IN THE MAIL, AN INTERESTING BOOK ON TRAFFIC: Ted Balaker and Sam Staley’s The Road More Traveled: Why the Congestion Crisis Matters More Than You Think, and What We Can Do About It. They argue that traffic congestion does much more harm than is generally appreciated, and that municipalities’ programs aimed at making traffic worse in order to encourage people to use mass transit are deeply mistaken. They also argue that fixing traffic problems is easier and cheaper than is popularly thought. I’ve read the first several chapters and it’s very interesting; I hope it gets a broad readership. Interesting tidbit: If you exclude New York, America has more telecommuters than mass-transit commuters.

I’ve had some related thoughts on this topic myself, here.