Seeing through the myths that shape urban transport thinking

Much of the conventional wisdom about urban transport policy and planning doesn’t actually stand up to careful scrutiny, says Steve Melia in a new book, Urban Transport Without the Hot Air. Alan Wenban-Smith finds the argument persuasive

10 July 2015

Alan Wenban-Smith is proprietor of consultancy Urban & Regional Policy, and a former assistant director of planning and transportation at Birmingham City Council.

The ‘Without the Hot Air’ series at present includes books by David Mackay on Sustainable Energy and David Nutt on Drugs, while Volume 2 of Urban Transport looks at the US context. Both the title of the series and the choice of authors demonstrate a welcome commitment to mounting an authoritative challenge to conventional thinking. A tough brief and hard acts to follow – so how well does Steve Melia perform?

The book is in two parts: the aim of Part 1 is to debunk conventional...