Unlike the pre–World War II rail systems of New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, the Metro was built at a time when most American families already owned cars, and when most American cities had dedicated themselves to freeways, not subways. Why did the nation's capital take a different path? What were the consequences of that decision?

Using extensive archival research as well as oral history, Schrag argues that the Metro can be understood only in the political context from which it was born: the Great Society liberalism of the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations. The Metro emerged from a period when Americans believed in public investments suited to the grandeur and dignity of the world's richest nation. The Metro was built not merely to move commuters, but in the words of Lyndon Johnson, to create "a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community."

Schrag scrutinizes the project from its earliest days, including general planning, routes, station architecture, funding decisions, land-use impacts, and the behavior of Metro riders. The story of the Great Society Subway sheds light on the development of metropolitan Washington, postwar urban policy, and the promises and limits of rail transit in American cities.

Buy the book

• The Johns Hopkins University Press
• Amazon
• Barnes and Noble
• Powell's

Hear Zach talk

• For a calendar of upcoming events, see my home page: www.schrag.info
• You can listen to streaming audio or order a recording of my March 23 session on the Kojo Nnamdi Show at the WAMU website.

Read a sample

• Zachary M. Schrag, “How Metro Shapes D.C.,” Washington Post, 7 May 2006, presents some of my ideas.

See more pictures

• Building the Washington Metro: An Online Exhibit. My site at George Mason University tells Metro's story with 70 photographs, maps, and other images.

• Andrew Glickman's photographs of commuters on the Red Line.

Read reviews

• Rosalyn P. Doggett, H-NET BOOK REVIEW, Published by H-DC@h-net.msu.edu (August 2006).

• Dennis Drabelle, "Notes From Underground: The Making of the Washington Metro," Washington Post, June 11, 2006.

• Rachel DiCarlo, "Thirty Years of Riding Metro's Rails in the Nation's Capital," Washington Times, May 21, 2006.

Read other people's ideas

• Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, "Report of the Metro Funding Panel: Final Draft for Public Release and Comment," 17 December 2004. An amplification of the Brookings report (below) and an endorsement of a dedicated regional tax.

• Robert Puentes, "Washington's Metro: Deficits by Design" (Brookings Institution, June 2004). An examination of Metro's budgetary woes and possible solutions.

• Alex Marshall, "Love (and Hate) That Metro," Planning, February 2004. Thoughtful observations, including the two-sentence version of my dissertation.