Download e-book for iPad: The Great Society Subway (Creating the North American by Zachary M. Schrag

Drivers within the nation's capital face a number of dangers: high-speed site visitors circles, presidential motorcades, jaywalking travelers, and bewildering indicators that ship unsuspecting motorists from the Lincoln Memorial into suburban Virginia in under mins. And parking? do not wager on it until you are within the quickly lane of the Capital Beltway in the course of rush hour.

Little ask yourself, then, that such a lot of citizens and viewers depend on the Washington Metro, the 106-mile fast transit approach that serves the District of Columbia and its internal suburbs. within the first accomplished background of the Metro, Zachary M. Schrag tells the tale of the nice Society Subway from its earliest rumblings to the current day, from Arlington to varsity Park, Eisenhower to Marion Barry.

Unlike the pre–World warfare II rail platforms of latest York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, the Metro was once outfitted at a time whilst so much American households already owned vehicles, and whilst so much American towns had devoted themselves to freeways, now not subways. Why did the nation's capital take a distinct course? What have been the implications of that decision?

Using large archival examine in addition to oral background, Schrag argues that the Metro could be understood in basic terms within the political context from which it used to be born: the good Society liberalism of the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations. The Metro emerged from a interval whilst american citizens believed in public investments suited for the grandeur and dignity of the world's richest state. The Metro used to be outfitted now not only to maneuver commuters, yet within the phrases of Lyndon Johnson, to create "a position the place the town of guy serves not just the desires of the physique and the calls for of trade however the hope for good looks and the starvation for community."

Schrag scrutinizes the undertaking from its earliest days, together with normal making plans, routes, station structure, investment judgements, land-use affects, and the habit of Metro riders. the tale of the good Society Subway sheds mild at the improvement of metropolitan Washington, postwar city coverage, and the guarantees and bounds of rail transit in American cities.