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.”
“It’s not a ‘if you build it, they will come’ type of scenario,” Puentes said. “It would actually be fitting a need.”
A realistic goal would be to build out rail systems that link major metropolitan areas with economic connections, emulating Amtrak’s Northeaster Corridor, said Robert Puentes, the CEO of the Eno Center for Transportation, a nonprofit think tank.
“It’s not a ‘if you build it, they will come’ type of scenario,” Puentes said. “It would actually be fitting a need.”
“We’ve seen that the normal workweek has changed fundamentally,” said Robert Puentes, president of the non-profit Eno Center for Transportation in Washington, and a regular Metro commuter.
New York has by far the biggest transit system with the highest ridership in the U.S., and its leaders are uniquely attuned to the value of transit to the city and state, noted Philip Plotch, an Eno Center researcher who moderated the event. How can advocates make the case in other places?
“It’s not a ‘if you build it, they will come’ type of scenario,” Puentes said. “It would actually be fitting a need.”
By Jeff Davis
In the past 15 years, Congress has conducted 10 transfers from the general fund to the HTF, totaling nearly $272 billion, says Jeff Davis, a senior fellow for the Eno Center for Transportation. Of these transfers, the smallest was $6.2 billion in 2012, while the largest was $118 billion as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that was enacted in November 2021.
By Jeff Davis
At the hearing with House lawmakers Oct. 18, Jeff Davis, senior fellow at the Eno Center for Transportation, suggested the panel scrutinize the account over the coming years. “From a truth-in-budgeting perspective, the choice seems clear: It’s time to either mend, or end, the Highway Trust Fund,” Davis told the transportation committee.
By Jeff Davis
Jeff Davis, a senior fellow with the Eno Center for Transportation, told the subcommittee, “States are taking the lead and and testing new user-pay options.” They include ways to charge vehicles by miles traveled. “These are promising,” Davis said.
By Jeff Davis
Of the $1.4 trillion of tax receipts pumped into the Highway Trust Fund since its inception in 1956, about 8% — $114 billion — has been through the 12% FET on new tractors and trailers, according to testimony from Jeff Davis, a senior fellow at the Eno Center for Transportation, who also participated in the hearing.
“Based on the numbers, there will need to be an alternative or states will have to become comfortable with having to rely on general fund dollars for transportation,” said Garett Shrode, policy analyst with the nonprofit Eno Center for Transportation.
By Jeff Davis
And transit agencies are competing for a limited amount of federal funds, said Jeff Davis, an analyst with the Eno Center for Transportation, a Washington-based transit advocacy group.
“If Secretary Buttigieg signs all of those that means that Congress will theoretically be obligated to cough up an enormous amount of money for the next 10 years to fund all of these projects,” he said.
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