About this item
A visual exploration of the transit histories of twenty-three US and Canadian cities. Every driver in North America shares one miserable, soul-sucking universal experience - being stuck in traffic. But things weren't always like this. Why is it that the mass transit systems of most cities in the United States and Canada are now utterly inadequate? The Lost Subways of North America offers a new way to consider this eternal question, with a strikingly visual - and fun - journey through past, present, and unbuilt urban transit. Using meticulous archival research, cartographer and artist Jake Berman has successfully plotted maps of old train networks covering twenty-three North American metropolises, ranging from New York City's Civil War-era plan for a steam-powered subway under Fifth Avenue to the ultramodern automated Vancouver SkyTrain and the thousand-mile electric railway system of pre-World War II Los Angeles.
About the Author
Jake Berman is a cartographer, writer, artist, and lawyer. His work has been featured in the New Yorker, Vice, Atlas Obscura, and the Guardian. A native of San Francisco, he now lives in New York City.
