722 MILES: THE BUILDING OF THE SUBWAYS AND HOW THEY TRANSFORMED NEW YORK
Clifton Hood
(The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. 335 pp.)

A fast-paced history of the building of the subways.  more info...

New York: The Politics of Urban Regional Development
by Michael N. Danielson and Jameson W. Doig (University of California Press, 1982. 404 pp.)

Covers the highway revolt, the bankruptcy and rescue of commuter railroads, the creation of the MTA and the Westway fight. more info...

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
by Robert A. Caro (Alfred A. Knopf, 1974. 1246 pp.)

The indespensible starting point for anyone who wants to understand New York's urban environment and the role of power politics in shaping it. more info...

Tunneling to the Future: The Story of the Great Subway Expansion That Saved New York
by Peter Derrick (New York University Press, 2002. 442 pp.)

A close look at the story of the "Dual Contracts" era of subway construction in New York from 1910 to 1931. Doubling the size of the subway system served as a catalyst to development of large areas of the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn, and shows the excruciating difficulties of subway expansion even back then. more info...

Urban Transportation Systems: Choices for Communities
by Sigurd Grava (McGraw-Hill, 2003. 840 pp.)

An encyclopedic primer on every urban transportation mode from bike to subway, leavened with the author’s personal insights and observations about New York City and many other cities around the world. more info...