Not counting my college thesis, my first project concerned urban mass transit, primarily in the Washington, D.C., region.
- The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro
Published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in 2006, and issued in paperback, with a new preface, in 2014, this book argues argues that Metro can only be understood in the political context from which it was born: the Great Society liberalism of the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations. - “How Congress Undercut Its Own City’s Subway System,” POLITICO Magazine, 16 March 2016.
- “Thinking Big: Lessons from the Washington Metro,” TR News 249 (March-April 2007): 18-20.
- “How Metro Shapes D.C.,” Washington Post, 7 May 2006.
- “The Freeway Fight in Washington, D.C.: The Three Sisters Bridge in Three Administrations,” Journal of Urban History 30 (July 2004): 648-673.
- “Mapping Metro, 1955-1968: Urban, Suburban, and Metropolitan Alternatives,” Washington History 13 (Spring/Summer 2001): 4-23, 90-92.
- “‘The Bus is Young and Honest’: Transportation Politics, Technical Choice, and the Motorization of Manhattan Surface Transit, 1919-1936,” Technology and Culture 41 (January 2000): 51-79