Updated 2026-02-23

This is a running list of transportation related books that I’ve found useful or inspiring. It is not comprehensive. Links are to the author’s or publisher’s webpage for the book, or Goodreads (transportation tag), or Sacramento Public Library. You can use the ISBN number, where provided, to look up the book on your favorite source.

Top reads: these are books that had a particularly great impact on me, and were mostly positive reads:

• Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time, 10th anniversary edition, Jeff Speck, 2022, ISBN 9781250857989; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59808028-walkable-city, SacLib
• Curbing Traffic: The Human Case for Fewer Cars in Our Lives, Melissa & Chris Bruntlett, 2021, ISBN 9781642831658
• Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, 2025, ISBN 9780593850725

Strong Towns

• Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis, Charles Marohn Jr., Daniel Herriges; Strong Towns; ISBN 978-1119984528
• Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town, Charles Marohn Jr; ISBN 978-1119699293
• Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity by Charles Marohn Jr.; ISBN 978-1119564812
• Strong Towns also has a number of pdf books and white papers

NACTO National Association of City Transportation Officials

• NACTO Transit Street Design Guide, National Association of City Transportation Officials; ISBN 9781610917490
• NACTO Urban Street Design Guide, National Association of City Transportation Officials; ISBN 9781610914949
• NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide, Third Edition, National Association of City Transportation Officials; ISBN 9781642833843
• NACTO also has a number of very useful shorter publications

Other reads, listed by publication date:

• Women Changing Cities: Global Stories of Urban Transformation, Melissa & Chris Bruntlett, 2025, ISBN 9781915722409
• Abundance, Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson, 2025, ISBN 9781668023488; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/176444106-abundance
• Dividing Lines: How Transportation Infrastructure Reinforces Racial Inequality, Deborah N. Archer, 2025, ISBN 9781324092131; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/213395538-dividing-lines
• Overbuilt: The High Costs and Low Rewards of US Highway Construction, Erick Guerra, 2025, ISBN 9781642833362;
• Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking about Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives, Revised Edition, Jarrett Walker, 2024, ISBN 9781642833058; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/142401566-human-transit-revised-edition
• On the Housing Crisis: Land, Development, Democracy, Jerusalem Demsas, 2024, ISBN 9781638931966; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/221334773-overbuilt
• When Driving Is Not an Option: Steering Away from Car Dependency, Anna Zivarts, 2024, ISBN 9781642833157; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/202169074-when-driving-is-not-an-option
• Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation, Paris Marx; 2022, ISBN 9781839765889, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58968309-road-to-nowhere; SacLib
• There Are No Accidents, Jessie Singer, 2022, ISBN 9781982129668; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43522046-there-are-no-accidents; SacLib
• Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It, M. Nolan Gray, 2022, ISBN 9781642832549; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59613917-arbitrary-lines; SacLib
• WALK: Slow Down, Wake Up, and Connect at 1-3 Miles per Hour, Jonathan Stalls, 2022, ISBN 9781623176952; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60124521-walk
• Trains, Buses, People: An Opinionated Atlas of US and Canadian Transit, Christof Spieler, 2021, ISBN 9781642832136, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58324515
• Autonorama, Peter Norton, 2011, ISBN 9781642832402; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57843266-autonorama
• The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design, Roman Mars, 2020, ISBN 9780358126607, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50416393
• Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America, Angie Schmitt, 2020, ISBN 9781642830835; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53263726-right-of-way
• The Affordable City: Strategies for Putting Housing Within Reach, Shane Phillips, 2020, ISBN 9781642831337; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53263732-the-affordable-city
• Golden Gates: The Housing Crisis and a Reckoning for the American Dream, Conor Dougherty, 2020, ISBN 9780525560210; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46183582-golden-gates
• Better Buses, Better Cities: How to Plan, Run, and Win the Fight for Effective Transit, Steven Higashide, 2019, ISBN 9781642830149, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44451608
• Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places, Jeff Speck, 2018, ISBN 9781610918985
• Building the Cycling City: The Dutch Blueprint for Urban Vitality, Melissa Bruntlett, 2018, ISBN 9781610918794; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39858764-building-the-cycling-city
• The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, Richard Rothstein, 2017, ISBN 9781631494536; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36236151-the-color-of-law
• The End of Traffic and the Future of Access: Roadmap to the New Transport Landscape, David M. Levinson, Kevin Krizek, 2015; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26142153-the-end-of-traffic-and-the-future-of-access
• Tactical Urbanism: Short-term Action for Long-term Change, Mike Lydon, Anthony Garcia, 2014, ISBN 9781610915267; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19083473-tactical-urbanism
• Why We Drive: The Past, Present, and Future of Automobiles in America, Andy Singer, 2013, ISBN 9781621064862; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16144321-why-we-drive
• The End of the Suburbs: Where the American Dream Is Moving, Leigh Gallagher, 2013, ISBN 9781591845256; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15811507-the-end-of-the-suburbs
• Completing Our Streets: The Transition to Safe and Inclusive Transportation Networks, Barbara McCann, 2013, ISBN 9781610914307; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17912382-completing-our-streets
• Making Transit Fun!: How to Entice Motorists from Their Cars, Darrin Nordahl, 2012, ISBN 9781610910446; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15849879-making-transit-fun
• Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City, Peter D. Norton, 2011, ISBN 9780262293884; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20158408
• City: A Guidebook for the Urban Age, P.D. Smith, 2011, ISBN 9781608196760; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11458341-city
• Suburban Nation, Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Jeff Speck, 2010, ISBN 9780865477506; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8976253-suburban-nation
• Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do and What It Says About Us, Tom Vanderbilt, 2008, ISBN 9780307264787; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2776527-traffic
• Sacramento’s Streetcars, William Burg, 2006, ISBN 9781439631164, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22439116
• The High Cost of Free Parking, Donald C. Shoup, 2011, ISBN 9781932364965; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9830974-the-high-cost-of-free-parking
• The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape, James Howard Kunstler, 1994, ISBN 9780671888251; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/125313.The_Geography_of_Nowhere