The Road Taken

November 2, 2015
Public infrastructure is often deemed interesting only to policy wonks, but Petroski (The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance), a professor of history and civil engineering at Duke University, proves that he can make it accessible and fascinating for a wider readership. His goal is to create a more informed electorate that will weigh in with political leaders about long-standing safety issues posed by obsolete and decrepit infrastructure. But the book is more than a laundry list of trouble spots; Petroski offers historical context for today’s challenges, including the debate over whether the federal government or the states should pick up the tab for repair work and new construction. The inclusion of colorful details (Illinois courts once deemed stop signs for city streets a “violation of the right of individuals to cross streets”) prevents the material from coming across as dry. Petroski doesn’t underplay the difficult of making progress in the face of Washington gridlock, but he makes the cost of inaction clear, credibly estimating that “the nation’s degrading infrastructure will cost American households... in excess of $150 trillion” over the next three decades. His book may well move readers to lobby their elected officials.

November 15, 2015
A gifted author, civil engineer, and Duke University professor, Petroski has previously written widely on technology, including Invention by Design: How Engineers Get from Thought to Thing (1996) and Success through Failure: The Paradox of Design (2006). Here he turns from the theoretical side of engineering to the reality. Our infrastructure is crumbling. Our roads (to which an association of engineers assigns a D grade) and bridges (C+) are structurally deficient. But after a frightfully alarming opening section, Petroski provides a history of public projects (bridges, highways, city streets, signage, lighting, etc.) and the graft, political deal-making, and plain ineptitude surrounding them, which, though fascinating and predictably clear and well written, is less the call to arms that one expects. Yet, by examining projects like the Walkway over the Hudson and New York's High Line, and by projecting the applicability of smart cars and smart roads, Petroski offers a more optimistic prognosis than his colleagues' dire evaluations suggest. This is vital reading.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

March 1, 2016

Petroski (engineering, history, Duke Univ.; To Engineer Is Human) provides a well-researched look at U.S. infrastructure and what its future holds. Naturally, roads and bridges are discussed, but other elements such as curbs, drains, asphalt composition, and several constructed objects are considered as well. More than in his previous works, here Petroski inserts anecdotes that enliven the account. His vivid memories of playing in the streets of Brooklyn provide touchpoints for discourses on the history, maintenance challenges, and possible future of sidewalks, gutters, and more. The neglect of the infrastructure over the past four decades is well illustrated and lamented. Yet the author doesn't despair; he encourages sensible, long-term solutions starting at the local level that could improve transportation of all types, arguing against "shovel-ready" sloppy projects and for functional apparatuses that have form and soul. VERDICT Cleverly organized in chapters echoing lines from Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken, this book, built on a scholarly foundation but personalized by the author's observations, is sure to captivate a wide range of readers, who, after reading it, will never again look at streets, bridges, sidewalks, or curbs as mere backdrops to life.--Sara R. Tompson, Jet Propulsion Laboratory Lib., Archives & Records Section, Pasadena, CA

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 15, 2015
Noted engineer and writer Petroski (Civil Engineering/Duke Univ.; To Forgive Design: Understanding Failure, 2012, etc.) gives readers a characteristically eye-opening look at America's infrastructure. The good news, writes the author, is that "the horror stories of corruption, graft, waste, fraud, and abuse" that accompany accounts of construction and maintenance in, say, Italy or China are not the norm in America; where they turn up, they are remarkable for being outliers. The bad news is-well, just about everything else, apart from the ingenuity of the American engineers and builders who put up the interstate highway system, bridges, dams, and other hallmarks of the nation's engineering history, most now crumbling to bits. Little escapes Petroski's attention. If you want to know the exact recipe for building an asphalt highway, or are interested in why it might be preferred to concrete in some situations but not others, or have a fascination for asphalt-related statistics ("By the early twenty-first century, asphalt was in place on about 94 percent of the more than two million miles of paved roads in the United States"), then this is exactly the book for you. Asphalt, of course, falls just under the A's in the long list of things that exercise the author's exacting attention, bespeaking an attention to detail, praiseworthy enough in an engineer, that might become tedious in the hands of a less-skilled writer. Of immediate interest, given the deterioration of our roads and bridges, is Petroski's look at early arguments over highway funding, which have considerable bearing on contemporary arguments over privatization and passing the buck to the states. "We need to take a holistic view of infrastructure," he writes, both generally and in order to understand why some things last and some things fall apart, an understanding that hangs on dozens of disparate factors. Anyone with an interest in the way things work will want this book-and will doubtless emerge as a fan of the ever curious author.

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