Introduction

You might initially think that transportation falls outside of the realm of urban geography. However, we just learned about the different land use models, explaining how urban land is put to use within cities and one of the things that stands out is this — we separate land uses. Sometimes by great distances. So we need to consider how everyone gets around from one place to another and what that means for the structure of the city.

Readings

Our first reading is out of the text book The Geography of Transport Systems. Chapter 8 is Urban Transportation. I don’t want you to read all of chapter 8. Section 8.1 is Transportation and the Urban Form. I don’t want you to read all of section 8.1. Please read Section 8.1.3: Evolution of Transportation and Urban Form. Follow this link, and scroll down to section 3. This section (and its figures) give us a great overview of the relationship between transportation and the layout of cities.

Our second reading, Rethinking Traffic Congestion, is bigger picture and addresses with the “problem” of congestion. Read through the 10 propositions and think about which seem reasonable and which don’t. Does your answer change if you consider NE Ohio specifically?

One thing you should have taken away from the first two readings on transportation and cities is that context matters. So the final two readings focus on NE Ohio. The first is the Transportation entry in the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. The second explains Cleveland’s Five Eras of Transportation.