“If you look at the numbers over the last two decades, we’ve been losing revenue to fuel-efficiency gains in internal combustion engines,” [Garett] Shrode says.”
“The Eno Center for Transportation in a new research report said that current national policy priorities that favor electrification tilt toward a future where some new vehicles would pay no federal motor fuel taxes, while vehicles with internal combustion engines would generate less fuel tax revenue as fuel economy improves.”
Back in the day, private companies took passengers on trains all over the United States, all the time, said Robert Puentes, the head of the Eno Center for Transportation.
“Within cities, between cities, all across the country. And then in the 1970s, it all started to change,” Puentes said.
Robert Puentes of the Eno Center for Transportation says transit agencies across the country are dealing with the same funding challenges, but Puentes said he thinks Clarke has positioned WMATA for success.
“Randy and WMATA have been refreshingly open and transparent about the looming operating budget,” Puentes says.
“‘Politically what makes sense is money that is being paid by these New Jersey residents should go to improve transit services between the two states,’ said Philip Plotch, principal researcher at the Washington-based Eno Center for Transportation (and a resident of Gottheimer’s district).”
The “sweet spot,” said Robert Puentes, the president and CEO of Eno Center for Transportation, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C., is “about 400 to 500 miles, where it’s too short to fly, too long to drive.” Chicago, Columbus, and Pittsburgh fit the bill, for instance, as do Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio.
To understand why NJ Transit is facing a fiscal crisis, you have to go back to the agency’s founding, said Philip Mark Plotch, a Fair Lawn resident and a senior researcher at the Eno Center for Transportation, a Washington-based nonprofit that shapes public debate on transportation issues…. Garett Shrode, a policy analyst at the Eno Center for Transportation, said NJ Transit and similar legacy transit systems, including the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York, still rely heavily on fares to balance their operating budgets — which is what doomed them when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
By Jeff Davis
“From a revenue point of view, it’s never really made sense to use proceeds of the gasoline tax to pay for people to stop driving and take mass transit instead,” said Jeff Davis, a senior fellow with the Eno Center for Transportation.
The Eno Center for Transportation, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit research group, in 2022 launched a project to examine replacing gasoline taxes with fees based on the number of miles motorists drive. The federal 2021 infrastructure law requires that the Transportation Department do a pilot project on a so-called vehicle miles traveled fee.
The “sweet spot,” said Robert Puentes, the president and CEO of Eno Center for Transportation, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C., is “about 400 to 500 miles, where it’s too short to fly, too long to drive.” Chicago, Columbus, and Pittsburgh fit the bill, for instance, as do Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. Investments in such corridors could allow Amtrak to attract more riders with frequent, reliable service, and would also help the company and policymakers target climate resilience efforts effectively.
For media inquiries, including interview requests, please contact Eno at publicaffairs@enotrans.org, or contact Eno at 202.879.4700 or publicaffairs@enotrans.org.
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