: "Roads" are built to move traffic quickly long distances, and "streets" are for slow traffic to provide access to businesses and commerce. But american cities are full of "stroads," roadways that try to combine both functions, and the result is dangerous streets not compatible with walking, expanding cities full of congestion, and government infrastructure programs that misuse funds and make matters worse. Worth a read just for the basics on traffic management, like why building more roads does not eliminate traffic.

And as a bonus, the audio book is read by the author, and his slightly flat, "Nathan For You"-like delivery makes his introductory story hilarious.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author starts out with a confession that when he started as an engineer, he was as clueless about designing for people and not cars as many of the current batch of traffic engineers.

They make a strong case against the current design of urban streets and the horrific effect it has on lost lives and the huge waste in money it causes. He touches also on traffic enforcement where streets are designed to make most of us violate in minor ways the traffic laws which lead to police abuse of 'routine' traffic stops. How allowing high speed streets in urban areas destroys the fabric and worth of cities. He also gives examples how streets can be wonderful places, shades of Main Street in Disneyland, and some far more down to earth examples. Our current road and street network is unsustainable, this book gives the layperson a good understanding of the issues and some possible fixes.

It is a great read.

[Adriana · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the few civil engineering specific books out there from someone who actually practiced the profession (I find there is a generous amount on urban planning/architecture topics from merely industry-adjacent folks). The book describes the process behind engineer's decisions behind American transportation design in an accessible way; anyone can understand and gain important design flaws and insight on how codes/policy works. Specific emphasis on road categorization (stroads), parameters behind street design, policy and safety/traffic laws and the role of 21st century civil engineers in the in the maintenance of existing infrastructure.

Definitely a great premise to any of my future work as a civil engineering student. Great food for thought before I plan to obtain and use a future engineering license.

[kanchan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5⭐, rounded up because this is an extremely informative overview for those don't work in this field (transportation engineering).

But for those like myself, who do - there are some annoying stereotypes about what/who an engineer is and the role of elected officials (and way too must trust that elected officials always have their constituents' best interests at heart with no ulterior motives, ever.)
It's also clear that a substantial reason for the existence of this book is for the author to provide his own POV regarding the past suspension of his engineering license due to the opinions he has previously expressed.
There are some race and equity-based stereotypes that were unnecessary and at no point will you doubt that this book was written by a white dude.
The definition of "vision zero" is incorrect.
Can we please never say "stroad" again? Please. Can't wait for someone to bring this content to me as fact during my next public consultation.

[Noah Rowan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first 8ish chapters of this book are a terrific explanation of the fiscal trap which is car-centered development, an explanation which every American should be required to read frankly. Over the course of the book he goes into deep detail around every single aspect of auto-oriented development which is holding back American success, from speed limits to parking requirements to restrictive zoning. However, I found myself enjoying the final chapters much less as he drifted into venting about groups who had opposed his policy and reported his licensure. These chapters felt defensive and out of place, leaving me less satisfied at the end of the book that I should have been.

Also questionable takes on policing, at least from my progressive perspective.

[Catherine · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF.

Genuinely interesting concepts of urban planning explained by a jaded engineer. I think I would rather read the concise summaries of the concepts on their blog instead, though. Disagree with their view that values should be stripped from engineering and the profession should be purely technical, lead by the direction of other professions. If the pain point of engineering is the fact that they are disconnected from values of the community, why should the solution be to further distance the work and not take a more collaborative approach? Maybe this was the ultimate solution saved for the second half of the book — not sure.

[Kendra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Other than frequent plugs for his other works, this was a fantastic read. An exceptional dissection of the faulty values and outdated design priorities that perpetuate transportation designs undermining a thriving community. Thoughtful arguments presented in compelling ways without (too much) technical speak.

[Jess M · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very thought provoking read! Our profession has changed a lot over time, and our challenges have become more complex. If we truly value the safety of the public, then our cities need to be designed with this as a priority.

I knew very little about this topic before reading this book, and I'm certainly no expert now, but this was a great starting point.

[Donovan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was great. Slightly more raw than Escaping the Housing Trap—you can tell this is something he’s passionate about. The hostility he’s gotten from professional societies (like ASCE) is WILD. Almost hints at a big tobacco repeat, albeit with less scientific research to back it up. But maybe that’s just because no one’s tried it?

4.5/5, for informativeness and novelty.

[Austin · Rating 4 out of 5]

So interesting, I would love to hear a more traditional civil engineer’s take on all of this to compare