By John Reitmeyer
Like many residents, public transportation agencies also like to incorporate some predictability into their long-term planning, said Philip Mark Plotch, a principal researcher and senior fellow at the nonpartisan Eno […]
By Ali Rogin
Sunday on PBS News Weekend, Trump and top congressional leaders are set to meet in the Oval Office, trying to avert a government shutdown. Funding shortfalls threaten public transit systems […]
By Tim Craig
Philip Plotch, a senior fellow at the Eno Center for Transportation, a nonpartisan think tank, compared the challenges facing Philadelphia and other transit systems to the plight of shopping malls. […]
“Philip Plotch, principal researcher with the Eno Center for Transportation, said NJ Transit trains on the Northeast Corridor run reliably only 86% of the time. While aging tunnels cause problems, decrepit signal and electrical wiring also trigger shutdowns. It’s a vulnerable network that’s not ready for a long, hot summer, Plotch warned.”
“’Kathy Hochul didn’t just kill congestion pricing in New York, she killed it across the country for a long time,” said Philip Plotch, the lead researcher for the Eno Center for Transportation, a think tank in Washington, and a manager for policy and planning at the M.T.A. from 1992 to 2005.'”
“Philip Mark Plotch, a principal researcher at the Eno Center for Transportation in Washington, notes that Hochul was not without options. ‘She could have said, ‘We’re going to phase this in and we’re going to start with trucks because we just want to test the technology,’” says Plotch. “Or she could have just said we’re just going to start it from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and just at the very peak periods and see how it works there.'”“It’s not a ‘if you build it, they will come’ type of scenario,” Puentes said. “It would actually be fitting a need.”
“Election years are tough for controversial policies like congestion pricing, says Philip Plotch, a researcher at the Eno Center for Transportation. For a policy like that to move forward, all the stars have to align: a strong economy, political tailwinds, and a diverse coalition of supporters among business, labor, and environmental groups.”
“‘If you Googled it, it would just tell you to take the train,’ Plotch said. Not helpful. Instead, Plotch’s wife rode the subway north to the 96th Street station in Manhattan, where Plotch, a transportation expert who lives in Fair Lawn, picked her up by car.
‘That is somewhat inexcusable,’ Plotch, principal researcher at the Eno Center for Transportation, said in an interview. ‘Transportation agencies should provide state-of-the-art information,’Plotch said. ‘That’s not the kind of information that was available for my wife.'”
“People lived and worked in those areas, they shopped in those areas, people knew each other, people could walk from place to place in thriving downtowns, and there was a real sense of connection to your community — you weren’t reliant on cars,” Plotch said. “That’s the trolley car story.”
“It’s not a ‘if you build it, they will come’ type of scenario,” Puentes said. “It would actually be fitting a need.”
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.”
For media inquiries, including interview requests, please contact Eno at publicaffairs@enotrans.org, or contact Eno at 202.879.4700 or publicaffairs@enotrans.org.