Human Transit, Revised Edition: How Clearer Thinking about Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives

by Jarrett Walker

“Walker is a realist, and Human Transit is a spirited guide—prescriptive but with a righteous dash of polemic—to what we get wrong about transit.”
--Tom Vanderbilt in Slate
 
“This book gives professionals, pundits, and the citizenry the tools to have conversations that lead to real solutions rather than confrontations.”
-- Terry Lee-Williams. Transport and Access Manager, City of Sydney, Australia
 
“Jarrett Walker pulls transit out of its specialist silo and treats it in layman's terms, as an embodiment of shared values and a partial answer to the vital question 'what kind of city do you want?' Human Transit is an engrossing narrative that explains the real choices that informed citizens need to make.”
-- Ken Greenberg, author of Walking The Life and Lessons of a City Builder
 
“You’re an idiot”
--Elon Musk Tweeting a response to Jarrett Walker explaining transit
 
Transportation expert Jarrett Walker believes that transit can be simple, if we focus on the underlying geometry that all transit systems share. In Human Transit , Revised Edition, he provides the basic tools and critical questions needed to make smarter decisions about designing and implementing services, refreshed with updated information and examples.
 
The first edition of Human Transit , published in 2011, has become a classic for professionals, advocates, and interested citizens. No other book explains the basic principles of public transit in such lively and accessible prose, all based on a respect for your right to form your own opinion. Walker’s goal is not to make you share his values, but to give you the tools to clarify and advocate for yours. 

Walker has updated and expanded the book to deepen its explanations. His ongoing work as a network planning consultant has provided a wealth of new examples, images, and tools. New topics include the problem with specialization; the role of flexible or “demand response” services; how to know when to redesign your network; and responding to tech-industry claims that transit will soon be obsolete.  Finally, he has also added a major new section exploring the idea of access to opportunity as a core measure of transit’s success.

Whether you are a professional or a concerned citizen, the revised edition of this accessible guide can help you to achieve successful public transit that will enrich any community.
 
 

Genres: Nonfiction, Urbanism, Urban Planning

288 pages, Paperback

Published February 6, 2024

Reviews

[Aniket Mohapatra · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic primer on transit planning, and the challenges and trade-offs that come with it. Jarrett Walker brings his expertise into an easy to understand language without diluting his explanations. Walker also avoids his own personal opinions (with one exception that I happen to agree with), acknowledging that there is no one-size-fits-all solution in transit planning. Rather, Walker's book empowers the reader with an understanding of the geometry of transit planning, allowing them to make more informed judgements and opinions.

Extra special thanks to my boss for gifting this book to me. You're a real one, Tatyana.

[Travis B · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many unintuitive but simple geometric facts of transit planning, I’m glad there’s a guide as clear spoken and even-handed as Jarrett Walker.

I appreciate the optimism that results from an astute planner’s brain. I’m suddenly seeing nightmarish 6-lane stroads as transit-ready opportunities. Why despair when you can think of a solution? A nice antidote to an earlier wave of hopeless urbanists.

Putting this alongside Shane Phillips’ “The Affordable City” in my list of books everyone should read to understand how cities work. If politicians and planners read books, we’d all be living in paradise.

[Sam Klugherz · Rating 5 out of 5]

a must-read for everyone interested in making transit work better for people

[Mary Rose Fissinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very readable. He makes the tradeoffs inherent in transit planning and the role of your city’s geometry as clear as humanly possible. Feels like he’s lightly masking an obvious point of view with a “do what’s right for your community” stance. But the book’s goal is to clarify the terms of the debate not participate in it. (So it’s notable when he clearly states his opinion, like when he says transfers should be free.)

I liked the point about considering base service rather than peak as the fundamental part of your system. And the clarity around technology not solving problems of geometry. The explanation around the obstacles to increasing service on commuter rail in most of the US was also interesting. Good discussion of the free transit debate. And he references my favorite Brent Toderian quote about how you can’t measure the need for a bridge by counting the people swimming across the river.

Nice mix of simplistic network schematics and real world examples to illustrate concepts. I especially liked the SF bus network section. The imagined future for LA starting on page 222 made my heart hurt.

