The Lost Subways of North America

September 11, 2023
Cartographer Berman’s comprehensive debut succinctly recounts the histories of 23 public mass transit systems built by American cities in the 20th century. With rare exceptions, each city’s transit history begins with privately owned horse-drawn or electric streetcars that later became publicly owned and were then replaced by surface buses and highways after WWII. Focusing mainly on subway systems, but also including streetcars, light rail, and bus rapid transit, Berman takes note of the many postwar attempts to expand or modernize transit systems, which mostly faltered in the face of mass suburbanization, federally funded limited-access highways that drained cities of residents and tax revenues, and increasing automobile traffic congestion. According to Berman, America’s essentially failed systems include Detroit’s People Mover, Miami’s Metrorail, and the now-defunct subway in Rochester, N.Y. He also spotlights underperforming systems, such as Dallas’s light rail and Philadelphia’s regional rapid transit, and systems that have done better, including Houston’s light rail and Pittsburgh’s buses. Berman nevertheless finds most of these transit systems to be inadequate, blaming restrictive zoning laws, political interference, union intransigence, and the managerial dysfunction of transit agencies. For each city, Berman provides his own exquisitely illustrated maps of past, existing, and proposed transit systems. The result is a valuable resource for transit enthusiasts. Illus.

October 1, 2023
Author-illustrator Berman, a Manhattan lawyer by trade, has expanded a personal interest in remapping New York's subway system (an endeavor which earned him a 2020 New Yorker profile) into these wholly immersive historical accounts of 23 of the most significant subway/light-rail systems in the U.S. and Canada. Some systems--in Houston, Vancouver, and Montreal, for example--earn high marks for serving existing high-density populations and in some cases, even creating appropriately high-density housing around stations. Other systems, such as those in Cleveland, Dallas, and L.A., underserve their populations at exorbitant costs. Cincinnati began digging a subway system, then stopped, never to continue. The Minneapolis streetcar system had run for decades with quiet efficiency, until a Wall Street investor, unhappy with his returns, initiated a hostile takeover that sent the system into a death spiral. Effectively illustrated with past and current system maps, this collection offers fresh insights into how large cities can--or don't--work.

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