Ben Ross

"Dead End: Suburban Sprawl and the Rebirth of American Urbanism" is a new book by Ben Ross, longtime president of Maryland's Action Committee for Transit and a frequent contributor to Greater Greater Washington. This excerpt is preceded by a section describing the post-war expansion into the suburbs and the surrender of public space to automobile traffic. Highways proliferated, congestion worsened, children's play was prohibited in the street and often in the sidewalk, and pedestrians were engineered out of the roadway.