Worth a watch
Jane Jacobs vs. Robert Moses: Urban fight of the Century
This documentary provides historical context as to how most modern-day infrastructure projects were planned and implemented – excessively destructive and without citizen input. Do you want to know where the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority got its playbook? You will hear many of the same phrases that the OTA utters today.
Texans Uniting for Reform & Freedom (TURF)Toll Roads – the untold truth!
Texans are facing many of the same problems as Oklahomans when it comes to unnecessary toll roads. We encourage those of you interested in learning more about the insidious nature of transportation politics to watch this.
Chuck Marohn building Strongtowns
Chuck Marohn in Edmond, Oklahoma, speaks about infrastructure and financially sound city planning. Strong Towns advocates for safe, more human friendly places rather than building cities around vehicles.
Truth be Tolled is a series of four documentaries detailing the citizen fight against the Texas Tolling industry and TXDOT’s disingenuous public platitudes while billions of dollars change hands within the transportation cartel.
Worth a read
“When the Levee Breaks, The Patronage Crisis at the Pennsylvania Turnpike, The General Assembly and the State Supreme Court” by William Keisling
- We think you will be fascinated and disgusted by this gripping tale of unfettered corruption, loose money and a rash of “fixed” legal cases by a turnpike house judge at the State Supreme Court. Sound familiar?
“Confessions of a Recovering Engineer” by Charles (Chuck) L. Marohn, Jr.
- The default approach to transportation needs to be systematically dismantled and this book provides some insightful solutions to how we fix bad designs and build strong communities.
“Boom Town” by Sam Anderson
- A deep dive into the birth of Oklahoma City. Fraud, deception, concentrated Chamber of Commerce power grifting at the interface of public-private enterprises, corrupt mayors passing ordinances that made it illegal to challenge their control and sprawling, chaotic development. Almost 150 years later and nothing seems to have changed.
“The Great American Motion Sickness, or Why you can’t get There from Here” by John Burby
- President J.F. Kennedy described our approach to transportation as “a chaotic patchwork of inconsistent and often obsolete legislation and regulation.” This book, written in 1971, is still as relevant today as it was more than half a century ago.
“The Great Oklahoma Swindle. Race Religion and Lies in America’s Weirdest State” by Russell Cobb
- The modus operandi of state entities like the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority stem from the long-standing tradition of elite Oklahomans stealing land from others with lesser political and social power. Maddeningly, this bad behavior continues to affect Oklahomans because political influence and corruption have deeply infiltrated our legal system.
And the swindle goes on…