I do think transit planners and most members of the public who live in a place where there is or could be transit would benefit from reading this. Buses are the best!

—

Cities don’t function if everyone is in their own car. It doesn’t matter whether people are driving or being driven. It doesn’t matter if the car is electric or automated. A city is many people living close together. That means there is little space per person. Cars take up lots of space per person, so there isn’t room for them all.

…we must think of patterns that many different people will find useful, so that all those people end up on the same vehicle, sharing the expensive time of a single driver. We must invite a bunch of random strangers onto the same bus or train, and the diversity of those strangers will be a key indicator of our success.

Both frequency and span are fundamental features of transit systems that feel empowering, such as the subways you may have ridden in dense cities of Europe or East Asia, systems the whole city seems content to rely on.

The conceptual invisibility of frequency and span may well be the single greatest barrier to coherent decision making about transit.

A 10-minute frequency approaches a level of service where people stop worrying about a timetable and think of the service as being there whenever they need it.

Location choice creates the whole problem that we expect transport systems, including public transit, to solve.

We make people poorer when we force them to spend more money and time on transport. Mandatory car ownership, enforced by locating low-wage employers or crucial services where they can only be reached by car, further impoverishes those with the least resources.

The intrinsic geometry of transit must become part of the necessary geometry of sustainable cities, just as car-based suburbs reflect the intrinsic geometry of cars.

[Annie B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most clear and concise transit book I’ve read to date. I’d like to read the first edition at some point to see the differences.

[Grace Alston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even after taking multiple classes on public transit, human transit gave a lot of beautiful insights beyond the basic, hard facts of geometry that JW tries so hard to imprint upon the reader. The most notable of these insights are located in chapters 15-17 which cover on being “on the way” and the necessity to correspond transit and land use planning. Lots of fabulous examples of what hasn’t worked for cities in their transit design, and lots of hope for how to create incremental change despite vast boulevards with crossings miles apart.

Wish there was more depth on operating costs and consequences of certain choices at times, but one of the strengths of the book is getting to the facts in as few words as possible. Like how Walker makes a point about always having to fall somewhere on a spectrum between two choices in transit planning, I understand how he decides to spare some meatier details about time consequences and costs in favor of a brief and impactful intro to transit planning.

Surprised the word headway isn’t mentioned at all!.

[Haydngoseek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clear, unsentimental introduction to the most important concepts (and particularly tradeoffs, given finite budgets) in transit, above all the tradeoff between breadth of coverage versus frequency and span (i.e. duration) of service. Walker discusses the benefits of connections, stop spacing, peak versus all-day service, and other major issues briskly.

At times it feels almost like a textbook - it's a bit dry and abstract, lacking the deeply personal anecdotes you might want from contemporary nonfiction. That said, for transit nerds and urbanists, highly recommended.

[Will Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an extremely well-informed look at public transit. The author has a lot of experience in this area and his expertise is clear. I do think the book suffers a bit from not using color in some of its maps. I think that level of detail could have enhanced certain parts. As is, some of the maps are hard to fully understand, but I still enjoyed learning about a subject I don't always think much about.

[Robert Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

New and improved, Human Transit is still the best work out there on building great transit systems. Absolute essential book for policymakers, transit agency staff, anyone interested in the subject.

[Tanay Suresh · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can’t measure the need for a bridge by counting the people swimming across the river.

[Caleb Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author balances well being too technical and too broad in his discussions and examples of transit. I def learned more about how transit systems operate and why certain decisions are made.

[Yü · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting and informative, wish it's longer!

[Savage · Rating 5 out of 5]

All my transit-nerd heart

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really thought-provoking, covers the fundamental issues in transit system design. Many of which I had never heard of or really considered. A bit dry, but very accessible.

[Derrick Simpson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily the most informative transit book I’ve read. Beginners and experts alike would learn from it. Highly recommend reading.

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an exceptionally well-done analysis of what makes for a successful public transit system, based on the author's years of experience as a consultant. Spoiler alert: Money helps, but it's not the whole answer. Illustrations and examples are plentiful and very helpful.